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reverence by lofty characters; although he may be no favorite with

the mass of mankind。  If many great men and good men have failed to

comprehend either his character or his system; how can a pleasure…

loving and material generation; seeking to combine the glories of

this world with the promises of the next; see much in him to

admire; except as a great intellectual dialectician and system…

maker in an age with which it has no sympathy?  How can it

appreciate his deep spiritual life; his profound communion with

God; his burning zeal for the defence of Christian doctrine; his

sublime self…sacrifice; his holy resignation; his entire

consecration to a great cause?  Nobody can do justice to Calvin who

does not know the history of his times; the circumstances which

surrounded him; and the enemies he was required to fight。  No one

can comprehend his character or mission who does not feel it to be

supremely necessary to have a definite; positive system of

religious belief; based on the authority of the Scriptures as a

divine inspiration; both as an anchor amid the storms and a star of

promise and hope。



And; after all; what is the head and front of Calvin's offending?

that he was cold; unsocial; and ungenial in character; and that; as

a theologian; he fearlessly and inexorably pushed out his

deductions to their remotest logical sequences。  But he was no more

austere than Chrysostom; no more ascetic than Basil; not even

sterner in character than Michael Angelo; or more unsocial than

Pascal or Cromwell or William the Silent。  We lose sight of his

defects in the greatness of his services and the exalted dignity of

his character。  If he was severe to adversaries; he was kind to

friends; and when his feeble body was worn out by his protracted

labors; at the age of fifty…three; and he felt that the hand of

death was upon him; he called together his friends and fellow…

laborers in reform;the magistrates and ministers of Geneva;

imparted his last lessons; and expressed his last wishes; with the

placidity of a Christian sage。  Amid tears and sobs and stifled

groans he discoursed calmly on his approaching departure; gave his

affectionate benedictions; and commended them and his cause to

Christ; lingering longer than was expected; but dying in the

highest triumphs of Christian faith; May 27; 1564; in the; arms of

his faithful and admiring Beza; as the rays of the setting…sun

gilded with their glory his humble chamber of toil and spiritual

exaltation。



No man who knows anything will ever sneer at Calvin。  He is not to

be measured by common standards。  He was universally regarded as

the greatest light of the theological world。  When we remember his

transcendent abilities; his matchless labors; his unrivalled

influence; his unblemished morality; his lofty piety; and soaring

soul; all flippant criticism is contemptible and mean。  He ranks

with immortal benefactors; and needs least of all any apologies for

his defects。  A man who stamped his opinions on his own age and

succeeding ages can be regarded only as a very extraordinary

genius。  A frivolous and pleasure…seeking generation may not be

attracted by such an impersonation of cold intellect; and may rear

no costly monument to his memory; but his work remains as the

leader of the loftiest class of Christian enthusiasts that the

modern world has known; and the founder of a theological system

which still numbers; in spite of all the changes of human thought;

some of the greatest thinkers and ablest expounders of Christian

doctrine in both Europe and America。  To have been the spiritual

father of the Puritans for three hundred years is itself a great

evidence of moral and intellectual excellence; and will link his

name with some of the greatest movements that have marked our

modern civilization。  From Plymouth Rock to the shores of the

Pacific Ocean we still see the traces of his marvellous genius; and

his still more wonderful influence on the minds of men and on the

schools of Christian theology; so that he will ever be regarded as

the great doctor of the Protestant Church。





AUTHORITIES。





Henry's Life of Calvin; translated by Stebbings; Dyer's Life of

Calvin; Beza's Life of Calvin; Drelincourt's Defence of Calvin;

Bayle; Maimbourg's Histoire du Calvinisme; Calvin's Works; Ruchat;

D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation; Burnet's Reformation;

Mosheim; Biographie Universelle; article on Servetus; Schlosser's

Leben Bezas; McCrie's Life of Knox; Original Letters (Parker

Society)。







FRANCIS BACON。



A。 D。 1561…1626。



THE NEW PHILOSOPHY。





It is not easy to present the life and labors of





    〃The wisest; brightest; meanest of mankind。〃





So Pope sums up the character of the great Lord Bacon; as he is

generally but improperly called; and this verdict; in the main; has

been confirmed by Lords Macaulay and Campbell; who seem to delight

in keeping him in that niche of the temple of fame where the poet

has placed him;contemptible as a man; but venerable as the

philosopher; radiant with all the wisdom of his age and of all

preceding ages; the miner and sapper of ancient falsehoods; the

pioneer of all true knowledge; the author of that inductive and

experimental philosophy on which is based the glory of our age。

Macaulay especially; in that long and brilliant article which

appeared in the 〃Edinburgh Review〃 in 1837; has represented him as

a remarkably worldly man; cold; calculating; selfish a sycophant

and a flatterer; bent on self…exaltation; greedy; careless; false;

climbing to power by base subserviency; betraying friends and

courting enemies; with no animosities he does not suppress from

policy; and with no affections which he openly manifests when it

does not suit his interests: so that we read with shame of his

extraordinary shamelessness; from the time he first felt the

cravings of a vulgar ambition to the consummation of a disgraceful

crime; from the base desertion of his greatest benefactor to the

public selling of justice as Lord High Chancellor of the realm;

resorting to all the arts of a courtier to win the favor of his

sovereign and of his minions and favorites; reckless as to honest

debts; torturing on the rack an honest parson for a sermon he never

preached; and; when obliged to confess his corruption; meanly

supplicating mercy from the nation he had outraged; and favors from

the monarch whose cause he had betrayed。  The defects and

delinquencies of this great man are bluntly and harshly put by

Macaulay; without any attempt to soften or palliate them: as if he

would consign his name and memory not 〃to men's charitable

speeches; to foreign nations; and to the next ages;〃 but to an

infamy as lasting and deep as that of Scroggs and of Jeffreys; or

any of those hideous tyrants and monsters that disgraced the reigns

of the Stuart kings。



And yet while the man is made to appear in such hideous colors; his

philosophy is exalted to the highest pinnacle of praise; as the

greatest boon which any philosopher ever rendered to the world; and

the chief cause of all subsequent progress in scientific discovery。

And thus in brilliant rhetoric we have a painting of a man whose

life was in striking contrast with his teachings;a Judas

Iscariot; uttering divine philosophy; a Seneca; accumulating

millions as the tool of Nero; a fallen angel; pointing with rapture

to the realms of eternal light。  We have the most startling

contradiction in all history;glory in debasement; and debasement

in glory; the most selfish and worldly man in England; the 〃meanest

of mankind;〃 conferring on the race one of the greatest blessings

it ever received;not accidentally; not in repentance and shame;

but in exalted and persistent labors; amid public cares and


physical infirmities; from youth to advanced old age; living in the

highest regions of thought; studious and patient all his days; even

when neglected and 

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