of the State. If it had not been, he would merely have gone out from one fire for another fire to devour him. Servetus, escaping in like manner from a Roman Catholic prison in France, where he would otherwise have been burned in person, as he was in effigy, fled also to Geneva; but his religion not being the religion of the State, the evangelical republic burned him. And thus the grand error of the Reformers in the union of Church and State occasioned what perhaps is the darkest crime that stains the annals of the Reformation. The burning of Servetus in Roman Catholic fires would have added but an imperceptible shade to the blackness of darkness in a system which invariably has been one of intolerance and cruelty. But the man was permitted by divine providence to escape, and come to Geneva to be burned alive there, by a State allied to a system of Faith and Mercy, to show to all the world that even that system cannot be trusted with human power; that the State, in connection with the Church, though it be the purest Church in the world, will bring forth intolerance and murder. The union is adulterous, the progeny is sinful works, even though the mother be the embodied profession of Justification by Faith. God's mercy becomes changed into man's cruelty. So in the brightest spot of piety then on the face of the earth, amidst the out-shining glory of the great doctrine of the Gospel, Justification by Faith, God permitted the smoke and the cry of torture by fire to go up to heaven, to teach the nations that even purity of doctrine, if enforced by the State, will produce the bitterest fruits of a corrupt Gospel and an infidel apostacy; that is the lesson read in the smoke of the funeral pyre of Servetus, as it rolls up black against the stars of heaven, that the union of Church and State, even of a pure Church in a free State, is the destruction of religious liberty.

It was this pestiferous evil that at one time banished from the Genevese State its greatest benefactor, Calvin himself; the working of the same poison excludes now from the pulpit of the State some of the brightest ornaments of the ministry in modern times—such men as Malan, D'Aubigné, and Gaussen. It is true that it is the corruption of doctrine and hatred of divino truth that have produced this last step; but it could not have

CHRISTIANS IN GENEVA.

33

been taken had the Church of Christ in Geneva been, as she should be, independent of the State. Such measures as these are, however, compelling the Church of Christ to assume an independent attitude, which, under the influence of past habit and example, she would not yet have taken. Thus it is that God brings light out of darkness and good out of evil.

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These are the views of great men in Switzerland, Vinet and Burnier, D'Aubigné and Gaussen; and in this movement it may be hoped that the evangelical church in Geneva will yet take the foremost place in all Europe. But as yet, says Merle D'Aubigné, we are small and weak. Placed by the hand of God in the centre of Europe, surrounded with Popish darkness, we have much to do, and we are weak. We have worked in Geneva; and we maintain there the Evangelical Truth on one side against Unitarian Rationalism, and on the other side against Papistical Despotism. The importance of the Christian doctrine is beginning to be again felt in Geneva. Our Canton is become a mixed one, and we are assailed by many Roman Catholics coming to our country to establish themselves there." Nevertheless, our hope is strong in the interposition of God by his good Spirit, which will yet take the elements ot evil and change their very nature into good.

The Evangelical Society of Geneva, founded just fifteen years ago, was crushed out of the wine-press of State and Church despotism, and is one of the best proofs and fruits of God's awakening breath in that Republic. Let any man peruse the successive Reports of that Society from year to year, and he will see an electric path of truth and life running through them, indicating the presence and the steps of Christ. Here are the first fruits of Christian liberty, for the Society is as purely a voluntary offering to God as any of the benevolent and missionary societies in our own country. The Theological school under its care is one of the best in the world, considering its youth and limited means, and in all probability is destined to become a bulwark of Christ's Free Church in Europe. Its establishment amidst enemies and dangers was a conspiracy for the spiritual deliverance of Switzerland more glorious than that of the three patriots at midnight on the field

of Grutli.

The Christian stranger who happens to be present in Geneva, at the period when the prayerful opening of the session of the School takes place, may look in and see Christ dropping into ground prepared by his Spirit the germs of trees whose fruit shall shake like Lebanon. The grandeur of the enterprise, the apostolical simplicity of the meeting, the deportment of the professors as affectionate shepherds and parents of their flock, the students as children and brethren, the discourse of the President, the word of instruction and exhortation by the teachers and patrons in turn, and the closing prayers by the students themselves, make it a scene of the deepest interest. It is there that D'Aubigné first utters some of those voices of truth and freedom-those declarations of independence which afterwards go echoing through the world.

This is God's way, when he intends to save a people from their sins; he puts in the leaven of the Gospel, and lets it work till the whole be leavened; he saves men and States by working in them to will and to do. God works by the voluntary system; man is always disposed to compulsion. God is longsuffering; man is impatient, intolerant. God speaks in a still small voice; man roars like a beast, and thinks it is God's thunder. God takes an erring man and renews his heart; man takes him and burns him at the stake, or cuts off his head. We greatly prefer God's way to man's way. Who would not much rather have his heart made better, at whatever cost, by God's forbearance, than lose both head and heart together by man's impatience?

The world has been a world of extremes, oscillating like a great pendulum, swinging now in one direction and now in another, beyond the possibility of regulation. It has had some periods of stillness, but a regular and regulating activity in harmony. is what is needed. This can never be found, never estatablished, so long as the main-spring of society is constrained and tampered with. That main-spring is religion, religious conviction, religious opinion. It must be left to itself under the word and Spirit of the living God. If Government tamper with it, it will for ever be out of order; if the State undertake to regulate it, there will be commotion, violence, internal con

VOICE OF SWITZERLAND.

35

flict, constraint, and disorder, instead of free growth, quietness, and happiness. It is as if you should tie the main-spring of a city clock to a great steam-engine. It is as if you should plow with an ox and an ass together.

of the things which are Cæsar's, but let the things that are God's.

Let Cæsar take care

him not meddle with

CHAPTER VI.

DR. MALAN, DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, AND DR. GAUSSEN.

"Two voices are there; one is of the Sea,

One of the Mountains: each a mighty voice,"

WHEN Wordsworth penned this twelfth of his Sonnets to Liberty, he thought the voice of Switzerland had perished. But how wonderfully God works! Which voice is now the mightiest, that of the Mountains or of the Sea, Switzerland or England? The voice of the Mountains surely! the voice of Switzerland is the noblest, in Geneva at least, and therefore the mightiest.

"In this from age to age men shall rejoice,
It is thy chosen music, Liberty!"

Wherever you catch the tone of stern religious principle against oppression in any people, you feel that they are strong, their voice is mighty. The voice of a nation is the voice of its great men; and the voice of the great men of England just now is the hoarse, melancholy cry of expediency, in the sacrifice of principle; while that of the great men of Switzerland is the clear, ringing, thrilling shout of Spiritual Liberty! May it ring and never cease as long as the eagle screams in the mountain pines, as long as the tempest roars, as long as the avalanche thunders.

"Great men have been among us," England sings, "hands that penned, and tongues that uttered wisdom, better none.' Great men are now among us, Switzerland may say, and free spirits, that by their deeds and thoughts are planting the germs

of goodness and greatness in many hearts. There is a circle of such spirits, not alone in Geneva; but I shall be constrained to limit my personal notes of them to the memoirs of the three with whom I have been most acquainted. Thinking of these men, and of others whom I have met in Switzerland, and of the simplicity and freedom still living among those proud mountains, I cannot help warning my readers against the sneers of some English men and books-Murray's Hand-book, for example-in regard to the moral and political condition of the country. In some parts it is bad enough, we all know; but I have thought that sometimes the English really seemed vexed and envious at the existence of so much freedom, happiness, and greatness, in a little, unaristocratical, republican canton like Geneva. May I be forgiven if I judge them harshly; but such envious hatred is a hateful thing. I am sure the great body of Englishmen would not feel it; but Toryism and Puseyism together do make queer mixture of despotism and prejudice. Through such glasses the mind sees nothing good, or will acknowledge nothing; green-eyed jealousy squints and looks askant, both at civil and religious liberty; a titled nobility and a mitred priesthood do sometimes rail away against a Church without a bishop and a State without a king, in a manner so unmerciful that I am apt to think it is because they feel inwardly self-condemned in the presence of such great forms of truth and freedom. Those forms stand to them in the shape of accusers, and very glad they are to have some such shadow of excuse for their own bitterness, in the case of our own country for example, as is afforded them in Mississippi, repudiation, Irish riots, and negro slavery. But they have none of these things in Geneva.

Dr. MALAN was honoured by divine providence to be among the foremost instruments in the spiritual awakening with which it has pleased God to bless Geneva. He was a preacher of Socinianism in the national church in 1814, and was also one of the Regents of the College. He was much admired for his eloquence, and continued to preach and to teach for some time in utter ignorance of the truth as it is in Christ crucified. At length it pleased God to visit him, and give him light; as