government, and morals of the city; for it should be borne in mind that the Reformation had sprung out of political necessity, quite as much as it did from popular love for the reformed tenets. Even in a corrupt and pleasure-loving age, Geneva was celebrated for the easy and luxurious life of its inhabitants. Saints'-days, weddings, and christenings were a constant occasion of holiday-making, and when the prescribed order of the new church threatened to curtail their indulgences, murmurs of discontent arose, and many expressions of depreciation were hurled at the heads of the Reformers themselves. Judging them by the standard of eighteen century prudence, it will appear that Calvin and Farel too abruptly interfered with the ancient customs of a half enlightened and pleasure-loving people. Their motives were good; the popular practices in too many instances were pernicious; but we question if a more cautious procedure would not have been proved a more potent remedy. Bells, whose musical tones had floated across the lake for ages, were taken down and cast into cannon; weddings were stript of their gay adornings, while festivals were erased from the calendar without compromise. Moved by the best intentions, the Reformers yet mis-judged the resisting power of the Old Adam, and without reconciling the people to their reforms, brought down on themselves serious troubles. The resentment of the citizens was fiercely expressed, and so high rose the indignation that the two chief pastors were banished. Of their adventures after this, at Berne and Zurich want of space precludes our speaking. Suffice it to say, that on one occasion they would have been murdered on attempting to reenter the city had they persisted in their design. The Genevese remained incensed against them, and ambassadors vainly sought a reconciliation.

Notwithstanding the rough treatment meted out to Calvin and Farel in return for their endeavours to purify a city they loved so well, the former appears to have regarded his life as little better than exile when away from Geneva. Not that he wanted friends, his name was already widely renowned, and many offered him free hospitality. One pleasant season was spent at Bâsle; another at Neufchâtel, the Reformer's longest stay having been at Strasburg, where rising in favour and popularity, he attracted many families of his own nation to take up their residence in the town.

It was at this period of Calvin's life-this time of banishmentthat the first meeting occurred between him and Melancthon; and the friendship of the two may be said to have begun at a religious diet in Frankfort. By way of illustrating the vicissitudes from which even these great men were not exempt, it may be mentioned that Calvin's poverty at that time obliged him to sell his books, for he was frequently in need. But cares of this kind repressed neither his industry nor his happiness. Among other works, the third edition of the "Institutes "now appeared, the final issue having been printed twenty years later. At Strasburg, moreover, Calvin found a wife. The great strain to which he had subjected his constitution, by excessive toil and midnight studies in former days, had sown the seeds of various disorders; and on account of frequent ailings, he supposed a wife would prove a more than ordinary blessing. The qualifications demanded were

many and precise, and two negociations were failures before the right lady was secured.

Calvin's first stay at Geneva was a warfare with the corruptions of human nature. Most persons are now willing to admit that endeavours to coerce men into goodness by the civil power are impolitic; but this having been partially attempted by Calvin in a less experienced age, his memory has in consequence been scandalised and maligned. He not only drew up a religious code, but he imposed a moral restraint, and so caused the ungodly to array themselves against him in an unholy phalanx, until his life was endangered. It is not our purpose to follow Calvin in his adventures from the time of his banishment to the date of his recall to Geneva. Perhaps the most important event of the interval was the diet of Ratisbon, where the "old learning" and the "new learning" were nearer to a compromise than they ever were before or since.

In the meantime Geneva was perplexed by civil disorders. The Christian population were shocked at prevailing scandals, regarding them as judgments on the city for dismissing faithful monitors. The town council, swayed by better principles than aforetime, made the handsomest reparation in their power by inviting the pastors to return; but the first summons was not acceded to. Calvin had learned to be careful of his life since he had been threatened by armed enthusiasts. There were also other considerations. He filled an honourable position at Strasburg. To leave the hospitable city would savour of ingratitude. But love of Geneva prevailed. Civil disorder had reached a climax; the pastors had resigned, and at this difficult juncture, Calvin returned.

Eaving risen high in the esteem of the burghers of Strasburg, the Reformer had enrolled himself a member of the Tailors' Guild. While the Strasburghers were sufficiently down-cast at his departure, the Genevese were vieing with each other in showing him honour; an escort, plentifully supplied with money, arrived from the republic; and it was while journeying towards his old quarters, that Calvin passed through Neufchâtel, where he did something towards healing a feud which had broken out between the warm-blooded Farel and his people.

We have now to regard the Reformer as again settled over a flock he so peculiarly regarded as his own. The immediate work in hand was the establishment of that system of church polity from which Presbyterianism is partially copied. With some reason, exception is often taken to the civil restraints which Calvin put upon vice, although such a curb, when the ignorant multitude of Geneva was concerned, was better than the open profligacy lately dominant. The consistory, or ecclesiastical tribunal, had six clerical and twelve lay members. Meeting on Thursdays, under Calvin's presidency, this court took account of nearly all social offences; but visiting and admonition commonly preceded citation. Geneva was divided into three parishes, that of St. Peter being the chief, and a system of regular visitation was instituted. That the punishments inflicted were sometimes severe cannot be denied. Laughing during sermon-time entailed imprisonment, and striking a parent was capital. Disparagement of the reformed doctrines brought banishment. Absence from church was ranked among offences in common with seditious language; while crimes of the immoral class of a darker

dye were repressed by death. These things have been paraded these three hundred years, in depreciation of Calvin, by the profane on the one hand, and by religious partizans on the other. Yet who can affirm that the Genevan Reformers sought any lower object than the instilling of righteousness and the repression of evil. Judged by the rule of to-day, they committed egregious, or even ludicrous, errors. Honest charity will not therefore condemn them. Profiting by the experience of three centuries, it is easy to discover flaws in their procedure; but onerous and difficult was the task of governing the undisciplined populace nominally reclaimed from the borders of Romanism. The most, it would seem, that opponents can advance against the government of Calvin, is that, to overcome the difficulties of his situation he fell back on the system of the Old Testament, and preferred the rigours of Moses to the forbearance of Christ.

God

What shall be said of the stern and determined bearing of these Reformers? What but sternness would have availed them? raises up men for a given crisis; but the circumstances of the situation help to mould their character. In the sixteenth century, the papacy had to be combated, and the papacy happened to be a system, not only fraught with error, but eminently cruel and treacherous. The arguments of murder and rapine were used by Papists when others failed. In the neighbourhood of Metz, Farel has had to run for his life from the Lord's table, while the people were murdered by the followers of the Duke of Guise. Under such circumstances who would not be stern? In the meantime, life at Geneva had its lights and shadows. In 1542, the city was troubled by an outbreak of plague, and there are varying accounts of Calvin's bearing in the hour of trial. According to Beza, he volunteered to act as chaplain in the hospital; but in a letter to Viret, the Reformer appears to have supposed himself justified in continuing in his office without risking infection. Following the plague came a season of scarcity. When merchants were needy, and the pastors so poor as necessarily to contract debt, the working classes fared correspondingly hard. In 1545, plague again darkened the people's hearths; the disease having been spread by certain persons who were afterwards executed for their crimes. This diabolical clan, whose highest aim was plunder, were bound together by a fearful oath of secrecy. Their every-day salutation was, "How goes clanda?" Clanda being a cant term for the plague. These were the scum of the Libertine party. About this time the burghers welcomed four thousand Waldenses, but not without exciting the jealousy of the Libertines. A communication respecting these refugees appears to have been the only letter which ever passed between Calvin and Luther. The French Protestants desired advice as to whether they did rightly in conforming outwardly to Romanism while Protestants at heart. Having consulted the Saxon doctor, Calvin urged his countrymen to assume a braver attitude. This answer gave dissatisfaction; the people complaining that it was easy to give heroic advice when at a safe distance from danger. Yet a man, by giving counsel, places himself under no obligation to risk peril to prove his sincerity.

Although union among Protestants was an urgent necessity of the times, the reformed church continued to be racked by profitless controversies

which it would be unwise to revive by explaining in detail. On this head, it is only justice to observe, that notwithstanding the abusive language sometimes used against opponents, we shall wrongly estimate the Reformers if we set such things down to temper, rather than to the universal custom of a ruder age. Let us be thankful, instead of splenetic. If now, a doctor of divinity were to assail another with opprobrious epithets, people would admire neither the taste, nor respect the zeal that dictated them; but when we find Calvin referring to Balsec-a man expelled Geneva for Arminianism-as "an obscure scoundrel," a pest," and "a knave," we know that in the mouth of the Reformer, in those uncouth times, such things only meant zeal for purity of doctrine and the honour of Christ. Yet enmity has seized on these minutiæ, and turned them into capital by founding baseless calumnies upon them.

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Being personally acquainted with Knox, Calvin interested himself in the Scottish Reformation no less than the awakening in England. Hooker speaks of him as the wisest man who ever taught in the French Church, and that Hooker advanced a well-grounded opinion is witnessed by the letters which passed between Geneva and other countries. Henry the Eighth consulted him about his divorce from Catherine, and Cranmer was among his correspondents. The archbishop was probably greatly influenced by the advice he received; for when, in 1543, a conspiracy was hatched to ruin him, a principal charge against him was that of corresponding with German Reformers. A fond idea of Cranmer's was that of forming a coalition of all the Protestant churches, and uniting them in one confession of faith. Because the harvest was so promising Calvin expressed his concern at the death of English preachers, while he lamented "The appropriating of the public revenues of the church by the feeding of idle stomachs, who troll their vespers in an unknown tongue." He urged the British Reformers not to leave their work half done; and, in common with theologians of all parties, advocated the repression, by civil force, of troublesome sects. doctrine of persecution had been thoroughly exemplified by the see of Rome, and only gradually did men awaken to the truth, that putting men to death for opinions is abhorrent to Christianity. While the Reformation was progressing, persons disputed over what should be accepted as matters of faith; but that wrong-believers, equally with wrong-doers, were subjects for chastisement none doubted, any more than they questioned the divine origin of their religion.

The

The Calvinistic party, both in England and on the Continent, were naturally very determined in their opposition to popery. When the Prayer-book was under revision for the second time, Calvin exerted his influence to have the alterations made in a manner worthy of England and of the Reformation. Maintaining that he used his authority in a perfectly legitimate aud unobjectionable manner, we take exception to the representations of Dean Hook, in his "Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury," that the Calvinists of Europe, seconded by sympathisers at home, showed a disposition to dictate to the people of England. "Calvin not only fiercely attacked the Prayer-book," we are told, "but the whole principle of the English Reformation." It would be more correct to say, that Calvin denounced the retention of what savoured of popery

in the Church Establishment of a people for whom he hoped much in the gospel. Like many other able writers, Dean Hook is a partisan of the class which assumes its own sect to be the sole guardian of truth. While his own views on apostolical succession are more curious than edifying, his hatred of Calvin, and of the Calvinistic system of theology, is too transparent for his references to the Reformer to be accepted by the orthodox. Suspicion is awakened when high churchmen, like Dyer and Hook, become profuse in professions of impartiality. They paint a portrait of the Reformer, the lines of which they assure their readers are true to life; but a closer inspection shows that prejudice aad imagination supplied the lay figure from which the picture was taken.

The Apostle of Burmah.

FIRST PAPER.

AMONG the many liberally endowed minds which have been conse

crated to missionary labours, in foreign lands, Dr. Judson, of America, must take a conspicuous place. The man who gave to the Burmese people the Holy Scriptures in their own language, could have been no ordinary person. Add to this great achievement, the fact that he lived for thirty-seven years among heathen who prior to his coming had not heard of Jehovah, and that as the fruit of his labours some thousands received the word of God gladly, and it is seen at once that the life of such a man possesses no small interest to those who rejoice in the spread of the gospel throughout the world.

From the commencement to the close, there is a charm about the history of this remarkable missionary. Early indications of unusual ability gained him the credit of great acuteness; his greediness to devour every work within reach (commentaries on the Revelation were things to be desired by him)-and his ambition to attain high fame in the world, naturally led his friends to conclude that some peculiar talents had been entrusted him by a kind Providence. In 1807, when at the age of nineteen he won applause, of which he was superlatively proud, by graduating with the highest honours at Brown University. His consciousness of superior intellectual ability was probably the cause of his being led into infidelity. The spirit of scepticism which prevailed so lamentably during the period of the French Revolution poisoned the minds of large numbers of educated young men both in England and America. The rejection of truths hallowed to the hearts of the godly was deemed essential to the proper culture of an independent mind. Manliness was thought to be best manifested by sneering at the piety of forefathers. That Judson did not escape the contamination is not surprising. He was a bold spirit, proud of his intellectual strength, and he had not been humbled by a consciousness of sin. His unbelief was either occasioned or deepened by intimacy with a fellow collegian who was of fascinating manners and of considerable mental ability. Soon after this unfortunate friendship with the witty Deist, Judson commenced a tour of the United States with the view of "seeing the world." He had fancied