CALVIN'S RETURN TO GENEVA.

217

a most favorable impression at Geneva, and an edition of it was published by the authorities. The city, torn by faction, with a government too weak to exercise effective control, turned to the banished preacher, who had never been without a body of warm adherents, however overborne in the excitement that attended his expulsion. Here was another instance in which Providence seemed to interpose to baffle his cherished plans, and to use him for a purpose not his own. He could not think of going back, without a shudder. The recollection of his conflicts there, and of the troubles of conscience he had suffered, was dreadful to him. But he could not long withstand the unanimous opinion of his friends and the earnest importunities of the Genevan Senate and people. To the solicitations of the deputies who followed him from Strasburg to Worms, he answered more with tears than words. His consent was at length obtained, and once more he took up his abode in Geneva, there to live for the remainder of his days.

Of the system of ecclesiastical and civil order which was formed under his influence, only the outlines can here be given. His idea was that the Church should be distinct from the State, but that both should be intimately connected and mutually coöperative for a common end the realization of the kingdom of God in the lives of the people. The Church was to infuse a religious spirit into the State; the State was to uphold and foster the interests of the Church. For the instruction of the people, preachers, whose qualifications have been put to a thorough test, must be appointed, and respect for them and attention to their ministrations must be enforced by law. So the training of the children in the catechism is indispensable, and this must likewise be secured, if necessary, by the intervention of the magistrate. The Three Councils, or Senates, the Little Council, or Council of Twenty1 See his Letters, Bonnet, i. 163, 167, 207, 244.

five, the Council of Sixty, and the Council of Two Hun-
dred, which had existed before, were not abolished, but
their functions and relative prerogatives were materially
changed. The drift of all the political changes was to
concentrate power in the hands of the Little Council, and
to take it away from the other bodies, and especially from
the General Council, or popular assembly of the citizens.
Ecclesiastical discipline was in the hands of the CON-
SISTORY, a body composed of the preachers, who at first
were six in number,and of twice as many laymen; the lay-
men being nominated by the preachers and chosen an-
nually by the Little Council, but the General Council
having a veto upon their appointment. Calvin thus re-
vived, under a peculiar form, the Eldership in the Church.
It had existed, to be sure, in some of the Zwinglian
Churches, but not as an effective organization. The
preachers were chosen by the ministers already in office;
they gave proof of their qualifications by publicly preach-
ing a sermon, at which two members of the Little Council
were present. If the ministers approved of the learning of
the candidate, they presented him to the Council, and his
election having been sanctioned by that body, eight days
were given to the people, in which they might bring for-
ward objections if they had any, to his appointment. The
Consistory had jurisdiction in matrimonial causes. Το
this body was committed a moral censorship that ex-
tended over the entire life of every inhabitant.
It was
a court before which any one might be summoned, and
which could not be treated with contumacy or disre-
spect without bringing upon the offender civil penal-
ties. The power of excommunication was in its hands;
and excommunication, if it continued beyond a cer-
tain time, was likewise followed by penal consequences.
Though ostensibly purely spiritual in its function, the
Consistory might hand over to the magistrate trans-
gressors whose offenses were deemed to be grave, or who

THE GENEVAN LAWS

219

refused to submit to correction. The city was divided into districts, and in each of them a preacher and elder had superintendence, the ordinance being that at least once in a year every family must be visited, and receive such admonition, counsel, or comfort, as its condition might call for. Every sick person was required to send for the minister. From this vigilant, stringent, universal supervision there was no escape. There was no respect for persons; the high and the low, the rich and the poor, were alike subjected to one inflexible rule. In the Consistory, by tacit consent, Calvin took the post of President. The ministers - the VENERABLE COMPANY, as they were styled - met together once a month for mutual fraternal censure. Candidates for the ministry were examined and ordained by them. They were to be kept up to a high standard of professional qualifications and of conduct. Calvin, it may be observed, felt the importance of an effective delivery: he speaks against the reading of sermons.1

In the framing of the civil laws, Calvin had a controlling influence. His legal education qualified him for such a work, and so great was the respect entertained for him that he was made, not by any effort of his own, the virtual legislator of the city. The minutest affairs engaged his attention. Regulations for the watching of the gates, and for the suppression of fires, are found in his handwriting. An examination of the Genevan code shows the strong influence of the Mosaic legislation on Calvin's conception of a well-ordered community. Both the special statutes and the general theocratic character of the Hebrew commonwealth were never out of sight. In all points Calvin did not find it practicable to conform to his own theories. One of his cardinal principles is that to the congregation belongs the choice of its religious teachers; but it was provided at Geneva that the Col1 Henry, ii. 195. 2 Kampschulte, i. 417.

legium, or Society of Preachers, should select persons to fill vacancies, and to the congregation was left only a veto, which was regarded more as a nominal than a real prerogative. Whatever may have been the influence of Calvinism on society, Calvin himself was unfavorable to democracy. It is remarkable that almost at the beginning of his earliest writing, the Commentary on Seneca, there is an expression of contempt for the populace. His experiences at Geneva, and especially the dangers to which his civil as well as ecclesiastical system would be liable if it were at the disposal of a popular assembly, confirmed his inclination to an aristocratic or oligarchic constitution.

Calvin had begun, after his return, with moderation, with no manifestation of vindictiveness, and without undertaking to remove the other preachers who had been appointed by the opposite party in his absence. But symptoms of disaffection were not long in appearing. The more the new system was developed in its characteristic features, the more loud grew the opposition. Let us glance at the parties in this long continued conflict. Against Calvin were the Libertines, as they were styled. They consisted of two different classes. There were the fanatical Antinomians, an offshoot from the sect of the Free Spirit, who combined pantheistic theology with a lax morality, in which the marriage relation was practically subverted and a theory allied to the modern "free love" was more or less openly avowed and practiced. Their number was sufficient to form a dangerous faction, and it appears to be proved that among them were persons in affluent circumstances and possessed of much influence. United with the "Spirituels," as this class of Libertines was termed, were the Patriots, as they styled themselves; those who were for maintaining the democratic constitution, and jealous of the Frenchmen and

1 For his opinion of "the people," see Kampschulte, i. 419.

PARTIES IN GENEVA.

221

other foreigners who had migrated in large numbers to Geneva, and to whom the supporters of Calvin were for giving the rights of citizens. The licentious free-thinkers, the native Genevese of democratic proclivities and opposed to the granting of political power to the immigrants, and the multitude who chafed under the new restraints put upon them, gradually combined against the new system and the man who was its principal author. On the other side were those who preferred the order, independence, morality, and temporal prosperity which were the fruit of the new order of things, and, in the existing circumstances, were inseparable from it, and especially all who thoroughly accepted the Protestant system of doctrine as expounded by Calvin. In the ranks of this party, which maintained. its ascendency, though not without perilous struggles, were the numerous foreigners, who had been, for the most part, driven from their homes by persecution, and had been drawn to Geneva by the presence of Calvin and by the religious system established there. On a single occasion not less than three hundred of these were naturalized. That wide-spread disaffection should exist, was inevitable. The attempt was made to extend over a city of twenty thousand inhabitants, wonted to freedom and little fond of restraint, the strict discipline of a Calvinistic church. Not only profaneness and drunkenness, but recreations which had been considered innocent, and divergent theological doctrines, if the effort was made to disseminate them, were severely punished. In 1568, under the stern code which was established under the auspices of Calvin, a child was beheaded for striking its father and mother. A child sixteen years old for attempting to strike its mother, was sentenced to death, but, on account of its youth, the sentence was commuted, and having been publicly whipped, with a cord about its neck, it was banished from the city. In 1565 a woman was chastised with rods for singing secular songs to the melody