Calvinism - 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

citizens

to jealousy.

First

God,

looking to

this

the

developed

mind

custom to which Calvinism gave entrance.

spiritual

And from before

have provoked the nobility and the

to one's neighbour w^as the impulse, the

and then and the

classes

holy fear of

face itself,

of

God

and

God and

this

united stand

a holier democratic idea has

continually gained ground.

has

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

reconciliation

between the classes

By

sanction in that bitter death.

his

bloody

Alva the Aristocrat advanced the prosperous development of the spirit of Democracy. To have placed man on a footing of equality with man,

persecutions,

so far as the purely

human

interests are concerned,

is

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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