Calvinism - pagina 26

Calvinism and

668

[Oct.

well as Reformed heroes have defended the people's rights and liberties against the Alvas and the Vargas. At Calvin's appearance the Christian church also was already fifteen hundred years old, and that through her spiritual offspring she took no part with tyrants, had been shown conclusively to the Corinthians

by the hero of Tarsus,

to the

Emperor

Theodosius by Ambrose in Milan, by Wycklif in chains, Huss at the stake, and Luther at the Diet of Worms. Add to this the influence of the Renaissance,

whereby speech was

restored to the heroes of Marathon, and the glory of Greece

and ancient

Rome was

once more made apparent, and these

three elements, the Germanic, the Christian, and the Renaissance, are the factors which foretold

the people, before Geneva's

name was

broader

liberties for

yet heard.

But these

elements repelled each other, instead of lending mutual supIn the strife of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the

port.

church combatted with the German

spirit,

the ridicule of the

Humanists fought Obscurantism, presently all Christendom was in arms against the Renaissance, and in these struggles it was both times the scene of Solomon's court repeated; both parties claimed to be mother of the child of liberty, and, less pitiful than before Solomon's tribunal, they cut the living child in two. Hence absolutism prevailed. And to overthrow it the spirited enthusiasm of the Germans must needs be curbed, the church purified, the Renaissance sancti-

And this fied, and the three rubies strung into one chain. was done by Calvin. In the fires of his genius were forged the vigor of Germanism, the liberty of the Christian spirit, and the virtue of the classics into that precious metal, from which Holland also cast its goddess of liberty surmounting the Holy Scriptures, and the liberty cap with this inscription

—"By

this

But

we

alas,

strive, this

we guard."

from his hands most of Europe's nations have

not desired to accept the fresh waters of liberty.

The

Ref-

ormation was execrated, and Italy declined, and Spain

fell

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