Luther, after the nature of most Germans, had been a good deal of a sentimentalist. The Word of God alone, so it seemed to him, would show a man the way to the life everlasting.
This was much too indefinite to suit the taste of the great French reformer. The Word of God might be a beacon light of hope, but the road was long and dark and many were the temptations that made people forget their true destination.
The minister, however, could not go astray. He was a man set apart. He knew all pitfalls. He was incorruptible. And if perchance he felt inclined to wander from the straight path, the weekly meetings of the clergy, at which these worthy gentlemen were invited to criticize each other freely, would speedily bring him back to a realization of his duties. Hence he was the ideal held before all those who truly aspired after salvation.
Those of us who have ever climbed mountains know that professional guides can upon occasion be veritable tyrants. They know the perils of a pile of rocks, the hidden dangers of an innocent-looking snowfield. Wherefore they assume complete command of the party that has entrusted itself to their care and profanity raineth richly upon the head of the foolish tourist who dares to disobey their orders.
The ministers of Calvin’s ideal state had a similar conception of their duties. They were ever delighted to extend a helping hand to those who stumbled and asked that they be supported. But when willful people purposely left the beaten track and wandered away from the flock, then that hand was withdrawn and became a fist which meted out punishment that was both quick and terrible.
In many other communities the dominies would have been delighted to exercise a similar power. But the civil authorities, jealous of their own prerogatives, rarely allowed the clergy to compete with the courts and the executioners. Calvin knew this and within his own bailiwick he established a form of church discipline which practically superseded the laws of the land.
Among the curious historical misconceptions which have gained such popularity since the days of the great war, none is more surprising than the belief that the French people (in contrast to their Teuton neighbors) are a liberty-loving race and detest all regimentation. The French have for centuries submitted to the rule of a bureaucracy quite as complicated and infinitely less efficient than the one which existed in Prussia in the pre-war days. The officials are a little less punctual about their office hours and the spotlessness of their collars and they are given to sucking a particularly vile sort of cigarette. Otherwise they are quite as meddlesome and as obnoxious as those in the eastern republic, and the public accepts their rudeness with a meekness that is astonishing in a race so addicted to rebellion.
Calvin was the ideal Frenchman in his love for centralization. In some details he almost approached the perfection for detail which was the secret of Napoleon’s success. But unlike the great emperor, he was utterly devoid of all personal ambition. He was just a dreadfully serious man with a weak stomach and no sense of humor.
He ransacked the Old Testament to discover what would be agreeable to his particular Jehovah. And then the people of Geneva were asked to accept this interpretation of the Jewish chronicles as a direct revelation of the divine will.
Almost over night the merry city on the Rhone became a community of rueful sinners. A civic inquisition composed of six ministers and twelve elders watched night and day over the private opinions of all citizens. Whosoever was suspected of an inclination towards “forbidden heresies” was cited to appear before an ecclesiastic tribunal that he might be examined upon all points of doctrine and explain where, how and in what way he had obtained the books which had given him the pernicious ideas which had led him astray. If the culprit showed a repentant spirit, he might escape with a sentence of enforced attendance at Sunday School. But in case he showed himself obstinate, he must leave the city within twenty-four hours and never again show himself within the jurisdiction of the Genevan commonwealth.