Calvinism - pagina 27

1

Constitutional Liberties.

895-]

669

away: the Hapsburgers burrowed deep into the hearts of their people. France was hailed, and in its great king a true Eastern despot was tolerated. Hence the horrors of oppression, which, regardless of parliaments and courts, allowed the people to be tranapled under foot by the nobility and courtiers, and extinguished in the hearts of the people every spark of liberty. This spirit was communicated to German courts where, for French money and P'rench mistresses, German nobleness was offered for sale, and the youth of the land were sold like slaves to swell the numbers of a foreign army.

Even the cantonal courts of Switzerland were con-

taminated

in

an

evil

hour, and under French influence, Hol-

land's free states were infected with that self-same spirit of

pride and of contempt for the people, in the form of patrician nepotism.

This could not

last.

rule Asia, but in free

Europe's

fiery spirit is

Europe there

despotism of Persian satraps.

A

is

no room

bound

to

for Asiatic

break therefore was inev-

was the judgment of God upon the despotism of the courts and the slavish subjection of the people that the means of salvation came in the horrors of the French Revolution. The thing wanted was pure air; the cry arose for liberty, and behold, in Calvinistic countries there was a great These liberty-forms were imitablc. 13ut store of both. that which lay not in store, was the moral element, the heroism of the faith of our fathers, by which Calvinism had become great; that which was wanting, were the magistratns itable,

and violent upheavals, and

it

inferiovts to forward the battle for liberty along the lines of

law; that which was no more found, was international law,

which promised outside help against the tyranny of nobility

and monarch.

Then

arose the Encyclopedists, the spiritual children of

Hugo

Grotius, that colossus of learning and irreconcilable

enemy

of the Calvinistic name.

Though Grenovius

refuted

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