Calvinism a life-system - pagina 32

CALVINISM A LIFE SYSTEM.

28

he was a prince

honoured

for

royal

of

lineage;

he was the more

But inwardly Calvinism has modified the

it.

by the envying of

structure of society, not

by an undue esteem but by a more serious

classes,

nor

the possessions of the rich,

for

interpretation of

life.

By

better

labor and a higher development of character the middle

and working wealthier

classes

citizens

have provoked the nobility and the

to jealousy.

First

looking to God,

and then to one's neighbour was the impulse, the mind and the

And

this

the

before

custom to which Calvinism gave entrance.

spiritual

from

developed

holy fear of

face itself,

of

God

God and

thie united

stand

a holier democratic idea has

and has continually gained ground.

This result has been brought about by nothing so much

by fellowship in suffering. When, though loyal to the Romish faith, the dukes of Egmont and Hoorn ascended the same scaffold on which, for the sake of a nobler faith, the working-man and the weaver had as

been executed, received

its

the

sanction

persecutions,

reconciliation in,

between the

By

that bitter death.

his

classes

bloody

Alva the Aristocrat advanced the prosof the spirit of Democracy. To

perous development

have placed

man on a footing of equality with man, human interests are concerned, is

so far as the purely

the immortal glory which incontestably belongs to Calvinism.

The

difference

between

it

and the wild dream

of equality of the French Revolution Paris all,

it

rich

was one action

in

:

that while in

concert against God, here

and poor, were on

consumed with a common

is

their knees

before God,

zeal for the glory of His

Name,

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