EARLY AT THE DAWNING. BY MRS. ACTON TINDAL. "With my spirit within me will I seek thee early."—Isaiah, c. xxvi. v. 9. EARLY at the dawning, When a misty sea I have long'd for Thee: I have sought and found Thee Early I would meet Thee Early at the dawning Praise for shade and light, Fruit and blossom bright, Early at the dawning, THE HUGUENOTS OF GENEVA.* It has been our province lately to remark, upon several different occasions, how widely and deeply the spirit of Reformation is spreading itself in France. Whether this is owing to the decline of Romanism, want of vitality in the Gallican Church, the progress of enlightenment, or the general latitudinarianism and indifference, seeking for something tangible upon which to rest its hopes and aspirations, it is not for us to decide; certain it is, that if many distinguished politicians and literary men devote themselves to exposing the abuses of priestcraft, and others, like Salvador, dream of a Gallican Church, with an emperor for its spiritual head, there are also many existing representatives of the Protestant cause in France who are ready to lift their voices, modestly, as in the instance of the good old minister of Metz recording the persecutions of his Church under the purifying ægis of a Maintenon, or in a more striking form, as in the instance of the well-known historian-the learned and pious descendant of the Huguenots of old-J. H. Merle d'Aubigné. The French people must no more be judged of, as a whole, by the superficial classes -more especially by those who hurry on the pathway of strangers, and crowd its capital and public places-than must its literature by those numerous light publications, thrown off for the amusement of the hour, which have so often called down the anathemas of the more punctilious. Any one who has moved in good society in France knows that none are more austere or less frivolous. Even in Paris itself, visit certain families in the Faubourg St. Germain, frequent the salons of the more eminent literary men the Guizots and the Villemains-or cultivate the friendship of the learned professors in the Quartier Latin, whether attached to the Sorbonne, the College de France, the Jardin des Plantes, or any of the other institutions that honour the metropolis of France, and not only will such topics as theatres, light literature, and amusements be found to be utterly ignored, but he will be looked upon as an unwelcome visitor who ventures to intrude such into conversation. Throughout France the same thing will be observed: there are everywhere, extending in many instances to the business classes, instances of which will suggest themselves at once to every travelled mind, a certain number of calm, serious, contemplative individuals, to whom the frivolity, too much associated with a whole people as a national characteristic, is as foreign as it is to a philosophic German, an independent Swiss burgher, a haughty don, or a puritanical Scotchman. This more serious and enlightened class, while often deeply impressed with the vanities of the Gallican Church, hurt at the immoralities and family intrusion of the priest, and regarding Papal infallibility as a dogma unfitted for the day, do not fall away to indiffeor apostasy, like the more thoughtless; they commune within themselves, often more than with one another; they seek for information in an earnest and a pious spirit, and their minds are everywhere open to a Reform, which would satisfy their conscientious scruples that there was rence * Histoire de la Réformation en Europe au Temps de Calvin. Par J. H. Merle d'Aubigné. Tomes I. et II. Génève et France. May-VOL. CXXVIII. NO. DIX. I in it neither the leaven of priestcraft on the one hand, nor the cold austerity of Puritanism on the other. "When," says D'Aubigné, "in some countries-in France, for example-the Protestant idea declined, the human spirit likewise lost its energy, dissolution invaded society once more, and that nation, so richly endowed, after having caught a glimpse of a magnificent aurora, fell back into the dark night of the traditional power of Rome, and of the despotism of the Valois and of the Bourbons. Liberty has never been solidly established except amongst people with whom the Word of God reigned." It is to such a class that the well-known and brilliant works of Merle d'Aubigné address themselves. Some five volumes, of from six hundred to seven hundred pages each, have already appeared upon the History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, devoted more particularly to the great epoch of Luther, and we have now before us two more goodly volumes of the same history, being an instalment towards the history of Calvin and his epoch. It is true that the author remarks that this latter epoch, which comprises the Reform of Geneva, opening, as it does, with the fall of a bishopprince, or almost a bishop-king-the downfal of an ecclesiastical state gives rise to some comparisons with actual times; but, he says, they were not of his seeking. "The great question which occupies Europe at the present moment, was also that which occupied Geneva at the time that we describe. But that portion of our history was written anterior to these latter stirring years, during which the deeply important and complicated question of the maintenance or the fall of the temporal power of popes has come, and continues incessantly to obtrude itself upon kings and people alike." the There are another class of persons on the Continent-philosophers, as they mostly esteem themselves-who look upon Christ simply as the apostle of political liberty. The history of the times of Calvin, of his predecessors and followers, is, D'Aubigné remarks, precisely the history of an epoch which addresses itself directly to this class-to teach them, as it does, that in order to possess liberty without, we must, first of all, possess liberty within. In order to arrive at the enjoyment of real liberty, men must, first of all, learn what freedom is in the heart. To effect this he must seek succour from one more powerful than himself— from the Son of God. The work of renovation accomplished by Calvin was, above all things, a renewal of the inward being, ere it began to exercise a great influence upon people. Luther converted princes into heroes of the faith, and most admirable were their triumphs at Augsburg and elsewhere; but the reform of Calvin addressed itself to the people, and created martyrs in its bosom, before it gave birth to spiritual conquerors of the world. Guy de Brés in the Low Countries, John Knox in Scotland, Servet in France, issued forth from Geneva, as did hosts of reformers in still more recent times, extending in England from the period of Elizabeth to that of William of Orange. The spirit of the Reformation in Geneva lay, as elsewhere, in salvation by faith in Christ, who died to save us, and the renewing of the heart by the word and spirit of God. But there were also every where secondary elements, and that which particularly characterised Geneva (and which is, therefore, propounded as more particularly deserving of the attention of men in the present day) was the love of liberty. Three great movements were accomplished in that city in the first half of the sixteenth century. The first was the conquest of independence; the second was the conquest of faith; the third was the conquest or renovation and organisation of the Church. Berthelier, Farel, and Calvin are the three heroes of these three epopées. These three movements were all of them essential and necessary. The Bishop of Geneva was also a temporal prince, as at Rome; it was difficult to carry away the crook, unless the sword was removed first. The necessity of liberty to the Gospel, and of the Gospel to liberty, is now recognised by all serious men, and the history of Geneva proclaimed the fact three hundred years ago. The liberties enjoyed by Geneva date, with alternations of despotism, civil, military, and religious, from the most remote periods. They were at once Roman, German, and Christian in their origin. The Romans granted municipal privileges to one of the chief cities of the Allobroges. The independent spirit of the Goths was there softened and civilised by the mild influence of the Burgundians; the famous wife of Clovis, Clothilda, carried thence the spirit of Christianity among the warlike Franks. Three different powers came alternately to threaten those ancient liberties. First came the Counts of Geneva, originally mere officers of the emperor, but who gradually became so many independent princes. These feudal chieftains took most pleasure in their castles, leaving the city to the bishops, who protected it without, and administered its affairs within, confiscating the liberty and the property of the citizens with equal indifference, till, in 1124, Aymon, Count of Genevois, ceded the city altogether to the first prince-bishop, Humbert de Grammont. The institution of prince-bishops, opposed alike to the principles of the Gospel and to the liberty of future ages, was an especial misfortune to Geneva. Antonio Gallenga, in his Catholic History of Piedmont (vol. i. p. 258), places the matter differently. He says that Gerold of Geneva, having taken part against Conrad the Salic, about 1047, the emperor, in punishment of this opposition, placed the city of Geneva altogether under the jurisdiction of the bishops. Be this as it may, the small but united population of Geneva-it is one of their titles of glory-were the first to reject that amphibious being called a prince-bishop-corruptio optimi pessima-and the fall of the feudal-episcopal throne on Lake Leman was followed by that of others on the Rhine, in Belgium, in Bavaria, and in Austria, as, adds D'Aubigné emphatically," the last will be that of Rome." "Christianity," he also observes elsewhere, "ought to have been a power of liberty; Rome by corrupting it made it a power of despotism. Calvin, by regenerating, rehabilitated it, and restored to it its primary functions.' The ambition of the Princes of Savoy, however, implicated the liberty and independence of Geneva even more than its counts and prince-bishops. They set the one against the other to serve their own purposes. Peter of Savoy, uncle to Eleonora of Provence, Queen of England, and created Earl of Richmond by his nephew, Henry III., took possession of the castle of Geneva in 1250 by force of arms, and the power of the house was further increased under Amadeus V. D'Aubigné represents the princes of the house of Savoy as liberal in Geneva merely to suit their own pur poses. The "Second Charlemagne," as Peter of Savoy was called, promised commercial franchises in order to withdraw the people from the temporal yoke of their bishops, and Amadeus V., "se fit liberal" simply because he knew that the spirit of a people is never so surely gained over as by establishing oneself as the defender of its rights. The Romanist Gallenga represents the relations of the house of Savoy with the Genevese in an entirely different light, and he asserts that the name of Savoy became associated in Geneva, as well as all over Switzerland, with the cause of freedom! It is manifest by the conduct of Amadeus VIII. that the Protestant historian places the matter in its true light. The Counts of Savoy, when dukes, applied for a Papal bull with which to annihilate those liberties which they had been obliged to tolerate because they could never vanquish them. It was in vain that the people objected that "Rome should not put its hands upon kingdoms." Martin V., however, confiscated the city in 1418, not to the benefits of the Dukes of Savoy, but to that of the Roman Church, and he nominated Jean de Rochetaillée princebishop. This usurpation was renewed four years afterwards, and the election of their bishops taken from the people. The Hermit of Ripaille -Pope Felix V.-wrought this usurpation in favour of the house of Savoy, and according to Ď'Aubigné, the prince-bishops of that house, and their governors, were leeches that sucked Geneva to the very marrow of its bones." One of them, Jean Louis, gave over the archives of the city to the duke his father, who removed them with the privilege of fairs to Lyons. It was to these fairs, the right to which was lost in the obscurity of time, that Geneva was indebted for its prosperity. Venice was at that epoch the depôt for the commerce of the East, Cologne for that of the West, and Geneva for the centre. Merchants were now forbidden to visit the city, and Lyons was aggrandised at its expense. "Thus," says D'Aubigné," the Catholic or episcopal power, which had deprived Geneva of its territory in the eleventh century, deprived it of its prosperity in the fifteenth. The shelter given to the persecuted Huguenots, and the industrial activity of Protestantism, were destined to raise it up from the prostrate condition in which it had been laid by the Roman hierarchy." 66 It was in vain that a reforming bishop-Antoine Champion-appeared in the latter end of the fifteenth century-the influence of the Dukes of Savoy prevailed until early in the sixteenth century-when the breath of Reformation which lighted up the people to liberty, faith, and morality, made itself felt in Geneva. Charles de Seysell, prince-bishop of the same city, who had during his lifetime supported the popular rights against the encroachments of Charles of Savoy, died in 1513, or, according to the chroniclers, was poisoned by order of the duke. The people, instigated by their eminent leader Berthelier, elected the abbot of Bonmont to the vacant see; the duke opposed to the nomination John, son of Francis of Savoy, Archbishop of Aux and Bishop of Angers, by a person of easy virtue, and who was hence historically known as the "bâtard de Savoie." This illegitimate scion of a noble house was to be elected to the episcopacy, upon condition of resigning the temporality to the Dukes of Savoy. Pope Leo X. was the more readily induced to accede to this arrangement, as he was at that very moment negotiating an alliance between his brother Julian, general of the Papal forces, and Philiberte, a princess of Savoy. Everything was soon satisfactorily arranged between |