United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


During the whole of the following day, the Calvinists remained in their encampment, the Catholics and the city guardsmen at their posts near the city hall. The Prince was occupied in the council-chamber from morning till night with the municipal authorities, the deputies of "the religion," and the guild officers, in framing a new treaty of peace.

"Well, my child," she said, "do they seem sufficient, when you look at Christendom now? If they are so clear, how is it that you have the Lutherans, and the Anabaptists, and the Family of Love, and the Calvinists, and the Church of England, all saying they hold to the Scriptures alone.

Individuals walking in advance of their age had enunciated such truths, and their voices had seemed to die away, but, at last, a little, struggling, half-developed commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of conscience for all mankind for Papists and Calvinists, Jews and Anabaptists because "having a respect for differences in religious opinions, and leaving all churches in their freedom, they chose to compel no man's conscience."

The advantage of situation, however, remains with the historic town, whence the view on every side is perfectly enchanting, where the air is deliciously pure, the vegetation splendid, and the residents, in harmony with nature, are friendly souls, good fellows, and devoid of Puritanism, though two-thirds of the population are Calvinists.

But the violent religious animosities which divided the evangelical and the reformed parties among the Protestants, impeded for some time the election even of a Protestant king; till at last the address and activity of the Calvinists carried the day from the numerical superiority of the Lutherans.

As Presbyterians and Calvinists, they belonged to one of the older and more conservative divisions of the Reformation. The Quaker's doctrine of the inward light, his quietism, contemplation, and advanced ideas were quite incomprehensible to them.

But the sudden death of Francois II., and that of Charles IX., were no injury to the Calvinists, and therefore the causes of these two events remained in their secret sphere, and were never suspected either by the writers of the people of that day; they were not divined except by de Thou, l'Hopital, and minds of that calibre, or by the leaders of the two parties who were coveting or defending the throne, and believed such means necessary to their end.

The difference between these two sects was chiefly in their views about government, civil and ecclesiastical. Both Presbyterians and Independents were rigid Calvinists, practised a severe morality, were opposed to gay amusements, disliked organs and ceremonies, strictly observed the Sabbath, and attached great importance to the close observance of the Mosaic ritual.

"In the archipelago of the British Channel islands," this learned author goes on to say, "the first steamboat which made its appearance received the name of the 'Devil Boat. In the eyes of these worthy fishermen, once Catholics, now Calvinists, but always bigots, it seemed to be a portion of the infernal regions which had been somehow set afloat.

There was much discussion of the Prince's marriage at the Diet of Frankfort, and there was even a proposition, formally to declare the Calvinists excluded in Germany from the benefits of the Peace of Passau.