Let us quote further some words from an article in the Athenæum, of which we have already spoken. In the course of criticisms, sometimes severe, the writer acknowledges that ‘there are to be found in this volume, in unimpaired vigor, the qualities we admired in its predecessors. Few narratives are more moving than the simple tale of the death of Hamilton, the first of the Scotch martyrs; and the same may be said of the chapter devoted to Wishart.’ In regard to Calvin the same writer tells us—‘M. Merle possessed, as we have already remarked, a knowledge truly marvellous of the writings of Calvin; and there are few books which enable us to understand so well as M. Merle’s the mind of the reformer—not perhaps as he was on every occasion, but such as he would have wished to be.’
Professor F. Godet, of Neuchâtel, expresses the same opinions and insists on them.[[7]] After having spoken of ‘that stroke of a masterly pencil which was one of the most remarkable gifts of M. Merle d’Aubigné,’ he adds—‘It is always that simple and dignified style, calm and yet full of earnestness, majestic as the course of a great river, we might say—like the whole aspect of the author himself. But what appears to us above all to distinguish the manner of M. Merle is his tender and reverential love for his subject. The work which he describes possesses his full sympathy. He loves it as the work of his Saviour and his God. Jesus would no longer be what he is for the faith of the writer if he had not delivered, aided, corrected, chastened, governed and conquered as he does in this history. St. John, in the Apocalypse, shows us the Lamb opening the seals of the book containing the designs of God with respect to his church. M. Merle, in writing history, appears to see in the events which he relates so many seals which are broken under the hand of the King of Kings. In each fact he discerns one of the steps of his coming as spouse of the church or as judge of the world. And just as the leaves of the divine roll were written not only without but within, M. Merle is not satisfied with portraying the outside of events, but endeavors to penetrate to the divine idea which constitutes their essence, and to unveil it before the eyes of his reader. Do not therefore require him to be what is called an objective historian, and to hold himself coldly aloof from the facts which he recalls to mind. Is not this faith of the sixteenth century, of which he traces the awakening, the struggles, defeats and victories, his own faith and the life of his own soul? Are not these men whom he describes, Calvin, Farel, Viret, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh? Are not these churches, whose birth and first steps in life he relates, his own spiritual family? The reader himself, to whom his narrative is addressed, is for him an immortal soul, which he would fain make captive to the faith of the Reformation. He does not for an instant lay aside, as narrator, his dignity as a minister of Christ. The office of historian is in his case a priesthood. Not that he falls into the error of determining at all cost to glorify his heroes, to palliate their weaknesses, to excuse their errors, or to present facts in a light different from that objective truth to which he has been led by the conscientious study of the documents. The welfare of the church of to-day for which he desires to labor, may as surely result from the frank avowal and the severe judgment of faults committed, as from admiration of every thing which has been done according to the will of God.’
The same judgment was lately pronounced by the author of a great work on French literature, recently published,[[8]] Lieutenant-Colonel Staaf. It is in the following terms that the author introduces M. Merle d’Aubigné to the French public:—‘M. de Remusat has said of this work—“It may have had a success among Protestants (un succès de secte), but it deserves a much wider one, for it is one of the most remarkable books in our language.” We might add one of the most austere, for it is at once the work of a historian and of a minister of the Gospel. It would be a mistake to suppose that the author has sacrificed the narrative portion of his history to the exposition and defence of the doctrines of the Reformation. Without seeking after effects of coloring, without concerning himself with form apart from thought, he has succeeded in reproducing the true physiognomy of the age whose great and fruitful movements he has narrated. All the Christian communities over which the resistless breath of the Reformation passed live again in spirit and in act in this grand drama, the principal episodes of which are furnished by Germany, France, Switzerland, and England. In order to penetrate so deeply as he has done into the moral life of the reformers, M. Merle was not satisfied with merely searching the histories of the sixteenth century; he has drawn from sources the existence of which was scarcely suspected before they had been opened to him.’... ‘Now, at whatever point of view we may take our stand, it is no subject for regret that for writing the story of the conflicts and too often of the execution of so many men actuated by the most generous and unalterable convictions, the pen has been held by a believer rather than by a sceptic. It was only a descendant and a spiritual heir of the apostles of the Reformation who could catch and communicate the fire of their pure enthusiasm, in a book in which their passions have left no echoes. M. Merle d’Aubigné—and this is one of the peculiar characteristics of his work—has satisfied with an antique simplicity the requirements of his twofold mission. It is only when the conscience of the historian has given all the guarantees of fairness and impartiality that one had a right to expect from it that the pastor has indulged in the outpourings of his faith.’
We close with the words of Professor F. Bonifas, of Montauban:[[9]] ‘In this volume are to be found the eminent qualities which have earned for M. Merle d’Aubigné the first place among the French historians of the Reformation: wealth and authenticity of information, a picturesque vivacity of narration, breadth and loftiness of view, a judicious estimate of men and things, and in addition to all these a deeply religious and Christian inspiration animating every page of the book. The writer’s faculties remained young in spite of years; and this fruit of his ripe old age recalls the finest productions of his youth and manhood.’
A last volume will appear (D.V.) before the end of the present year.
Ad. Duchemin.
Lyons, May, 1876.
CONTENTS OF THE SEVENTH VOLUME.
BOOK XI.—(continuation.)
CALVIN AND THE PRINCIPLES OF HIS REFORM.