As types of Calvinism and almost perfect human beings, as men of grandeur and nobility of character, upright life, commanding intellect, untainted selfishness, unalterably just, frank, true, cheerful, humorous, and as unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, Mr. Froude names William the Silent, Luther, John Knox, Andrew Melville, the Regent Murray, Coligny, Cromwell, Milton, and John Bunyan. The Calvinism of all the members of this remarkably assorted group is at least open to serious question. As to their supereminent goodness and almost angelic purity, it would be an easy but not a pleasant task to point out the refutation in their fatal shortcomings. It may be that Cromwell had "the tenderness of a woman" in his heart, but no testimony to support that assertion could possibly be procured in Ireland. It may be that Knox was not a sour fanatic, that William was all unselfishness, that Coligny was blameless, and that Milton's wife was mistaken in her estimate of her husband.
As to the Regent Murray, who was told to his face by John Knox that his religion was "for his own commoditie," and whom Aytoun[139] has incarcerated in the immortal amber of his verse as "the falsest villain ever Scotland bred"—
"False to his faith, a wedded priest:
Still falser to the Crown;
False to the blood, that in his veins
Made bastardy renown;
False to his sister, whom he swore
To guard and shield from harm;
The head of many a felon plot,
But never once the arm!
A verier knave ne'er stepped the earth
Since this wide world began;
And yet—he bandies texts with Knox,
And walks a pious man!"—
we are perfectly satisfied that Robespierre is an accomplished Christian gentleman beside him, for Robespierre at least never stole his sister's jewels nor took bribes from his country's enemies.
Then we are treated by the author to a promenade down the path of ages, amid the wrecks of empires and of systems, and to rhetorically embroidered sketches, with mention more or less extended of Olympus, Valhalla, Egyptian idolatry, Buddhism, in which "Zoroaster, like Moses, saw behind the physical forces into the deeper laws of right and wrong," Greek theology, the Stoics, "the Galilean fishermen and the tentmaker of Tarsus," and—Islamism. Of all these, the last most decidedly brings out Mr. Froude's warmest enthusiasm, and we find ourselves querying if it is Mohammed's fatalism he so much admires, for the monotheism of the prophet could hardly be called Calvinistic, thus making the burning of Servetus a gratuitous waste of cord-wood. Here we feel bound in justice to say that, although the men of Galilee and of Tarsus do not appear to excite any very strong admiration in our author, he nevertheless makes the handsome concession that he is not "upholding Mohammed as if he had been a perfect man, or the Koran as a second Bible," and that "the detailed conception of man's duties was inferior, far inferior, to what St. Martin and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Augustine, were teaching or had taught in Western Europe."
The early Christian church being essentially Catholic, it does not draw very heavily on either Mr. Froude's enthusiasm or his admiration, and, in speaking of "the mystery called transubstantiation" in the twelfth century, he makes an attempt to sum up Catholicity in a vein partaking of the brutality with which, in his History of England, he has the cool insolence to speak of the Catholic religion—the religion of Copernicus, Sir Thomas More, Fénelon, and Dr. Newman—as "a Paphian idolatry."
The Reformation is, of course, introduced with flourish of trumpets. But the Reformation was essentially Lutheran, and not Calvinistic. Luther himself, who was, so Mr. Froude assures us, "one of the grandest men that ever lived on earth," than whom "none more loyal to the light that was in him—braver, truer, or wider-minded, in the noblest sense of the word"—this Luther, we say, was as sincere a believer as Saint Augustine in the real presence—in transubstantiation, as Mr. Froude has it—a doctrine which, on all occasions and as far as in him lies, our English writer seeks to drag in the mud. And yet this Luther, so believing, was, Mr. Froude seeks to persuade us, a Calvinist.
Calvinism, in practice, was a lovely thing, and Mr. Froude proves that it was by—John Knox, whom he thus cites: "Elsewhere," says Knox, speaking of Geneva, "the word of God is taught as purely; but never anywhere have I seen God obeyed as faithfully."
Mr. Froude is, moreover, surprised that Calvinism should have been called intolerant,[140] and sums up its vindication thus: "Intolerance of an enemy who is trying to kill you seems to me a pardonable state of mind."
In the face of this citation, it is almost unnecessary to state that the name of Servetus does not once occur in the forty-seven pages of the Address, nor is the slightest allusion made to him. And if the curious reader, unacquainted with the practical working of Calvinism in Geneva, where God was "obeyed so faithfully," should inquire how it was that this perfect Christian man, Calvin, wrote his laws in blood and enforced them with the aid of executioners and torturers; how it was that he persecuted some men and, under color of law, assassinated others, he may be referred to these witnesses: First. Jerome Bolsec, exiled for proposing "an opinion false and contrary to the evangelical religion." Second. Peter Arneaux, who, for saying that Calvin was "a wicked man announcing false doctrine," was condemned to walk the streets of Geneva in his shirt, a lighted torch in his hand, bare-headed and bare-footed. Third. Henri de la Marc, exiled for saying that Peter Arneaux was a worthy man, and that, if Calvin had a spite against any one, he gratified it. Fourth. Jacques Gruet, who was beheaded and his head afterward nailed to a post, for the crime of being the author of placards accusing the Calvinists of persecution, and for proofs of impiety found in his private writings when his house was searched. Finally. Servetus, who, for being "a sower of heresies," was, by Calvin's authority, imprisoned, left there for two months to suffer by hunger and nakedness, and then brought out and, at the age of forty-four years, burned alive.