§ 110. GENEVA REGENERATED, 519
which came nearer to his ideal of a Christocracy than any community he had seen in his extensive travels, and even in his German fatherland.
"When I was in Geneva," he writes, "I observed something great which I shall remember and desire as long as I live. There is in that place not only the perfect institute of a perfect republic, but, as a special ornament, a moral discipline, which makes weekly investigations into the conduct, and even the smallest transgressions of the citizens, first through the district inspectors, then through the Seniors, and finally through the magistrates, as the nature of the offence and the hardened state of the offender may require. All cursing and swearing, gambling, luxury, strife, hatred, fraud, etc., are forbidden ; while greater sins are hardly heard of. What a glorious ornament of the Christian religion is such a purity of morals ! We must lament with tears that it is wanting with us, and almost totally neglected. If it were not for the difference of religion, I would have forever been chained to that place by the agreement in morals, and I have ever since tried to introduce something like it into our churches. No less distinguished than the public discipline was the domestic discipline of my landlord, Scarron, with its daily devotions, reading of the Scriptures, the fear of God in word and in deed, temperance in meat and drink and dress. I have not found greater purity of morals even in my father's home." ^
A stronger and more impartial testimony of the deep and lasting effect of Calvin's discipline so long after his death could hardly be imagined.
1 See his autobiography, written in 1642, and his " Respublica Christianopolitana," ov" Christianopolis," 1619, — a description of a Christian model commonwealth, dedicated to John Arndt, the author of "True Christianity." Conip. Hossbach, Das Lehen Vol. Andrece, p. 10; Henry, p. 196 (small biography); Tholuck's article in Herzog, I. 388 sqq. ; Schaff, Creeds, I. 460 (which gives the German original). Andreae's memory was revived by the great Herder. Spener said : " If I could raise any one from the dead for the welfare of the Churcli, it would be Andreas."
520 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
NOTES. MODERN TESTIMONIES.
The condemnation of Calvin's discipline and his conduct toward the Libertines has been transplanted to America by two dignitaries of the Roman Church — Dr. John McGill, bishop of Richmond, the translator of Audin's Life of Calvin (Louisville, n. d.), and Dr. M. S. Spalding, archbishop of Baltimore (between 1864 and 1872), in his History of the Protestant Reformation (Louisville, 1860), 8th ed., Baltimore, 1875. This book is not a history, but a chronique scandaleuse of the Reformation, and unworthy of a Christian scholar. Dr. Spalding devotes twenty-two pages to Calvin (vol. I. 370-392), besides an appendix on Rome and Geneva, and a letter addressed to Merle d'Aubigne and Bungener (pp. 495-5-30). He ignores his Commentaries and Institutes, wliicli have commanded the admiration even of eminent Roman Catholic divines, and simply repeats, with some original mistakes and misspellings, the slanders of Bolsec and Audin, which have long since been refuted.
"Calvin," he says, "crushed the liberties of the people in the name of liberty. A foreigner, he insinuated himself into Geneva and, serpent-like, coiled himself around the very heart of the Republic which had given him hospitable shelter. He thus stung the very bosom which had warmed him. He was as watchful as a tiger prej^aring to pounce on its prey, and as treacherous. . . . His reign in Geneva was truly a reign of terror. He combined the cruelty of Danton and Robespierre with the eloquence of Marat and Mirabeau. . . . He was worse than 'the Chalif of Geneva,' as Audin calls him — he was a very Nero ! . . . He was a monster of impurity and iniquity. The story of his having been guilty of a crime of nameless turpitude at Noyon, though denied by his friends, yet rests upon very respectable authority. Bolsec, a contemporary writer, relates it as certain. . . . He ended his life in despair, and died of a most shameful and disgusting disease which God has threatened to rebellious and accursed reprobates." The early Calvinists were hypocrites, and "their boasted austerity was little better than a sham, if it was not even a cloak to cover enormous wickedness. They exhibit their own favorite doctrine of total depravity in its fullest practical development ! " The archbishop, however, is kind enough to add in conclusion (p. 391), that he " would not be understood as wishing to reflect upon the character or conduct of the present professors of Calvinistic doctrines, many of whom are men estimable for their civic virtues."
The best answer to such a caricature, which turns the very truth into a lie, is presented in the facts of this chapter. With ignorance and prejudice even the gods contend in vain. But it is proper, at this place, to record the judgments of impartial historians who have studied the sources, and cannot be charged with any doctrinal bias in favor of Calvinism. Comp. other testimonies in § 68, pp. 270 sqq.
GiESELER, one of the coolest and least dogmatic of church historians, says (K. G. III. P. I. p. 389) : " Durch Calvin's eiserne Festigheit wurden Genf's Sitten ganz umgewandelt : so dankte die Stadt der Reformation ihre Freiheit, ihre Ordnung, und ihren aufbliihenden Wohlstand."
Erom the Article " Calvin " in La France Protestante (III. 530) : " Une telle organisation, un pared pouroir sur les individus, une autorite' aussi parfaite-