ri~~~~~~
NNI OIN,
~~~~~~   ~~~~~AgM




PRESBYTERIANISM
THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
BY THE
REV. WM. P. BREED, D.D.
PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
THE TRUSTEES OF TBEM
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




CONTENTS.
PAGE
PRESBYTERIANISM THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO... 5
IL
THE FIELD................................................. 27
III.
THE  CHAMPIONS......................................................... 140
IV.
THE CONFLICT.................................... 184
V.
CONCLUSION............................................. 233








INTRODUCTION.
ECCLESIASTICAL history is the record
of the outworking of God's decree for
the world's renovation. It is the complicated story of the progress of the truth, its
assaults upon error, the resistance of error
to these assaults, and the results, in the life
and experience of men and nations, of these
onsets and oppositions-results many of
them cheering and glorious, some of them
fearful and bloody.  Full of food for the
head and the heart is such a story!
It was a wise charge, therefore, of the
Presbyterian General Assembly of 1871,
that its synods, presbyteries and congregations should take advantage of the advent
of the year 1872 to refresh their own and
the people's minds with the memories that
come down to us from the year 1572, to
1  -'5E




6 IIND ROD UCTION.
meditate upon the furious conflicts that then
were raging, to gaze again upon-the grand,
heroic and devoted champions that then led
the hosts of Israel, and to contrast the sweet
quietude of our own times with the turmoil
and woes, the defeats and triumphs, of our
brethren three hundred years ago. Having
prepared and preached a discourse upon this
subject, the writer was allured by the attractions of the theme and its obvious instructiveness to enlarge the manuscript into a
small volume. There is here no pretence
to original research, but simply a presentation of the results of an effort to gather and
group in a brief compact form those facts
which lie scattered through many volumes
on our bookshelves.
The plan of the book embraces the following points:
1. A statement of the fact, together with
confirmatory proof of the fact, that three
hundred years ago the Protestant world was
almost exclusively a Presbyterian world.
2. A rapid survey of this Presbyterian



INTROD UCTION.            7
ism in its progress from the rise of the Reformation, and a glance at the aspect of the
field three hundred years ago.
3. A glance also at the chief champions,
on both sides, who figured in the conflict.
4. A narrative of some of the incidents
in the great conflict of those memorable
times.
We trust that the perusal of these pages
may help to beget some additional interest
in our Church system and history, at least
in the minds and hearts of our younger
Presbyterians.
PEHILADELPHA, May, 1872.








PRESBYTERIANISM.
pRESBYTERIANISM, strictly speaking,
is a system of Church government, and
is by no means necessarily allied to any one
system of doctrine. History indeed shows
it so steadily inclining toward, and so generally associated with, a certain well-known
body of religious doctrine as to suggest probable affinities between them. Indeed, civil
governments vary in form very largely as
they vary in those fundamental doctrines
respecting the natural prerogatives of manhood that severally underlie them.  The
general prevalence of the belief that man is
made in the image of his God, and is endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable
rights, is very apt to shape the civil government after some one of the various forms
of Republicanism, while the doctrine of the
9




10          PRESB YTEIRIANIS.M
divine right of kings will tolerate no other
form of government than that of a hereditary
despotism. Likewise, the system of doctrine that looks upon Adam in Eden as the
legally constituted federal head and representative of the race, and the Son of God
as, in li.ke manner, the Head and Representative of all the finally saved, and that
regards those finally saved as drawn to sal-vation through the execution of an eternal,
divine decree, is perhaps, as suggested by
Mr. Barnes in his essay on "The Affinities
of Presbyterianism," more likely to associate itself with a system of ecclesiastical
courts, with bodies for legislation and governmental control, than with the less compact system of councils for mere consultation and advice.
As a matter of history and fact, " the Presbyterian mode of government does not combine with Arminianism, with Sabellianism,
with Pelagianism, with Socinianism; and
if such a union occurs at any time, it is only
a temporary and manifestly a forced con



THREE HUNDRED. YEARS AGO.    11
nection. There are no permanent Arminian, Pelagian, Socinian presbyteries, synods,
general assemblies on earth. There are no
permanent instances where these forms of
belief or unbelief take on the presbyterial
form.  There are no Presbyterian forms
of ecclesiastical administration where they
would be long retained."*
Still, it is none the less true that Presbyterianism, strictly speaking, is a system of
Church government. It is government by
an eldership. The eldership is its essential
and radical idea. And it is of Presbyterianism as a form  of Church government
that we now write.
A Presbyterian church is a church governed by a presbytery. A presbytery consists of a body of presbyters. A presbyter
is an elder. Hence any church under the
governmental oversight and control of a
body of elders is a Presbyterian church.
These elders are of two classes, those who,
while ruling, labor also in word and doc* Rev. Albert Barnes.




12          PRESBYTERIANISM
trine, and those who rule, but labor not in
word and doctrine. 1 Tim. v. 17. There are
preaching elders and non-preaching elders.
The preaching elders (or presbyters) stand
all officially on a footing of perfect equality.
The same is true of the non-preaching elders
among themselves.  In — the'governing assemblies all the elders, preaching and nonpreaching, are officially equal.  The vote
of any one of them is of equal weight with
the vote of any other.
In a thoroughly-organized Presbyterian
church a certain number of non-preaching
elders, elected by the people, together with
the preaching elder, also elected by the people, govern a single congregation; a larger
number of elders govern a cluster of congregations, and a larger number still, representing the whole Church, govern all below
them.
"The radical principles of Presbyterian
Church government and discipline are: That
the several congregations of believers, taken
collectively, constitute one Church of Christ,




THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.    13
emphatically called the Church; that a
larger part of the Church, or a representation
of it, should govern a smaller or determine
matters of controversy which arise therein;
that in like manner a representation of the
whole should govern and determine in regard
to every part and to all the parts unitedthat is, that a majority shall govern, and
consequently that appeals may be carried
from lower to higher judicatories till they
be finally decided by the collected wisdom
and united voice of the whole Church."
Thus in a Presbyterian, church "the people have a right to a substantive part in its
government; presbyters who minister in
word and doctrine are the highest permanent officers of the Church and all belong to
the same order, and the outward and visible
Church is or should be one in the sense that
a smaller part is subject to a larger and a
larger to the whole."  This is Presbyterianism.
2








I.
PRESBYTERIANISM THREE HUNDRED YEARS
AGO.
THREE hundred years ago the Protestant
world was almost exclusively a Presbyterian world.  The early Reformers, as is
well known to all familiar with the history
of their times, when they put off the tyranny of Rome, adopted, almost with one
consent, the fundamental principles of Presbyterianism-namely, official equality among
the clergy and government by presbyterial
bodies. To this the Church of England,
that owes its origin to Henry VIII., was
almost the sole exception.
1. For antiquity, for purity of doctrine,
and for fidelity in keeping and for zeal in
propagating the faith once delivered to the
saints, the Church of the Waldenses stands
in the very front rank. And this Church
was a Presbyterian Church.
15




16          PRESBYTERIANISM
"As early as the sixteenth century,"
writes Dr. Smythe, with abundant learning
and a profuse array of quotations from
various authorities, "the Waldensian polity
was precisely what it is now. Every church
had its consistory, every consistory and pastor was subject to the synod, and it was composed of all the pastors, with elders. Over
this synod one of the ministers was chosen
by his brethren, and without any second
ordination presided. This presiding minister was called then, as he is called now,
moderator.  He was required, in accordance with the plan of the early Scottish
Church, to visit different parishes, and to
ordain only-in conjunction with other ministers. But he was in all things responsible
to the synod by which he had been appointed to office."
Milner (vol. ii., chap. iii.) quotes the following from a book concerning the Waldensian pastors: "The pastors meet once every
year to settle our affairs in a general synod.
The money given us by the people is car



THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.    17
ried to the said general synod, and is there
received by the elders."
2. As to the mother of the Reformed
Churches, at Geneva, Mosheim writes:' Calvin introduced into the republic of Geneva,
and endeavored to introduce into all the
Reformed Churches throughout Europe,
that form of ecclesiastical government which
is called Presbyterian, from its admitting
neither the institution of bishops nor of
any subordination among the clergy. - He
established at Geneva a consistory composed
of ruling elders, partly pastors and partly
laymen, and invested this ecclesiastical body
with a high degree of authority. He also
convened synods composed of ruling elders
of different churches, and in these had laws
enacted for the regulation of all matters:of
a religious nature."
3. Not one whit behind any Church of
the Reformation in the thoroughness of its
Presbyterianism was the Church of France.
In the Confession of Faith: drawn up in
Paris in 1559, we read:
2




.18        PRESBYTERIANISM
"Article xxix. We believe that this true
Church ought to be governed by that discipline which our Lord Jesus hath established,so that there should be in the Church
pastors, elders and deacons, that the pure
doctrine may have its course and vices may
be reformed and- suppressed.
"Article xxx. We believe that all true
pastors, in whatever places they may be disposed, have all the same authority and equal
power among themselves under Jesus Christ,
the only Head, the only Sovereign and only
universal Bishop."
As to the type of Presbyterianism that
obtained in France, Dr. Hodge, in his Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church
in the United States, writes: "It is a great
mistake to suppose that French Presbyterianism was more mild than that. of Scotland.
There are many acts of her synods which
would make modern ears tingle, and which
prove that American Presbyterianism in its
strictest forms was a sucking dove compared
to that of the immediate descendants of the




THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.    19
Reformers."  Some idea of the kind of:
Presbyterianismn which prevailed in France
may be gathered from the fact that the provincial synods were obliged to furnish their
deputies to the national synod with a commission in these terms:
" We promise before God to submit ourselves unto all' that shall be concluded and
determined in your holy assembly, to obey
and execute it to the utmost of our power,
being persuaded that God will preside among
you and lead you by his Holy Spirit into all
truth and equity by the rule of his word,
for the good and edification of his Church,
to the glory of his great name, which'we
humbly beg of his divine Majesty in our
daily prayers."
4. The Church of Holland was twin sister
in doctrine and discipline with the Church
of France.
"The Reformation," writes Motley, " entered Holland through the' Huguenot Gate.'
It may. safely be asserted," he adds, "that
the early Reformers of the provinces were




20          PRESBYTERIANISM
mainly Huguenots in their belief." How
safely this may be asserted is seen in the
fact. that "when the deputies from the Dutch
churches appeared in the national synod
(of France) held in 1583, and tendered the
Confession of Faith and body of church
discipline owned and embraced by the said
churches.of the Low Countries, this assembly, having humbly and heartily blessed
God for that secret union and agreement,
both in doctrine and discipline, between the
churches of this kingdom and that republic, did judge meet to subscribe them both;
and it did also request those, our brethren,
their deputies, reciprocally to subscribe our
Confession of Faith and body of church
discipline, which in obedience to the commission given them by their principals they
did accordingly, thereby testifying mutual
harmony and concord in doctrine and discipline of all the churches in both nations."*
5. In the Lutheran Church, also, we find
the fundamental principles of Presbyterian* Iodge's "Constitutional History."




THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.   21
ism. The Rev. Dr. S. S. Schmucker quotes:of the early Lutheran emigrants to America: "They at once adopted the form which
Luther and the Lutheran divines generally
have always regarded as the primitive oneviz., the parity of ministers, the co-operation of the laity in church government and
the free voluntary convention of synods."
"The doctrine of Presbytery as opposed to
Prelacy," writes Dr. Wm. Cunningham in
his Historical Theology, "was not only held,
as we have seen, by Luther and his associates, but was distinctly declared in the
Articles of Schmalkalden, which is one of the
symbolical books of the Lutheran Church.
There it is set forth that all the functions of
church government belong equally of right
to all who preside over churches, whether
called pastors, presbyters or bishops; and
this general principle is expressly applied
to ordination, as proving that ordination by
ordinary pastors is valid."
As to the superintendents in some of the
Lutheran churches, "this institution- affords




22          PRESB YTERIANISM
1no testimony in favor of proper prelacy.
These superintendents are not regarded as
holding a distinct higher office, superior to
that of presbyters, and  investing  them
simply as holding that office with jurisdiction over ordinary pastors, but merely as
presbyters raised by the common consent of
their brethren to a certain very limited control for the sake of order. This institution
is no proof that the Lutheran Church hold
the doctrine of prelacy, but merely that
they  hold  the  lawfulness of a certain
limited pre-eminence or superiority being
conferred by presbyters upon one of themselves."
Even -the ecclesiastical government in
Denmark, Sweden and Norway shows "but
a slight deviation from the general uniformity of the Reformed Churches as a whole;
and, besides, the Protestant bishops set up in
these countries at the Reformation were not
the regular successors of men who: had been
consecrated to. the episcopal office, but derived: their.ordination  and..authority from




THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.    23
Luther and the presbyters who were associated with him."
6. That in England the great body of the
early Reformers who refused submission to
the exactions of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth
were Presbyterians in principle is abundantly evident.
It is perhaps a common impression that
the term Puritan, as applied to the early
English dissenters, was in the ecclesiastical
view generally synonymous with the term
Independent. This is very wide of the
truth. Mingled with the English Reformers was a large number of Independents who
did good service in the fight for liberty of
worship, but they were far outnumbered by
the Presbyterians.
As for Wickliffe, the morning star of the
Reformation, he was for "rejecting all human rites, and with regard to the identity
of the order of bishops and priests in the
apostolic age he was very positive." On
the essential points of Presbyterianism the
opinion of distinguished clergymen in the




24          PRESB YTERIIANISM
early Church of England is very significant.
Even Cranmer proposed the erection of
courts similar to the kirk sessions and provincial synods afterward introduced into
the Church of Scotland and universal among
the Presbyterians of the Continent.
When, in 1588, Bancroft, chaplain to the
archbishop, in a sermon at St. Paul's Cross,
broached the novelty "that the bishops of
England were a distinct order'from the
priests,and had superiority over them by
divine right and directly from God," Whitgift, the learned and zealous prelatist, said
that "he rather wished than believed it to
be true."
Dr. John Reynolds, regarded at that time
as the most learned man in the Church of
England, in an answer to this sermon of
Bancroft, wrote:
"All who have for five hundred years last
past endeavored the reformation of the Church
have taught that all pastors, whether they be
called bishops or priests, are invested with
equal authority and power, as first the Wal



THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.:25
denses, next Marsilius Patavianus, then
Wickliffe and his scholars, afterward Huss
and the Hussites, and last of all Luther,
Calvin, Brentius, Bullinger and Musculus.
Among ourselves we have bishops, thequeen's professors of divinity in our universities and other learned men consenting
therein, as Bradford, Lambert, Jewel, Pilkington, etc. But why do I speak of particular persons?  It is the common judgment of the Reformed churches of Helvetia,
Savoy, France, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Low Countries and our
own.",
The "Discipline of the Church as described in the word of God," drawn up by
Travers and printed at Geneva, 1574, which
is thoroughly Presbyterian, was afterward
subscribed by more than five hundred beneficed clergymen in England as agreeable to
the word of God and to be promoted by all
lawful means. Neal writes that under the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I. the Puritans were for the most part Presbyterians,




26         PRESB YTERIANISM.
and at the restoration of Charles II. he
says that the Presbyterians were in possession of the whole power of England; the
council of state, the chief officers of the
army and navy and the governors of the
chief forts and garrisons were theirs. Their
clergy were in possession of both universities and of the best livings in. the kingdom.
7. Of the Presbyterianism  of Scotland,
shaped under the eye and largely by the
hand of Knox, we need not speak.
Thus, at the Reformation, the Church by
almost unanimous consent flew back, as a
child escaped from  the wilderness to its
mother's bosom, to Presbyterianism, and
three hundred years ago the Protestant
world was almost exclusively a Presbyterian world.




II.
THE FIELD.
LET us now take a rapid survey of Presbyterianism in its progress from the rise
of the Reformation, and in its actual condition as to organization and the number
of its adherents in 1572.
PIEDMONT.
In seeking for Presbyterianism in 1572,
it seems strange that we should have to
spend a thought on Rome-ridden Italy.
And yet it is to Italy we betake ourselves
in quest of the oldest body of Presbyterians in the wide world!
In the extreme north-west of that sunny
labnd, separating Italy from  France, there
rises a pile of mountain barriers whose
snowy peaks look down upon the clouds.
This mountain mass forms the western side
of an almost triangular patch of territory,
27




28      PSBESB YTERIANISM.
hemmed in by mountains, on the north and
mountains on the south, and sloping down
and narrowing as it falls toward the sunny
plains of, Piedmont upon the east. This
area is ridged with rough, angular, precipitous mountains, ploughed with deep, steepsided, secluded glens, with easier slopes here
and there that afford precarious herbage for
the chamois and sustenance more meagre
and. precarious for man.
Sweeping down from the north-west to
the south-east is one deep valley, called Pragela in part of its extent and farther on
Perouse. South of this, and opening into
it just where the Pragela ends and the
Perouse begins, is the valley of St. Martin.
On the southern side of the triangle, and
running almost directly eastward, is the valley of Luserne, and opening into it from
the north the valley of Angrogna, and
from the south another deep secluded valley, that of Rosa.
Through these valleys, rugged with rocky
fragments that have plunged down their,




PIEDMONT.              29
steep sides from the awful overhanging
cliffs, rush impetuous mountain torrents
which sometimes overflow their banks and
with resistless fury sweep away cattle, people and houses. All along their sides deep,
clefts in the mountains discharge into them
their contributions of melted snows in foaming streams.  Here and there at a dizzy
height juts out a stupendous mountain crag
which flings a huge shadow on the valley
below. The land abounds in chasms, grottoes and caves. In the great crag of Casteluzzo, in the valley of Luserne, there is a
vast natural grotto, scooped out and cleared
till it is capable of containing upward of
three hundred persons. Through the clefts
of the rock sufficient light makes its way
and an approaching foe may be observed.
The entrance to it is by a tunnel just large
enough to admit one person at a time.
Here and there the valley narrows into a
mere gorge along whose sides a path affords
precarious footing for the traveler, while
over -his head projecting cliffs threaten -de



t30         PRESB YTERIANISM.
struction. In many portions of this wild
country the pastor wears clogs under his
shoes, the soles and heels of which are
studded with spikes more than an inch long,
to make it tolerably safe to move about in
winter among the people of his flock. Far
up the valley of Angrogna is the Pra del
Tor, the  "Meadow  of the Tower," the
ancient seat of a Waldensian theological
school. It is a narrow defile hemmed in
by steep and inaccessible rocks which form a
sublime natural circumvallation of the spot.
The eyrie of the eagle is hardly more secure
from hostile intrusion.
Interspersed amid all this ruggedness are
spots of comparative fertility, yet in the
deeper recesses the harvest is meagre and
sometimes the unreaped fields are swept to
desolation by furious avalanches. Farther
down toward the plain the lands are richer
and more productive.
Now, all this rugged land, from its lower,
sunnier slopes to its deepest, darkest caverns,
-its awful mountain gorges, its dizzy terraces,




PIEDMONT.             31
its every foot is hallowed ground! No deep
recess but has echoed now with the preacher's impassioned voice, the sounds of prayer
and praise, and now with the wail of woe.
Everywhere its soil has been pressed and
its soilless rocks worn by the knees of the
suppliant pleading in Jesus' dear name.
Yes, and wild shrieks of martyred men,
women and children have drowned the
sounds of avalanche and mountain torrent
there, and those turbid glacier streams have
again and' again been crimsoned with martyrs' blood!
In days far back almost as the times of
the apostles, out from their quiet homes on
the sunny plains below,-up into those deep,
cold, dark recesses, the poor persecuted
saints were driven, bearing with them the
form and institutions of the faith delivered
to the saints by Christ and the apostles.
So early as 1520, Romish historians represent the dwellers in these valleys as forming the most-ancient of heretical sects. One,of their own historians, writing near the




32         PRESBYTERIANISM.
close of the seventeenth century, says, " The
Waldenses are descended from those refugees who, after St. Paul had there preached
the gospel, abandoned their beautiful country and fled, like the woman mentioned in
the Apocalypse, to these wild mountains,
where they have-to this day handed down
the gospel from father to son in the same
purity and simplicity as it was preached by
St. Paul." And right pertinent is the question, "Is it wonderful if the glare of the
fires at Rome, where Christians were bound
to stakes, covered with pitch and burnt in
the evenings -to illuminate the city, should
induce those yet at liberty to betake themselves for shelter to the almost inaccessible
valleys of the Alps and to the clefts of the
rocks, trusting to that God in whose hands
are the deep places of the earth, and considering that the strength of the hills is his
also?"
To the Reformer CEcolampadius and others
the Waldenses in 1530 wrote: "That you
may at once understand the matter, we are




PIEDMONT.                    33
a sort of teachers of a certain necessitous
and small people, who already, for more
than four hundred years —nay, as those of
our country frequently relate, from the tomes
of the apostles —have sojourned among the
most cruel thorns, yet, as all the pious have
easily judged, not without great favor of
Christ."
Hence, welcoming  the name evangelical,
they indignantly refuse the name "Protestant." in the modern sense of the word.
For having never submitted to the impostures of Rome, they were never called upon
to reject them.
The story of their sorrows at one time
thrilled all Europe and drew from Milton's sublime pen the noted adjuration:
"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stonesForget not, in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
3




34          PRESB YTERIANISM.
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow'
O'er all the Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant, that from these may grow
A hundredfold who, having learned thy wa.y,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe."
In that northern valley of Pragela on
Christmas day, 1400, a furious onset was
made upon the faithful by the devotees of
the pope. Many were slain; and as the
snow was deep, the escaping fugitives perished by the way, and on the following
morning some eighty infants were found
dead beside their dying mothers.
In 1500 the valley of Luserne was made
to run with Vaudois blood.  Very many of
the persecuted people died in prison, whilst
some were burned alive.
Near La Tour, at the junction of the valleys of Angrogna and Luserne, deeds were
done that shame the human name.  Houses
and churches were burned to the ground;
infants were torn from their mothers' breasts
and dashed against the rocks; the sick were
either burned alive, cut in pieces or rolled
down precipices with their head and feet tied




PIEDMONT.             35
together; many had gunpowder crammed
into the mouth and exploded; multitudes
were mutilated in various ways-nose, fingers
and toes cut off-and then turned out to perish in the snow. Other deeds were done too
shameless to record.
How piteously and piously did they plead
for relief from the horrors of persecution,
and yet with what firm fidelity to the truth I
Ten or twelve years before 1572 they addressed a petition to Philibert Emmanuel,
duke of Savoy and prince of Piedmont, in
which they say:
" We do protest before the almighty and
all-just God, before whose tribunal we must
all one day appear, that we intend to live
and die in the holy faith, piety and religion
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we do
abhor all heresies that have been and are
condemned by the word of God.
"We do embrace the most holy doctrines
of the prophets and apostles, as likewise of
the Nicene and Athanasian creeds; we subscribe to the four councils and to all the




36         PRESB YTERIANIS2I.
ancient Fathers in all such things as are not
repugnant to the analogy of faith.
"The Turks, Jews, Saracens and other
nations, though never so barbarous, are suffered to enjoy their own religion, and we
who serve and worship in faith the true and
almighty God and one true and only Sovereign, the Lord Jesus, and confess one God
and one baptism, shall not we be suffered to
enjoy the same privileges?
"-We humbly implore your Highness'
goodness, and that for our only Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ's sake, to allow unto
us, your most humble subjects, the most
holy gospel of the Lord our God in its
purity, and that we may not be forced to do
things against our consciences."
The Church polity of this people, as has
already been shown, is now and has been as
far back as memory reaches, in all essential
points, Presbyterian.
"They have in each congregation a consistory equivalent to the church session.
The consistory is composed of the pastor,




PIEDMONT.              37
the elders and the deacons. The deacons
have the care of the poor. The elders are
first nominated by the congregation  and
then elected by the consistory. They are
regularly  installed  after sermon  in  the
church, and have a charge to watch over
the spiritual interests of the flock, to aid the
pastor, to reprove the erring, to exhort to
the performance of duty, and two of them
are appointed -to represent the congregation in the higher ecclesiastical tribunal.
The Waldenses believe in the parity of the
ministry, their pastors, or barbas, being all
equal. They have ecclesiastical supervision
by a court of review and control. They
have but one superior ecclesiastical court —
viz., the synod-which includes the functions of both presbytery and synod. The
synod is composed of all the ministers who
are actual pastors or professors in their colleges, and of two elders from each parish,
who, however, have but one vote. The synod
elect one of their ministers as moderator,
whose office continues till the time of the




38          PRESB YTERIATISM.
next meeting.  His office gives him  no
power beyond that of any presiding officer,
and it expires with the appointment of his
successor. The ceremony of ordination with
them is precisely similar to the corresponding rite as it is practiced in the Presbyterian
Church of the United States."
In 1572 we'find this people, for so many
centuries the bush burning in the fires of
persecution, yet unconsumed, still nestling
in their mountain recesses, with the snowpeaked heights towering above them, the
crash of the avalanche and the hiss and roar
of the glacier torrents ever in their ears,
and a wicked, wily and remorseless foe ever
ready to spring with tiger ferocity upon
them. Of their actual numbers three hundred years ago it is impossible to speak with
certainty. That, however, they formed a
pretty numerous body is evident from the
numbers which were constantly given of
the slaughtered and imprisoned in the
various persecuting onslaughts made upon
them.




SWITZERLAND.           39
SWITZERLAND.
Crossing the mountain barriers that encompass the sighing valleys and gorges of
the Waldenses, we find ourselves in Switzerland.
"The history of the Swiss Reformation,"
writes D'Aubigne, "is divided into three
periods in which the light of the gospel is
seen spreading successively over three different zones. From 1519 to 1526, Zurich
was the centre of the Reformation, which
was then entirely German, and was propagated in the eastern and northern parts
of the Confederation. Between. 1526 and
1532 the movement was communicated from
Berne, which is at once: German and French,
and extended to the centre of Switzerland,
from the gorges of the Jura to the deepest
valleys of the Alps. In 1532, Geneva became the focus of light, and the Reformation, which was here essentially French, was
established on the Leman Lake and gained
strength in every quarter."
For centuries Switzerland was the strong



40          PRESB YTEIRIANISM.
hold of the papacy; it is to become one
mountain-girt fortification of a purified
Christianity.  Mont Blanc rises not more
grandly from Chamouny than is Swiss
Presbyterianism to rise before the eyes of
Europe.
When the sounds from the gospel trumpet began to reverberate among the mountains of Switzerland, the world wondered at
the host of champions that at once responded to the summons.
FAREL came —the almost rashly intrepid
Farel, the man who, encountering a Romish
procession in honor of St. Anthony, felt his
spirit so stirred within him that he seized
the image of the saint and threw it into the
river! Journeying from Strasburg to Switzerland in company with a single friend,
night closed around them, the rain fell in
torrents, and the travelers, in despair of
finding their road, had sat down midway,
drenched with rain.  "All!" said Farel,
"God, by showing me my helplessness in
these little things, has willed to teach me




SWVITZERLAND.  41
what I am in the greatest, without Jesus
Christ." At last, springing up, he plunged
into the marshes, waded through the waters,
crossed vineyards, fields, hills, forests and
valleys, and at length reached his destination.
"Let us scatter the seed everywhere,"
writes this evangelical Jehu, "and let civilized France, provoked to jealousy by this
barbarous nation, embrace piety at last. Let
there not be in Christ's body either fingers
or hands or feet or eyes or ears or arms
existing separately and working each for
itself, but let there be only one heart that
nothing can divide." In his preaching he
seemed to thunder rather than speak. They
rang the bells to drown his voice and drew
their swords to intimidate him, and all
equally in vain.
(ECOLAMPADIUS, the l~elanchthon of Switzerland, appeared. He was as meek and
quiet as Farel was impetuous. His books
were his bosom friends. Tall, handsome,
patriarchal in appearance, his influence in




42          PRESB YTERIANISM.
Switzerland was second in weight only to
that of Zwingle or Calvin.
ULRICH ZWINGLE is another name that
will be known and honored as long as any
of those inscribed upon the walls of the
restored Church in Switzerland. Twenty
miles from the south-eastern extremity of
Lake Zurich, and two thousand feet above
the level of the lake, there was a small village named Wildhaus. "The fruits of the
earth grew not upon these heights. A green
turf of Alpine freshness ascends the sides
of the mountain, above which enormous
masses of rock rise in savage grandeur to
the skies."  Here is a pleasant cottage "of
thin walls, windows composed of round
panes of glass, roof formed of shingles
loaded with stones to prevent their being
carried away by the wind.  Before the
house bubbles a limpid stream."
In this lonely chalet, occupied by a family
of the name of, Zwingle, on New Year's
day, 1484, seven weeks after the birth of
Luther, a babe was born and named Ulrich.




SWITZERLANVD.           43
As he grew up, the boy was sent to study
at Berne, and having there become familiar with. polite letters, went thence to
Vienna to acquaint himself with philosophy. Again, at the age of eighteen, we
find him  at Basle, a teacher in St. Martin's school and a student of scholastic
divinity, until, weary with its babbling, confused inanities, he cast it fromn him in disgust. At the age of twenty-two he became
priest of Glaris, not far from  his native
place. The spirit in which he entered upon
his work at this place is disclosed in his
own words: "Young as I was, the office of
the priesthood filled me with greater fear
than joy, for this was ever present to methat the blood of the sheep who perished
through any neglect or guilt of mine would
be required at my hands."
To equip himself for the solemn work
before him, the young priest devoted himself with all ardor to the study of the New
Testament.  Paul's Epistles he copied in
Greek with his own hand, filling the mar



44         PRLESB YI ERIAINISM.
gin with observations of his own and with
quotations from the Fathers.
From  Glaris, Zwingle went to Einsidlen.
Here he committed to memory the Epistles
of St. Paul and afterward other books of
the Old and New Testaments. Here he obtained still deeper insight into the knavery
of the Church of Rome and the wrongs it
inflicted on the people, and according to
his ever-increasing light his preaching became more clear and evangelical. Here his
education as Reformer was completed.
And now Zurich called himl-" cheerful,
animated" Zurich, with  its amphitheatre
of hills covered with vineyards or adorned
with pastures and orchards and crowned
with forests above which appear the highest
summits of the Alps. Zurich, the centre
of the political interests of Switzerland, and
in which were often collected the most influential men in the nation,.was the spot best
adapted for acting on Helvetia and scattering the seeds of truth through all the cantons. Accordingly, the friends of learning




SWITZERLAND.            45
and of the Bible joyfully hailed Zwingle's
nomination.
Now began the great work and struggle
of his life. It'was on Saturday, the first
day of the year 1519, Zwingle's thirty-fifth
birthday, that he entered the pulpit of the
cathedral church of Zurich-a pulpit that
for centuries had spoken only in the name of
the pope of Rome. Among his first words
in that pulpit were these: "It is to Christ
that I desire to lead you-to Christ, the true
source of salvation. His divine word is the
only food that I wish to set before your
hearts and souls." The crowds came together to hear his expositions of the Gospels.
The common people listened to him gladly.
"Bold and energetic in the pulpit, he was
affable to all that he met in the streets or
public places," and thus he won the hearts
as well as instructed the minds of the
people.
In 1523 he secured the gathering of an
assembly at Zurich and the passage of an
edict which made the doctrines of the Ref



46         PRESB YTERIANISM.
ormation the largely accepted doctrines of
the whole canton.  In 1527, in a much
larger assembly at Berne, Zwingle and
others discussed the great doctrines of the
gospel and mightily convinced many halting ones. As a result, Berne adopted the
Reformed worship, and in less than four
months all the municipalities of the canton
followed its example.
HENRY BULLINGER, too, heard and answered the reforming call. When three
years old he would find his way into the
church, climb into the pulpit and recite
the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed.
When a boy at school, like Luther, he
gained his bread by singing songs from door
to door. At the age of sixteen he found
and opened the New Testament, and there,
said he, "I found all that is necessary for
man's salvation."  From  that time the
Fathers were nothing to him, but he explained Scripture by Scripture, as the Scriptures themselves command and the pope
forbids. He acquired vast stores of learn



SWITZERLAND.            47
ing, was one of the authors of the Helvetic
Confession, and assisted Calvin in drawing
up the formulary of 1549. He was a faithful, conscientious man, and one of the bulwarks of the Reformation.  He was the
successor of Zwingle at Zurich.
Writes D'Aubigne: " The youthful Henry
Bullinger, threatened with the scaffold, had
been compelled to flee from Bremgarten,
his native town, with his aged father, his
colleague and sixty of the principal inhabitants. Three days after this he was preaching in the cathedral of Zurich.  "No,
Zwingle is not dead!" exclaimed Myconius,
"or, like the phoenix, he has risen again from
his ashes."  Bullinger was unanimously
chosen to succeed the great Reformer. He
adopted Zwingle's orphan children, and endeavored to supply the place of their father.
This young man, then scarce twenty-eight
years of age, and who presided forty years
with wisdom and blessing over this church,
was everywhere greeted as the apostle of
Switzerland.




48         PRESBYTERIANIS M.
Among this school of worthies was OsWALD  MYCONIUS.  He was a native of
Lucerne. His youthful eyes often glanced
over the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons
to the Rigi, and often up to the cloudy peak
of Mount Pilatus. He was a schoolmaster,
and at the same time a disciple of Him who
said, "Learn of me."  He taught at Berne
and then at Basle. In 1516 he withdrew
from Basle to become the superintendent of,
the cathedral church at Zurich.  There,
while he gave lessons in literature, he failed
not to teach the unsearchable riches of
Christ, declaring that "if the pope and the
emperor command anything in opposition
to the gospel, man is bound to obey God
alone, who is above both the emperor and
the pope."
It was largely through the efforts and
influence of Myconius that Zwingle came
to Zurich.  There, for a time, they two
walked together arm in arm and fought
together shoulder to shoulder.'But a call
came from his native land. He was made




SWITZERLAND.           49
head-master of the collegiate school at Lucerne. At his departure Zwingle was in great
sorrow. "Your departure," he wrote, "has
inflicted a blow on the cause I am defending
like that suffered by an army when one of its
wings is destroyed." Poor, faithful Myconius! Lucerne papists drove him and his
feeble wife and child into exile, but God
reaped a harvest from the seed he sowed.
FRANCIS LAMBERT also appeared. He
was a Franciscan friar who lived at Avignon.  As soon as his neighbors began to
take knowledge of him that he had been
with Jesus they threatened him, and he
fled to Geneva, where he preached the gospel; then crossing the lake, he climbed the
hill and preached the gospel at Lausanne;
next we find him where the rushing Sarine
washes the bases of the heights of Freyburg,
and the citizens of Berne listen to him
while he denounces the mass, the traditions
of Romanism and the superstitions and
vices of the monks. There he goes in his
monk's dress, riding on an ass,-his legs so
4




50         PRESB YTERIANISM.
long that his bare feet almost touch the
ground, on, on through narrow ravines,
along dizzy precipices, over mountains and
across the vales. He comes to Zurich,
preaches four sermons, in one of which, his
eyes but partially opened, he speaks with
commendation of praying to the Virgin and
the saints.
A voice from the congregation calls out,
"Brother, you are mistaken!" It is the
voice of Zwingle.
Lambert challenges Zwingle to a public
disputation of the point. Zwingle promptly
accepts. Great is the excitement in Zurich.
What sadder to the believers, what more
delightful to the papists, than a quarrel between the Reformers!
A  large assembly gathered.  Zwingle
spoke long and with great power, showing
the folly and the sin of praying to the
saints and the Virgin. Lambert's turn
came to reply. Standing up, he clasped his
hands together, raised his eyes to heaven
and exclaimed:




SWITZERLAND.-,51
"I thank thee, O God! that by means
of this great and good servant of thine thou
hast brought me to a fuller knowledge of
the truth." Then turning to the people, he
added, "IHenceforth in all my troubles I
will call upon God alone, and I will throw
aside my beads."
The next day he left Zurich, mounted on
his ass, first visiting Erasmus at Basle, and
afterward Luther at Wittenberg.
Another champion of the faith in Switzerland was THOMAS WITTEMBACH.  In
1505 he preached in Basle. He was earnest, of sincere piety, skilled in the liberal
arts and in mathematics, and profound in
his knowledge of the word of God. His
lectures kindled a deep interest in many
waiting hearts. Zwingle was among the
charmed listeners to his words. " The hour
is not far distant," said the lecturer, "in
which the scholastic theology will be set
aside and the old doctrines of the Church
revived. Christ's death is the only ransom
for our souls."




52         PRESB YTERIANISM.
Among those listeners to the lectures of
Wittembach, at Basle, was a young man
twenty-three years old, of small stature, of
weak and sickly frame and of a temperament in which meekness and intrepidity
were singularly combined. His name was
LEO JUDA, the son of a priest of Alsace.
He became the intimate and warmlyattached friend of Zwingle, and was his
successor at Einsidlen. Leo played on the
dulcimer and sang very sweetly. He studied
the Oriental languages, and the works especially of Jerome and Augustus. For eighteen years at Zurich he thundered against
the abominations of the papacy both from
the pulpit and through the press. Assisted
by others, he, at the request of his brethren,,undertook the translation of the Old Testament, and toiled so severely at his task
that his health gave way. When he died,
one of the brightest lights of the Reformation ceased to shine in the Church below.
But among the great ones of the. Reformation few were so truly great as JOHN




SWITZERLAND.            53
CALVIN. Of him Theodore Beza, in whose
arms he died, has left this photograph:
"Calvin was not large of stature; his
complexion was pale, his eyes peculiarly
bright and indicative of penetrating genius;
he was equally averse to extravagance and
parsimony. For many years he took but
one meal a day. Of sleep he had almost
none. His memory was incredible. Of the
numerous details connected with the business of his office he never forgot even the
most trifling, and this notwithstanding the
incredible multitude of his affairs.  His
judgment was astonishingly acute. He despised fine speaking, and was rather abrupt
in his language.  He wrote admirably,
and no other theologian of his time expressed himself so clearly, impressively and
acutely.
"Endowed by nature with a dignified
seriousness of manner and character, no one
was more agreeable in ordinary conversation. He could bear in a wonderful manner with the failings of others. He never




54          PRESB YTERIANISM.
shamed any one by ill-timed reproofs, never
discouraged a weak brother and never
spared a willful sin. He was as powerful
and strong an enemy to the vices of mankind as he was a devoted friend to truth,
simplicity and uprightness. His temperament, naturally choleric, was subdued by
the spirit of love.
"Having been for sixteen years a witness
of his labors, I have perused the history of
his life and death with all fidelity, and I
now unhesitatingly testify that every Christian may find in this man the noble pattern of a truly Christian life and Christian
death."
Calvin enjoyed the friendship and assistance of two excellent men, Farel and Vinet.
Calvin was a deep thinker, and loved seclusion; Farel was a large-hearted, impulsive
and often rash Reformer.  Calvin spoke
vigorously, powerfully, with abrupt energy;
Vinet fascinated his hearers with the exquisite' sweetness of his tone, language and
manner. Luther'sgreat themewas justifica



S WITZER LAND.          55
tion by faith; Calvin united the great idea
of election with justification, and grounded
the latter on the former. Luther saw in
God the great Pardoner through the merits
of his Son; Calvin saw God as the omnipotent, all-wise Sovereign, selecting whom he
would to be the recipients of his salvation.
Luther was the champion of doctrinal truth;
Calvin added to his championship of the
truth the rigor of the strict disciplinarian.
Calvin was born at Noyon in Picardy,
July 10, 1509. His mother was a beautiful woman, his father of manly mould.
Calvin enjoyed all the educational advantages of his day. He was at first destined
to the priesthood, but by the advice of his
father he abandoned this and became a
student of law. When he was twenty years
of age, his soul was suddenly aroused to a
sense of sin and danger. In his trouble,
finding no relief in ceremonies and masses,
he flew to God in Jesus Christ, and on the
death of his father, in 1523, he went to
Paris, determined to become a preacher of




56         PRESBYTERIANISM.
the gospel. Now several important works
issued from  his mighty pen, and he was
soon recognized as a leader in the great
rebellion against the Roman apostasy. He
prepared for Iicolas Coss, the rector of the
great university of Paris, an oration full of
the gospel, to be delivered on a feast-day
before the people of the city. The authorities, enraged at this, attempted to arrest
Coss. He escaped. They then sent officers
to arrest Calvin.  He escaped, being let
down from the window of his bedroom in
a basket.
In 1536 we find him at Geneva, where
for twenty-eight years he wrought mightily
in the cause of Reformation. Long before
this, through the preaching of Farel and
Vinet, a powerful work of reform had been
accomplished in this beautiful city, and in
1535, on the 27th of August, the senate had
decreed that the Reformed faith should be
the religion of the State. Here Calvin became preacher and teacher of theology.
After his first sermon the congregation fol



SWITZERLAND.            57
lowed him to his home to express their admiration and delight. An academy was
soon organized and a catechism published.
This catechism of Calvin was formally
adopted by the council and citizens as containing their confession of faith. But this
fervor on the part of the people gave place
to indignation when, under the bold and
pure teaching of the Reformer, they learned
that religion, in addition to an orthodox
creed, demanded a holy life, and, stung by
his reproofs, they banished him from the city.
After a time, one of Calvin's leading foes
in Geneva having been found guilty of
crime against the State, and having perished in his attempt to escape, another having been executed for murder, and two
others having fled to escape trial for treason, deputies were sent to him to entreat
his return. After some natural reluctance
to resume labors among so fickle a people,
he re-entered Geneva in September of 1541
amid the shouts of the multitude. He addressed the crowd, reminding them of their




58          PRESB YTERIANISII.
sins and telling them, with all plainness of
speech, that unless they reformed their lives
he could not live among them. He preached
and labored incessantly, and so great was his
fame that people flocked from other countries to enjoy his preaching and instructions,
whilst his judgment on ecclesiastical matters
was sought for by the Reformers in every
part of Europe.
Through the influence of Calvin a thorough system of ecclesiastical organization
and discipline was instituted throughout the
republic of Geneva-a system whose influence was powerfully felt, not only all over
Protestant Switzerland, but throughout the
Protestant world. According to this system,
each church was organized under a, body of
elders, each one of equal power with all the
others. This eldership formed the governing body of the particular congregation.
Next above this camne the provincial synod,
composed, with the clergy, of elders chosen,
one or two from each church, and invested,
with oversight and control of all the con



GERMANY.             59
gregations within the bounds of its jurisdiction.  Then over all stood the General Assembly, composed in like manner as the provincial synod, and having oversight of the
whole Church.
Thus, in 1572, a powerful and flourishing
Presbyterianism held the reins of influence
among the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland.
GERMANY.
Memorable for ever in the history of the
world will be the 10th of November, 1483,
for on that day MARTIN LUTHER was born.
It was the little town of Eisleben, in Saxony,
that enjoyed the honor of being the birthplace of the man whose doings fill so many
pages in the world's history. A solemn
hour was it in the life of this man when,
near to Erfurth, the thunderbolt fell at' his
feet, filling him with terror and teaching
him a never-forgotten lesson of the power
of the God he should one day serve-power
to defend his friends and destroy his foes.
Paul was smitten to the earth with a light




60         PRESB YTERIANISM.
above the brightness of the sun, Luther by
a — terrific flash of lightning. Memorable
again both in his own history and in that
of the world was the hour when, in the convent at Erfurth, Luther found that chained
Bible that was to liberate the world!
Luther goes to Rome in behalf of seven
monasteries who are quarreling with their
vicar-general. On his way he tarries here
and there in convents in which marble
shines in walls and ornaments, silks rustle
on the persons of the monks and sumptuous
tables illustrate their abstemiousness.  He
reaches Rome. He enters the northern gate,
and falling on his knees, exclaims, "Holy
Rome, I salute thee!"  Amazed and horror-stricken at the pride, luxury, licentiousness and profanity of all classes in Rome,
he goes to the Santa Scala, that staircase
of Pilate brought miraculously to Rome,
and on his knees he creeps up, saying his
aves and credos, when suddenly a voice of
thunder in his heart cries out, "The just
shall live by faith!"  He hastens from



GERMANY.              61
Rome, and now at length, in 1517, we see him,
a full-grown man, standing before the door
of the church of All Saints in Wittenberg.
There he stands, his eyes full of fire, a stern,
solemn countenance, brave, high spirited,
intrepid, a hammer in one hand, a paper in
the other. It is the 31st of October, at noon,
oil the day before the festival of All Saints.
The church had been built by the elector
and was full of relies. On its door he nails
the paper containing the ninety-five theses.
It was the shameless conduct of the
shameless Tetzel that spurred Luther to this
daring defiance  f'Rome.  This man, a
notorious adulterer, had come to Wittenberg
to. revive the traffic in indulgences. Pope
Leo X. needed money, and Tetzel was gathering it for him. This traffic in indulgences
had ever been a fertile source of replenishment to the papal exchequer. Tetzel boasted
that he had saved more souls by indulgences
than St. Peter ever saved by his preaching.
"I was compelled in my conscience," wrote
Luther, "to expose the scandalous sale of




62         PBES.BYTEIIANISM.
indulgences.  I found myself in it alone,
and as it were by surprise; and when it
became impossible for me to retreat, I made
many concessions to the pope, not, however,
in many important points, but certainly at
the time I adored him in earnest."
This act of Luther amazed Europe and
won applause from  thousands who, while
they admired, lacked the courage to imitate
his heroism, for it was a fearful thing to
lift the hand against the power that had
come to overshadow the civilized world.
At first, indeed, Pope Leo smiled at the
opposition of this monk'as a giant would
smile at the resistance of a little child. But
before a year had gone by his Holiness be.
gan to perceive that the Reformer was more
than a child, and he issued his mandate
bidding Luther within sixty days to present himself before the inquisitor-general at
Rome.  Frederick, elector of Saxony, Luther's friend, obtained leave for the trial of
Luther in Germany before Cardinal Cajetan.
But, sixteen days after the citation to the bar




GERMANY.             63
of Cajetan, the bishop of Acoli, auditor of
the apostolic chamber at Rome, condemned
Luther as an incorrigible heretic. Luther
presented himself at the bar of Cajetan, at
Augsburg, but finding no prospect of a fair
hearing, he withdrew to Wittenberg and
appealed from the pope ill informed to the
pope better informed.
The ripeness of Europe for reform is
abundantly evident from the marvelous impression produced by the stand taken by
Luther, and the wonderful esteem in which
his name was held not only notwithstanding, but because of his opposition to the pope.
Charles MiItitz, a Saxon knight, being sent,
in 1519, to negotiate with Luther in the
name of the pope, said, "Martin, you have
united the whole world to you and drawn it
from the pope. I have discovered this at
the inns on my way from Rome to Wittenberg. You are so much favored with the
popular opinion that I could not with the
help of twenty-five hundred soldiers compel you to follow me to Rome."




64          PRESBYTERIANISM.
Toward the close of this year, Luther
with new light in his heart, began to proclaim that in the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper both bread and wine ought to be
administered to the communicants.  This
called down another storm of indignation
from the bond-slaves of the papacy.
In  June, 1520, forty-one propositions
from Luther's works, which in the shape
of tracts, sermons, commentaries and letters
now flooded Europe, were condemned as
heretical, the reading of his works forbidden on pain of excommunication, whilst
such as had copies in their possession were
commanded to burn them, and Luther himself was charged within sixty days to recant
under pain of excommunication and final
deliverance to Satan. Luther, fearless alike
of Satan and the pope, raised a great pile
of wood outside the walls of Wittenberg,
and there, in the presence of the professors
and students of the university and of the
vast crowd of'citizens, committed to the
flames the papal bull, together with the vol



GERMANY.              60
umes of the canon law, the rule of the papal
jurisdiction, and thus for ever separated
himself from the Church of Rome!
Free now from all obligations to his old
master, Luther set himself thoroughly to reform the worship and doctrine of the church
at Wittenberg, and of all the churches where
his influence prevailed. In this work of
God he was warmly and efficiently aided
by large numbers of the learned in various
parts of Europe.  So rapidly spread the
work, and so formidable were the proportions it assumed, that some extraordinary
measures had become necessary to prevent
the overthrow of the papacy in large portions of the German empire. Accordingly, the emperor convened at Worms the
General Assembly of the empire, composed
of) its princes, archbishops, bishops and
many of its abbots. No sooner was the
body well organized than the legate of the
pope demanded the condemnation of Luther. But Luther's friends were too many
and too wise to consent to procedure against
5




66         PRESB YTEBIANISM.
the Reformer in his absence, and without
opportunity to answer for himself at the
imperial tribunal. At the appearance at
Worms of the man to whom  God had
granted the power and privilege of wielding
the truth so mightily vast crowds came
together, and even those who dreaded or
hated his doctrine were filled-with admiration at his intrepidity. For two hours, first
in German, then in Latin, he expounded and
defended the truth as he understood it, winning applause from a large proportion of the
assembly. But, lo! a sudden command from
the emperor dismissed him to his home, after
which the diet declared him an excommunicated heretic! To prevent his assassination, his good friend, the elector Frederic,
sent horsemen to waylay him and hurry him
to the castle of Wartburg, where for, ten
months he lay concealed from the knowledge
and power of his enemies.
In March, 1522, he: reappeared at Wittenberg, and soon issued his translations of the
New Testament. Copies of it were multi



GERMANY.              67
plied and circulated. - It was read by all
classes with amazing avidity, and wherever
read it was to the church of Rome like a
light kindled in a chamber long closed,
revealing dust and spiders and bats' nests
and all manner of abominations.
In 1525, Luther lost his efficient patron,
Frederick the Wise, who was, however,
succeeded by his brother John, both in the
electorship and in the patronship of the
Reformation. John at once took a decided
stand. He placed himself at the head of
the Reformers, provided a new order of
worship, placed well-qualified pastors over
the' congregations, ordered the sacramental
services to be administered in the German
tongue and sent heralds through the empire
to proclaim these important regulations.
Stimulated by this bold and heroic conduct,
other pAnces and other states joined in the
work of reform, and accepted and proclaimed
a similar form of worship, doctrine and
discipline. From every part of Germany
now came the call for men to preach a gos



68          PBESBYTERIANISM,
pel faith in the ears of a waiting, eager
people.
On the left bank of the Rhine, forty miles
north of Mayence, is the ancient town of
Speyer or Spires.  It has walls and ditches
and five gates, and a venerable old cathedral
that once contained the ashes of eight emperors, three empresses and two imperial
princesses.
In this town two very important imperial
diets were held.  The first assembled in
1526, and at this an attempt was made,
though successfully resisted, to decree an
enforcement of the condemnation passed
against Luther and his adherents at the
diet of Worms. The emperor was requested
instead to call a full ecclesiastical council
for the final adjustment of difficulties, and
in the mean time each state and prince was
left to its own discretion in matters pertaining to religion.  Free for the time from
persecuting hindrance, the precious leaven
spread through the meal, and Luther put
forth all his strength to consolidate the




GERMANY.              69
acquisitions thus far won to the cause of
right and truth.
But in 1529, much sooner than was anticipated, Charles V. convoked the second
imperial diet at Spires, which annulled the
provisions of its predecessor three years
before, and declared every change in doctrine, discipline and worship unlawful until
the decision of a general council could
be had.  Against this decision, as iniquitous and intolerable,ithe elector of Saxony,
the marquis of Brandenburg, the landgrave
of Hesse, the dukes of Lunenburg, the
prince of Anhalt, with the deputies of fourteen imperial cities, on the 19th of April,
solemnly PROTESTED. Thus arose the term
PROTESTANTS.
The next year the diet was held at Augsburg, a city of Bavaria, thirty-five miles
north-west of Munich.  It is a fine old
town. A group of government offices is
now covered by what was the roof of the
episcopal palace beneath which the "Confession of Augsburg" was presented to the




70    P.RESB YTE.RIANISM.
emperor Charles V. To the diet at this
place Charles had come in June, 1530,
determined to effect some adjustment of
the ecclesiastical troubles of the empire.
Luther was ordered to present a scheme
embracing the chief points of religious doctrine. He accordingly presented seventeen
articles of faith agreed upon at Torgau.
These were enlarged by Melanchthon at the
request of the princes, and the result of his.
work forms the noted" Augsburg Confession."  It contained twenty-eight chapters,
and was publicly read in the diet. But the
diet passed decrees against the Reformers
more violent even than those of WVorms.
Nothing daunted, Luther exhorted the Protestant princes to courage and firmness.
They met later in the year at Schmalkalden,
and formed a league of defence against all
aggressors, applying to France, England
and Denmark for aid. Through their favor
the Protestant princes, in 1532, secured a
treaty with Charles at Nuremberg which
amounted almost to a free toleration of




GERMIANY.            71.
Protestantism.  Now again the. Reformers
throughout Europe, thanking God, took
fresh courage and pushed on the work of
God. This same year Henry VIII. was;
divorced from Queen Catharine and'married to Anne Boleyn.
A vast body of Protestants now lay in
the heart of Germany, and for twelve or
fifteen years, by dint of courage and.vigilance, they not only held their ground, but
extended their conquests.  Rome became
furious, and in 1541 gathered her adherents
in conclave at Trent among the Tyrolese
mountains. This council embraced six cardinals, thirty-two archbishops, two hundred
and twenty-eight bishops and a multitude
of inferior clergy. The Protestant princes
met in diet at Ratisbon, and protested
against the authority of the conclave at
Trent. The emperor took up arms against
the princes, and defeated them in a bloody
battle. And now followed years of struggle, distress, humiliation for the Reformers and their followeis, yet in many a prov



72         PRESB YTERIANIS3I.
ince and city of growth in knowledge, purity
and strength.
During the years that followed the nailing of the theses to the door of All; Saints
church at Wittenberg, city after city and
province after province had joined the cause
of reform. At the head of the procession of
cities came Jiagdeburg. There Luther had
gone to school, and many of his old acquaintances and personal friends were in authority
and influence. One da.y an old weaver was
arrested for singing a Lutheran hymn and
offering it for sale. The citizens rose, met
in, a churchyard and appointed a committee
of eight to manage church matters and
appoint preachers. Other parishes followed
the example. At length, on the 17th of
June, 1524, the sacrament of the Supper
was administered after the Lutheran manner in all the churches of the old town.
At Briunswick, and in most of the towns
in this part of Germany, things took very
much the same course.  In all of them
preachers of the truth appear, Lutheran




GEBRMANY.             73
hymns are sung by the people and the
town council first resists and then gives
way. In Goelar fifty men were appointed
from the various parishes to carry out the
plans of IReform. At GUttingen the people
compelled the overseers of the commune to
acquiesce in their schemes. At Eimbeck the
commune compelled the council to recall the
preacher they had dismissed at the request
of the canons. In Bremen the pulpits had
become Lutheran as early as 1525., In
Lubeck, where the patrician families were
in close alliance with the clergy, Luther's
commentary on the Scriptures was burned
in the market-place.  The citizens rose
and appointed a committee of sixty-four to
manage the Reform.  They recalled the
expelled preachers, removed the adherents
of Rome from every pulpit in the city and
converted convents into schools and hospitals.
"So powerfully did the spirit of the
Reformation diffuse itself through Lower
Germany. Already it had' taken posses



74         PRESB YTERIANISM.
sion of a portion of the principalities; it
was triumphant in the Wendish cities; it
had penetrated into Westphalia, and seemed
about to pervade the whole character and
condition of Northern Germany." In April,
1535, the preachers of Bremen, Hamburg,
Lubeck, Rostock, Stralsund and Liineburg
entered into a convention in which they
determined that in future no one should be
permitted to preach who did not solemnly
subscribe to the Augsburg Confession.
Thus the great conflict went on. At
length, Maurice, now elector of Saxony,
after years of skillful management, suddenly flew to arms in the Protestant cause.
Attacking the emperor, he came near capturing him  at Innspruck, in 1552.  Just
at this time also Henry II. of France declared war against Charles, and the latter,
yielding to necessity, opened negotiations
with the Protestant princes assembled at
Passau. The treaty of Passau guaranteed
to the Protestants the free exercise of their
religion, and pledged a diet of the empire




GERMANY.              75
for the settlement of the great religious
question upon a reasonable and firm foundation. The diet met at Augsburg in 1555,
and there finally concluded the celebrated
"Peace of Religion," which gave religious
freedom to Germany and established the
R'eformatiol.
In this settlement it was agreed "that
the Protestants who followed the Confession
of Augsburg should be for the future considered as entirely exempt from the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, and from the
authority and superintendence of the bishops; that they were left at, perfect liberty
to enact laws for themselves relating to their
religious sentiments, discipline and worship;
that all the. inhabitants of the German
empire should be allowed to judge for themselves in questions relating to religious matters and to join themselves to that. Church
whose doctrine and worship they thought
the purest and the most consonant to the
spirit of Christianity; and that all those
who should injure or persecute any person




76         PRESBYTEBIANISMlM.
under religious pretexts and on account
of their opinions should be declared and
proceeded against as public enemies of the
empire, invaders of its liberty and disturbers of its peace."
Of such immeasurable importance and
imposing grandeur was the work achieved
by the blessing of God through the piety,
learning and heroism of Luther and his
coadjutors during the period of thirty-eight
years between the years 1517, when the
theses were nailed to the door of the church
of All Saints at Wittenberg, and the year
1555, when the diet of Augsburg decreed
this religious settlement.
Such, in the main, was the condition of
religious affairs in Germany in 1572, just
about one half century after the birth of
the Reformation. The Church was for the
most part at peace, whilst Luther and Melanchthon were sleeping side by side in the
church of All Saints at Wittenberg.




FRANCE.              77
FRANCE.
Turn we now to beautiful, guilty France.
To France, God, in his providence, proffered
the office and glory of being the bannerbearer to the Reformation. While Luther,
in 1517, was climbing the Santa Scala at
Rome on his knees and mumbling his Ave
Jlarias, while Zwingle was fighting as a soldier in the pope's Swiss army, a great, deep
work of grace was going on in France.
Before this time the aged Lefevre had exclaimed to his youthful pupil, Farel, "My
dear William, God will change the face of
the world, and you will see it!" Before this,
Lefevre, turning with disgust from a compilation of the lives of the saints, which he
said were fit only as "brimstone to kindle the fires of idolatry," completed his
commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul.
Before this he had discovered and proclaimed in the Sorbonne itself, "It is God
alone who by his grace justifies unto eternal
life. There is a righteousness of our own




78          PIRESB YTT ERIA NISM..
works, and a righteousness which is of grace;
the one of man, the other of God; the one
earthy and passing away, the other divine
and everlasting; the one discovering sin
and bringing the fear of death, the other
revealing grace for the attainment of life."
To these truths Farel and crowds of
others listened with delight, and some noble
spirits even now embraced the truth, and
girding on their armor, enlisted for the war.
" Thus, if we regard dates," writes D'Aubigne, "we must confess that neither to
Switzerland nor to Germany belongs the
hohor of having been first in the work.
That honor belongs to France.  It was
Lefevre and Farel who were first awakened
by. the voice of that trumpet which sounded
from heaven in the sixteenth century, and
who were earliest in the field on foot and
under arms."
Meanwhile there were two young people
growing up together in-the French court
who were to exert no small influence on the
cause. One was a prince, tall and of strik



FRANCE.               79
ing features and a slave to his passions; the
other was his sister, vigorous in understanding and of fine talents, natural and acquired.
The one, in 1515, became Francis. I., king
of France, the other was the princess Margaret of Valois, whom the king loved.with
exceeding  tenderness.  Margaret was of
fine person, passionately fond of literature
and full of wit. Her masculine judgment
was often of great service to the king, her
brother, in matters of moment to the State.
Surrounded by the most disgusting licentiousness, she turned from the world to the
gospel. She listened to Lefevre, to Farel,
to Brigonnet; the bishop of- Meaux, and
became a follower of Christ. "Thus, in
the glittering court of Francis I., and- in
the dissolute house of Louise of Savoy, was
wrought one of those conversions which in
every age are the work of the word of God."
Had Francis bnt followed in the steps of
his beautiful and accomplished sister! But
this was not to be. His mother and Margaret's, Louise of Savoy, infamous for iniqui



80         PRESB YTERIANISM.
ties, was more powerful with her son than
was the word of God. Her every wicked
wish was seconded and executed by her
favorite, Duprat, "the most vicious of
bipeds." With them soon went the Sorbonne, followed by the whole rabble of
ignorant priests, into furious opposition to
the nascent Reformation.
But the word of God grew —grew mightily. There was at court a gentleman of
Artois, named Louis Berquin. Pure in
life, of extensive and accurate knowledge,
he was also distinguished for the fervor of
his attachment to his friends and for his
compassion for the poor. He had a perfect
horror of all dissimulation, and could not
endure the sight of oppression.  Opposition to him on the part of the wicked drove
him to the Bible; it led him to Christ, and
from  this time Margaret, Brigonnet and
Lefevre had a coadjutor in Louis Berquin.
The work spread with wonderful rapidity..In no other country in Europe did the Reformation meet with a reception so prompt,




FlANCE.               81
so warm, so general.  "The danger;" said
the foe, "is every day greater; already the
heretical sentiments are counted as those
of the best-infornled classes; the devouring
flame is circulating between the rafters; the
conflagration will presently burst forth, and
the structure of the established faith will
fall with sudden crash to the earth."
Persecuted  in  Paris, the Reformation
spread into the provinces; Farel, Mosurier,
Gerold Roussel and his brother Arnaud
left Paris and were warmly welcomed by
Brigonnet at Meaux. There, in his own
diocese, this man toiled unceasingly.  He
visited all the parishes, called together all
the clergy and all the church officers, catechised them, lectured them, exhorted them.
In 1519 he summoned a synod of all the
clergy in his diocese, and having examined
one hundred and twenty-seven, found only
fourteen of whom he could approve.
In 1524, Lefevre published a French
translation of the New Testament, and the
next year a like version of the Psalms.
F




82         PRESB YTERIANISM.
Copies of the precious volume were multiplied. They passed from  hand to hand.
They were read in the family and in the
closet, and thus many new recruits were
enrolled in the army of the Reformation.
In the city of Meaux "many were taken
with so ardent a desire to know the way
of salvation that artisans, carders, fullers
and combers, while at work with their
hands, had their thoughts engaged on the
word of God. On Sundays and on festivals
they employed themselves in reading the
Scriptures and in inquiring into the good
pleasure of the Lord."
Through Margaret portions of the French
version of the Scriptures were presented to
her brother and mother. Nothing is impossible with God. Even Louise of Savoy
might be converted!
At Meaux the word reached John Leclerc, a wool-carder.  He was a man of
martyr courage, full of zeal, and a natural
leader of men in dangerous times. He
went from house to house, strengthening




FRANCE.             83
and confirming the- disciples in their faith.
He wrote a proclamation against the Roman
antichrist in which he declared that God
would overthrow the monster, and he nailed
his proclamation to the door of the cathedral.  Rome, stung to madness, threw the
offender into prison, whipped him through
the streets three days in succession, his
blood marking his progress, and then on
the third day branded him on the forehead with a hot iron. His mother looked
on with all a mother's anguish, and then
shrieked out, "Glory be to Jesus Christ
and his witnesses!" The scarred confessor
withdrew to Metz, where, for breaking the
graven images which the people worshiped,
he was burned alive at a slow fire, and thus
died, the first of a long, awfully long, list
of martyrs to the gospel in France.
But Metz had been occupied with the
truth. Through the labors of Leclerc, John
Chatelain and Peter Toussaint the word
found its way into many families, and among
them not a few of high degree.




84         PR ESB YTERIAL NIS~M.
The persecutions that drove the saints
fromn Paris and Meaux only scattered the
seed. The exiles went everywhere, preaching the word, and great results began to
show themselves in the countries of the
Saane, the Rhone and the Alps. Aneniond,
a knight of Dauphiny, entered the ranks
of the gospel. Active, ardent, ever impetuous, his zeal gave him no rest. Full of
enthusiasm, he went to Switzerland and then
to Wittenberg, and did his utmost to persuade Luther and Zwingle to go with him
to France, for he was sure they could carry
all before them.
Francis I., accompanied by his sister Margaret, led an army through Lyons to battle:
with the soldiers of Charles V. In company with Margaret was her Christian
almoner, Michei d'Arande. At the command of Margaret, Michel boldly proclaimed
the pure gospel to a great company drawn
together by the novelty of the occasion, by
desire to hear the word and by the favor
with which the preacher and his doctrine




FRANCE.               8-5
were regarded by the sister of the king.
Co-operating with Michel was another man
of great piety and discretion, Anthony
Papillon, an  accomplished  scholar and,
through the influence of Margaret, an incumbent in office under the king and member of the council. Thus Lyons became a
centre of truth from  which the rays shot
abroad far and wide into the surrounding
darkness.  Michel d'Arande, under the
protection of Margaret, kindled the gospel
fires in Magon.  Papillon and Du Blet
sounded the trumpet in  Grenoble.  As
early as 1524 there existed in Basle a Bible
society, a religious tract society and an association of colporteurs whose chief efforts
were directed to the work of evangelization
in France. The agents of these societies,
poor, pious men, went here and there, from
house to house, knocking at every door and
offering to all the bread of life.
Thus, amid hindrances and oppositions,
the work of Christ in France went grandly
on. In this city, in that village, in this




86         PRESBYTEBIANISM.
and that lone hamlet, Christ crucified became known and embraced, and souls were
saved and God was glorified.
In 1535 the Psalms of David were translated, versified and set to melodious music,
and French fervor, vivacity and enthusiasm,
under the impulse of evangelical spirit,
poured itself forth in sacred song. "This
holy ordinance charmed the ears, hearts and
affections of court and city, town and country."  These sacred songs "were sung in
the Louvre as well as in the Pres des Clercs
by ladies, princes and by Henry II. himself. This one ordinance alone contributed
mightily to the downfall of popery and the
propagation of the gospel. It accorded so
well with the genius of the nation that all
ranks and degrees of men practiced it in
the temples and in their families. No gentleman professing the Reformed religion
would sit down at his table without praising
God by singing."
On went the glorious work. Churches
were gathered and duly organized. Con



FRANCE.              87
sultations were held. Creeds and confessions were compiled.  In 1559, just one
year before the first General Assembly of
-the Church of Scotland, the first General
Assembly of the French Protestant Church
was held in Paris. This assembly drew up
a confession of faith and canons of discipline. In this work the state had no hand.
It was wholly the work of the Church herself; and though an independent work, an
original embodiment of principles of doctrine fresh from the word of God, "it was
remarkably harmonious with the confessions of other Protestant Churches, showing
that under the teaching of God'sspirit no
good men, wherever they may be scattered
and whatever their circumstances of trial,
seriously differ in their interpretations of
Scripture." In 1561, Beza presented a copy
of this formulary to Charles IX. in the colloquy at Poissy. It was confirmed in the
national council of Rochelle, and signed by
Conde, Nassau, Coligny and the synod, by
the queen of Navarre, and her son, Henry




88;        PRESB YTERIANISJIJ.
IV., and was recognized by the Reformed
of the French nation.
In this confession and canons we read,
"That the church in whose service a minister dieth shall take care of his widow and
orphans; and if the church cannot do it
through want of ability, the province shall
maintain them."
" The churches shall do their utmost endeavor to erect schools and take care of the
instruction of their youth, and all ministe.rs shall endeavor to catechise every one
of their flocks once or twice a year, and
shall exhort them  to'conform  themselves
thereunto very carefully."
"Every church sliall endeavor to maintain its own poor."
"Fathers and mothers shall be exhorted
to be very careful of their children's education, which are the seed-plot and promising
hopes of God's Church.  And, therefore,
such as send them to school to be taught by
priests, monks, Jesuits and nuns, they shall
be prosecuted with all church censures."




FRANVCE.             89
Concerning the state of the French Protestant Church at this time a contemporary
writer says: "The holy word of God is
truly, duly and powerfully preached in
churches and fields, in ships and houses, in
vaults and cellars, in all places where gospel ministers can have admission and conveniency, and with singular success. Multitudes are convinced and converted, established and edified. Christ rideth out upon
the white horse of the ministry with the
sword and bow of the gospel preacher, conquering and to conquer. Multitudes flock
in like doves into the windows of God.
As innumerable drops of dew fall from the
womb of the morning, so hath the Lord
Christ the dew of his youth. The popish
churches are drained, the Protestant temples are filled. The priests complain that
their altars are neglected; their masses are
now indeed solitary. IDagon cannot stand
before God's ark."
During the twelve years that followed
the meeting of the first General Assembly




90         PRESB YTEBIANISMA.
in Paris there was a grand advance of the
Christian army. In the year preceding the
awful 1572 the French General Assembly
met at Rochelle. In this assembly Theodore
Beza presided as moderator, and there were
present the queen of Navarre, the prince
of Navarre, Henry de Bourbon, prince of
Conde, Prince Lewis, count of Nassau, the
admiral Coligny and other lords and gentlemen.  That General Assembly represented and ruled over twenty-one hundred
and fifty churches.  In some of these
churches there were ten thousand members. The church of Orleans had seven
thousand communicants and five ministers.
In the province of Normandy there were
three hundred and five pastors, and sixty
in Provence.
Such was the Presbyterianism of France
at the opening of the year of massacre,
1572.




THE NETHERLANDS.         91
THE NETHERLANDS.
Where people are free they will think,
and where people think popery is always
in peril, for under the shadows of wellorganized popery the thinking is mostly
done by proxy.  What timid, sluggish
thinking is done by the people must pass
along the grooves channeled for them by
an infallible pope and the subordinates
taught and coerced by him. If an Abb6
Michaud or a D11llinger dare to think outside
of these grooves, he is smitten with the bolts
of excommunication, and the poor 3Marets
and Gratrys and Hefeles and Spauldings
and Kenricks, who to-day think the truth,
to-morrow, when the pope speaks, go down
on their knees, beg pardon and pledge themselves henceforth to think not their own but
the pope's thoughts.
The Netherlanders were largely a free
people. They were, therefore, a thinking
people. They were a commercial and industrious people, and hence they made very




92         PRESB YTERIANISJ.
poor Romish slaves. For the life of them
they could not see why the masses should
toil and scheme and pay taxes and fight in
the armies, while thousands of idle nuns
and gross, fat monks should live in idleness,
"trade in indulgences, squander in taverns"
and revel in all sorts of licentiousness.
Hence, writes Motley, "it was impossible
that they, the most energetic and quickwitted people in Europe, should not feel
sympathy with the great effort made by
Christendom to shake off the incubus that
had so long paralyzed her hands and brain."
"At the era of the Reformation," writes
D'Aubign6, " the Netherlands was one of the
most flourishing countries of Europe. Situated at the very gates of Germany, it would
be one -of the first to hear the report of
the Reformation. Two very distinct parties
composed its population. The more southern, that overflowed with wealth, gave way.
How could all these manufactories, carried
to the highest degree of perfection, this
immense commerce by land and sea, Bruges,




THE NETHERLANDS.           93
the great mart of the northern trade, Antwerp, the queen of the merchant cities, —
how could all these resign themselves to a
long and bloody struggle about questions of
faith? On the contrary, the northern provinces, defended by their sand-hills, the sea
and their canals, and still more by their
simplicity of manners and their determination to lose everything rather than the gospel, not only preserved their freedom, their
privileges and their faith, but even achieved
their independence and a glorious nationality." Few spots on this planet of ours
have become the monuments of grander
heroism in assault, defence and endurance
than that narrow, half-drowned triangle shut
in between France, Germany and the sea.
From the earliest times the Netherlands
had shown the spirit of revolt from the
tyra nnies and sins of Rome. By the middle of the twelfth century the gospel heresy
had there become troublesome to his Holiness.  Then  came the Waldenses, Albigenses, Lollards, Bohemian Brothers, to




94         PRESB YTERIANISM.
war in the Netherlands the war of faith
and suffering, and there to endure the martyr's death.  Not even in Spain or Italy
did ingenuity ever devise forms of saintmurder more horrid than issued from the
fertile wickedness of the monks in the
Netherlands. In Flanders the heretic was
stripped, bound to the stake, flayed from
the neck to the navel, and swarms of bees
let loose upon him to, torture him to death.
The curse pronounced upon the poor sufferers was truly Roman. The curser stood
with a waxen torch in each hand, and in
these words he cursed: "In the name of
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,
the blessed Virgin Mary, John the Baptist,
Peter and Paul, and all other saints in
heaven, we do curse and cut off from our
communion him who has thus rebelled
against us. May the curse strike him in
his house, barn, bed, field, path, city and
castle! May he be cursed in battle, in praying, in speaking, in silence, in eating, in
drinking, in sleeping! May he be accursed




THE NETHERLAN.DS.         95
in his taste, hearing, smelling and in all his
senses! May the curse blast his eyes, his
head and his body, from his crown to the
soles of his feet! I conjure you, devil and
all your imps, that you take no rest till
you have brought him to eternal shame. I
command you, devil and all your imps, that
even as I now blow out these torches you
do immediately extinguish the light from
his eyes. So be it, so be it! Amen and
amen!" And then the gentle soul blew
out the torches!
But still the good work went on. The
Bible, translated by Waldo into French,
and rendered into Netherland verse, added
to the number of converts. Toward the
end of the fourteenth century the gales of
heaven bore the doctrines of Wickliffe over
the land.  Erasmus did good service in
exposing the abominations of popery. Imperial edicts sought to resist the tide. One
of them, in 1521, assured the people that
"Martin Luther was a devil in human
form, clothed in the dress of a priest."  In




96          PRESB YTERIAN.ISI_.
1523 a Dutch translation of the New Testament was published and circulated, whilst
two Christians were burned at Brussels, and
the martyrdoms and the Bible alike made
new converts. Crowds of believers, driven
from the city of Antwerp, assembled on the
banks of the Scheldt to listen to the word
of life. In 1536, William  Tyndale, the
translator of the New Testament for England, arrested at Antwerp, was brought to
the stake near Brussels, and first strangled
and then burned, crying with his last words,
"Lord, open the eyes of the king of England!"  Other witnesses followed through
bold service to the martyr's grave.
In 1555, Charles V., now fifty-five years
of age, abdicated in favor of his son, Philip
II., bequeathing to the Netherlands the
Spanish Inquisition, more than fifty thousand martyrs' graves and a war of eighty
years that swallowed up millions more of
human lives, together with an edict (which
was re-enacted by his successor) to the following effect:




THE NETHERLANDS.           97
"No one shall print, write, copy, keep,
conceal, sell, buy or give in the churches,
streets or other places any book or writing
made by Martin Luther, John ZEcolampadius, Ulrich Zwinglius, Martin Bucer, John
Calvin or other heretics reprobated by the
Holy Church, nor break or otherwise injure
the image of the holy Virgin or canonized
saints, nor in his house hold conventicles or
illegal gatherings, or be present at any time
in which the adherents of the above-mentioned heretics teach, baptize and form conspiracies against the holy Church and the
general welfare.
"Moreover, we forbid all persons to converse or dispute concerning the holy Scriptures, openly or secretly, especially upon
any doubtful or difficult matters, or to read,
teach or expound the Scriptures, unless they
have studied theology and been approved
by some renowned university, or to preach
secretly or openly, or to entertain any of the
opinions of the above-nam-ed heretics."
All who violate this edict are to be pun7




98         PRESB YTERIANISM.
ished as follows, to wit: "'The men with
the sword and the women to be buried alive,
if they do not persist in their errors; if
they do persist in them, they are to be
executed with fire; all their property, in
both cases, being confiscated to the crown."
And, further, any persons who "lodge, entertain, furnish with food, fire or clothing,
or otherwise favor any one holden or notoriously suspected of being a heretic, or failing to denounce any such persons, shall be
liable to the above-mentioned punishmnents."
In 1559, Philip II. withdrew to Spain,
never to return to the Netherlands, leaving
behind as regent the base-born Margaret
of Parma.  The next year the pope and
Philip appointed three archbishoprics and
fifteen bishoprics, whose incumbents were to
work the inquisitorial machine.
The appointment of these officers aroused
a powerful opposition, drew attention more
than ever to the doctrines of the Reformers
and greatly increased the number of professed Protestants. Tracts were everywhere




<NC
PHILIP II.
Page 98.








TIHE NETHERLANDS          99
distributed and largely read.  Preachers
boldly proclaimed the truth.  The people
assembled by thousands and went in procession to the churches, chanting the psalms
of David.
But the enemy was not idle.  In 1564
the pastor of the Reformed church at Antwerp was seized, and having been tortured
by the Inquisition, was led out to execution.
A vast crowd surged around the place of
burning, and just as they were making an
onset for the rescue of the confessor the
executioner made his work sure by stabbing
his victim to the heart!
As the Reformers were forbidden to
assemble in chapels, in 1566 they inaugurated a new era in the Reformation by
adopting the system of worshiping in the
open fields. Forth from the city gates they
streamed in vast processions, and there,
under the open sky, worshiped the God of
heaven. This custom began in West Flanders, passed thence into Brabant, and then
spread with such rapidity into the other




100        PRES-B YTERIANISM.
provinces that soon there was not a lowland
city but had its meeting, attended sometimes
even by tens of thousands. The preachers
exhibited heroic courage and amazing zeal.
Many of the Reformed clergy were men
of ripe scholarship, graceful accomplishments and fervid eloquence. Among them
was Peregrinne de la Grange, of noble blood
and of fiery spirit, "who galloped to the
field, preached on horseback, and fired a
pistol as a signal for the congregation to
give attention." On Sundays and holidays there was preaching in the vicinity of
the large towns; and as the people were
sometimes assailed during the time of worship, they at length found it needful to furnish themselves with weapons of defence.
When they assembled, they placed the
women and children around the pulpit;
next around them the men congregated, and
beyond the circle of worshipers a patrol
was stationed. Sometimes for four hours
together they listened, prayed and sung.
When  the service was over, the crowd




THE NETHERLANDS.        101
escorted their preacher to the town and
furnished him with hospitable entertaininent.
And now the time for something like
formal organization had  come.  As yet
there was no common bond among the
Protestants of the Netherlands, except that
which united them in faith to their common Lord. In 1562, however, the Netherland Christians drew up a treatise under
the title of "A Confession of Faith generally maintained by believers dispersed
throughout the Low Countries, who desire
to live according to the purity of the holy
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." It was
sent to Geneva to be revised by Calvin, and
hlaving received his approval, was printed
in Dutch and German.
Thus the year 1572 found a powerful
Presbyterian church in the Netherlands,
baptized in blood and flame as perhaps
was no other church, excepting that of
the Waldenses.  The northern provinces,
Holland, Zealand, Utrecht and Friesland,




102        PRESB YTERIANISIM.
were almost unanimous in the faith, and
large numbers of like belief were scattered
throughout the southern portion of the land.
ENGLAND.
If to the Italians in the strongholds of
the Piedmontese valleys it was given to
continue the evangelical succession from
the times of the apostles, the honor of
sounding the first bugle-blast of Reform
and of rebellion against Rome was conferred upon an Englishman. "If Luther
and Calvin are the fathers of the Reformation, Wickliffe is its grandfather."  His
translation  of the New  Testament into
English not only showed the true path to
reform, but sowed the fair fields of England with the seeds of life for coming generations. Grass-blades of living green shot
up in many a favored spot.  Parliament
was petitioned  for Reform.  Wickliffian
theses, the "Twelve  Conclusions," were
fixed to the gates of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. William Sautre, for say



ENGLAND.             103
ing, "-Instead of adoring the cross on which
Christ suffered, I adore Christ who suffered on it," became the proto-martyr of
Protestantism.  In  March, 1401, more
than eighty years before Luther was born,
Santre was burned alive at Smithfield.
That Lollard tower, opposite the new Parliament house on the Thames embankment,
was filled with victims. Sixteen years after
this the brave old Lord Cobham, for the
sin of confessing Christ, was dragged on a
hurdle to St. Giles' Fields, and there, suspended by chains over a slow fire, he was
buirned to death.
]But the smoke off martyrdom infected all
it blew upon. The ashes of the martyrfires scattered through the kingdom broke
out not in "blains upon man and beast,"
but in deep, exciting thought, in great questionings of heart, in anxious perusal of the
holy word, in prayer and in numerous conversions.  The leaven crept through the
masses from mind to mind, from heart to
heart; and ere King Henry had thought




104        PRESB YTERIAN-ISM.
of his divorce the divine Husbandman had
crops ripening all over the kingdom.
Thus the work in England was not the
work of the many-wived Henry, nor was it
largely the work of great men. "Those
mighty personages we meet with in Germany, Switzerland and France-men like
Luther, Zwingle and Calvin-do not appear
in England, but the holy Scripture is
widely circulated."
About the time that Luther fixed his
theses to the door of All Saints, Wittenberg,
the New Testament in the Greek and Latin
came to England from the press of Basle,
and produced an amazing sensation. "It
was in every hand; men struggled tQ procure it, read it eagerly, and would even kiss
it." Never was there such a searching of
the sacred word. The result was Protestantism.
Take one example in *a thousand. In
Trinity college, Cambridge, there is a keenwitted but modest, even bashful young man.
Troubled in soul, he applies to his priest for




ENGLAND.              105
advice. The priest prescribes vigils and
fastings. The sufferer suffers all the more.
His soul cannot feed itself on husks. He
hears of a wonderful book.  Obtaining a
copy, he reads and is amazed. At length
he comes upon the words, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners, of whom I am chief."  " Ah!"
he exclaims, "at last I have heard of Jesus!
My vigils and fastings and pilgrimages and
masses were slaying  me.  Jesus saves."
This was Thomas Bilney. He was arrested,
but on the fourth appearance before his
judges his courage failed, and he recanted
and went back to freedom and misery.
But he revived, and now he went about
preaching the truth in private houses, in
open fields, bewailing his weakness and his
sin. Again he was arrested, and in 1531
le was made the victim of that truly Roman Catholic remedy for opposition to its
corruptions, burning to death at the stake.
But still the wind blew the smoke and




106        PBESB YTERIA NISM.
ashes of martyrdom abroad, infecting other
hundreds and thousands. England is pervaded, and is all alive with the holy leaven.
And now a new seed-sower came. William Tyndale had translated.the New Testament into English. It had been printed
partly at Cologne, partly at Worms. In
1525 it was brought stealthily across the
sea and up the Thames and by night to
Honey lane, a narrow thoroughfare adjoining Cheapside, to the house of a poor and
pious curate, Thomas Garret. He read until
at last he sighed, "His word was in mine
heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones,
and I was weary with forbearing and I could
not stay."  So he went abroad with the
word. He sold it to laymen and priests
and monks, and thus the word went unbound through the realm.
The blessed word was read with amazing
avidity and delight.  Women committed
the Gospels and Epistles to memory. One
woman gave a copy of the Epistles of Paul
to her son, saying, " M1y son, live according




ENGLAND.             107
to these writing, and not according to the
teachings of the clergy." He read three
Epistles. He procured the whole New Testament, and read it through many times.
One day, learning that Bilney was preaching
at Ipswich, he went to hear him, and exclaimed, "Oh what a sermon!  How full
of the Holy Ghost!"
Now meetings for reading and hearing
the word and for prayer began to be multiplied. Not only the cottages of the poor,
but in some instances the palaces of the
rich, were opened for these meetings.
Among these was Bower Hall, the residence of the squires of Bumpstead, and
Foxe and Topley and Tyball often read
the Scriptures there in the presence of the
master and all his household.
Rome says that we can know the Scriptures only through the Romish Church.
How, then, did the cottagers of England so
quickly recognize the word of God? I have
a father, suppose, whom I have never seen,
but I have heard of him; I know much




108-       PRESB YTERIANISMI.
about him, and now letter after letter purn
porting to come from him is put into my
hand. I read, and I know that no one but
my own dear father could write thus to me.
So the human spirit, under the tuition of
the Holy Spirit, knows that the pages of the
Bible are alive with the words and thoughts
of the great, good Father in heaven.
But while the word of: God is thus making its way among the people of England,
Wolsey has fallen, the king is divorced and
Henry VIII. is become a pope in England.
And now began a fearful struggle between
the new pope and his Christian subjects.
They had learned the will of God from
God's own book, and they must accept it as
the rule of duty, King Henry's will!
From that day to this the headship of the
monarch in the English: Church'has been
the source of nearly all its weakness and
of its many and fearful corruptions.
In 1539 the king appointed a commission to draw up articles for the direction,
of the Church in doctrine and worship.




ENGLAND.             10O
Sit articles were the result, enjoining upon
the whole realm, on penalty of imprisonment, forfeiture of property, or death as
heretics, these items: The real presence in
the sacrament, communion in one kind only,
the celibacy of the priesthood, the strict
observance of vows of chastity, priests'
masses and  auricular confession.  Thus
the government would compel the retention
of a meagrely modified popery, while the
seeds of a pure religion were bearing rich
and ample fruit among the masses. In
the collision between these two forces multitudes of God's own people were ground
to powder.
The question  is not without interest,
though it is more easily asked than answered, How early in England did a distinctive Presbyterianisrn make its appearance?
On the Continent, under the lead of highly
gifted men interpreting to the people the
word of God, the Church in abandoning
the papacy unanimously betook itself to
Presbyterianism. It would be very strange,




110        PRESB YTERIANVISM.
therefore, if in England, where the real
Reformation originated among the people,
under the teachings of the New Testament,
the same form of Church polity should not
have asserted and made good its claims.
Harassed by persecution, there was for some
time little thought except how to feed the
soul with the food of salvation. But even
in their earlier efforts to live they found
that preachers were a necessity, and that in
pressing exigencies the Church, the little
assembly of hated, hunted believers, were
fully competent to appoint a ministry without leave of priest, bishop or pope. This
right carried with it the right to model the
worship of Christian assemblies in accordance with their view of the teachings of
God's word, the mandate of a more than
semi-popish sovereign to the contrary notwithstanding. From the collision between
this humble Church and the government
sprang Puritanism. This Puritanism  was
partly Episcopal, more largely independent,
very largely Presbyterian.




ENGLAND.             111
Perhaps the earliest formal Presbyterianism in the realm was foreign rather than
native.
In the English Channel, one hundred and
sixty miles south-west of Southampton, is
the triangular, rock-girt island of Guernsey,
having in our day a population of thirty
thousand.  In the tenth century it bore
the name of the Holy Isle, on account of
the swarms of monks and ecclesiastics that
infested it. South-east of Guernsey is the
quadrangular isle of Jersey, with its high
northern coast, from which its surface slopes
along toward the south. It has now a population of nearly sixty thousand souls.
These islands, so near the coast of France,
offered a tempting asylum to the hunted
Huguenots, and at an early day, through
their influence, they became the scene of
gracious revivals and the site of a thorough
Presbyterianism.
Of the churches in these isles "Peter
Heylin, D. D., chaplain to "-and we might
almost add worshiper of-" Charles I. and




112        PRESB YTERIANISMlr.
Charles II., monarch of Great Britain,"
thus writes:
"The isles of Guernsey and Jersey, the
only remainder of the crown of England
in the dukedom of Normandy, had entertained the Reformation in the reign of King
Edward. But the Reformed religion, being
suppressed in the time of Queen Mary, revived again immediately after her decease
by the diligence of such French ministers
as had resorted thither for protection in the
day of their troubles. These French ministers, desiring to have all thing modeled by
the rules of Calvin, endeavored by all the
means they could to advance his discipline,
to which they were encouraged by the
brothers here and the Germans there. In
pursuance of this plot, both islands joined
in confederacy to petition of the queen for
an allowance of the discipline, Anno 1563.
They received a gracious answer. In the
mean time the queen, being strongly persuaded that this design would advance the
Reformation in those islands, was content to




ENGLAND.              113
give way unto it in the -towns of St. Peter's
and Port St. Hillaries only, but no further.
An authoritative letter was accordingly sent
to those islands in these terms:
"'After our very hearty commendations
unto you, whereas the queen's most excellent Majesty understandeth that these the
isles of Guernsey and Jersey have anciently
depended on the diocese of Constance, and
that there be certain churches in the same
diocese well reformed, agreeable throughout
in the doctrine as set forth in this realm,
knoweth therewith that they have a minister which ever since his arrival in Jersey
hath used the like order of preaching and
administration  as in  the said Reformed
church, or as it is used in  the French
church of London, her Majesty, for divers
respects and considerations moving her
Highness, is well pleased to admit the same
order of preaching and administration to
be continued at St. Hillaries as hath been
hitherto accustomed by the said minister;
provided always that the residue of the
8




114         PRESB YTERIANISM.
parishes in the said isle shall diligently put
aside all superstitions used in said diocese,
and so continue there the order of service
ordained within this realm.'"
The same permission was also granted to
the port of St. Peter's in the island of Guernsey.  "In  prosecution of which counsels
the ministers and elders of both churches
held their first synod in the isle of Guernsey on the 2d of September, Anno 1587,
where they concluded to advance it by
degrees in all the rest of the parishes, as
opportunity should serve and the condition
of affairs permit."
Thus, though the edict of Queen Elizabeth allowed the Presbyterian "preaching
and administration" in one town only in
each island, yet the "general plan was
adopted by the decree of synods held under
the countenance of the governors of Guernsey and the neighboring isles." In 1603,
King James confirmed this permission and
that to the whole island without limitation.
This was their ecclesiastical polity in 1572.




ENGLAND.             11 5
Seeds of Presbyterianism  proper were
largely sown in England by distinguished
champions of the Genevan discipline who
from various causes took up their abode in
the realm.'In 1549, John a Lasco, on the
the invitation of Cranmer, came to London to assist in the Reformation. He was
a Polander of noble birth. Famous for his
talents, his eloquence, his erudition and the
purity of his life and character, he was welcomed everywhere, not by the learned only,
but even by kings and princes. In Switzerland he visited Zwingle, and through his
instrumentality was converted to God in
Christ Jesus.  In  England.he acquired
very great influence.  In 1550 a church
of German  refugees was established  in'
London, and the church of the Augustin
friars granted them as a place of worship.
This church, thus organized, was "erected
into a corporation under the direction of
John a Lasco, superintendent of all foreign churches in Londoll, with whom were
joined four other ministers, and as a mark




116        PRESB YTERIANISM.
Of favor three hundred and eighty of the
congregation were made denizens of England. The preamble to the patent sets forth
that the German church made profession
of pure and uncorrupted religion, and was
instructed in truly Christian and apostolical opinions and rites." In the patent, solemn command is laid upon the " lord mayor,
aldermen and magistrates of the city, and
all archbishops, bishops and justices of the
peace, to permit said superintendent and
ministers to enjoy and exercise their own
proper rites and ceremonies." Of which,
poor Chaplain Heylin complains: "The in,
conveniences whereof were not seen at the
first, and when they were perceived were not
easily remedied." He further moans that
they were greatly assisted by "Sir Francis
Knollis," who among other misfortunes
"'had retired from  Frankfort to Geneva,
and did there contract acquaintance with
these sore troublers of the pope's peace,"
Calvin and Beza and the rest of the consistorians, whose cause he managed at the




ENGLAND.              117
court upon all occasions, having great influence as comptroller of the household.
Besides this church there arose in London another, composed of French Presbyterians.  The establishment of this church
was due, in part at least, as the sorelygrieved Heylin writes, to the influence of
"Goodman Gillie, Whittingha/m  and the
rest of the Genevan conventicle, who repined and grudged at the Reformation (in
England) because not fitted to their phancies and Calvin's platform." Through them
we are left to infer a letter was secured
from  Calvin to  Bishop Grindal begging
that "by his countenance or connivance
such of the French nation as had been
forced by their conscience to flee into England might be permitted the free exercise
of their religion.  By whose solicitation the
church of St. Anthony, not far from Merchant Taylors' hall, was assigned to the
French, with liberty to erect the Genevan
discipline for ordering the affairs of their
congregations, and to set up a form of prayer




118        PRESB YTERIAIVIS~I.
which had no manner of conformity with
the English liturgy." Alas! this "toleration of presbytery in a church founded and
established by the rules of episcopacy could
end in nothing but the advancing of a commonwealth in the midst of a monarchy."
Thus Presbyterianism in England had
before its eyes for its instruction, encouragement and direction these large, strong
and thoroughly-organized congregations.
Among the most remarkable eras in the
history of English Presbyterianism was the
five years' reign of the bloody Mary. The
rod laid on the back of Puritanism by King
Henry the Eighth was no pliant twig. But
Mary, in her salutation to the people, when
she put on the crown, said to them, "My
father made your yoke heavy, and I will
add to your yoke; my little finger shall be
thicker than my father's loans; my father
chastised you with whlips, I will chastise
you with scorpions." And she did!' How
thoroughly and terribly we may judge by
the fact that during her brief reign some




ENGLAND.             119
four hundred persons were publicly put to
death in various ways, besides those who
were secretly murdered in prison; "of these
twenty were bishops and dignified clergymen, sixty were women, among whom some
were big with child, and above forty were
children." Even the bones of the eminent
dead were dug up and cited by the royal
inquisitors to appear in court and answer
charges against them, and then burned for
non-appearance! Verily, she chastised with
scorpions!
Vast numbers, however, fled to the Continent, to France, to Geneva, to Basle,
Frankfort, Emden, Strasburg, Dorsburg
and Zurich, where they were received with
all tenderness.  Hundreds upon hundreds
of these fugitives thus scattered themselves
over continental Europe- bishops, deans,
doctors of divinity, eminent preachers, noblemen, merchants, tradesmen, artificers and
many also of the poor common people. In
many of these places these people, learned
and unlearned, clergy and laymen, became




120        PRESB YTERIA NISM~.
more fully acquainted with thoroughlyorganized  Presbyterianism.  They  were
most hospitably entertained, and thus became well acquainted with those who had
organized congregations, presbyteries and
synods on the Presbyterian plan. They
became familiar with the views of the great
Presbyterian Peformers, and with the arguments by which those views were substantiated. They had now free access to the
extant Presbyterian literature, to peruse, to
study and to compare with Scripture at
their leisure.
At the death of Mary and the accession
of Elizabeth, in 1558, these exiles, clerical
and lay, eagerly betook themselves to their
English homes, many of them sorely impoverished, carrying back with them little but
their new knowledge of religion and a zeal
new kindled by persecution, and very many
of them now thoroughly Presbyterian in
their views of church polity. Inasmuch as
that modern curiosity, High Churchism, was
then unknown, very many of the preachers




ENG LAND.            121
imbued with these principles were placed inthe pulpits of the national church, and thus
furnished with opportunities for the promulgation of Presbyterian views.
Various causes had conspired to empty
the pulpits of the realm. A fearful disease
had swept many of the incumbents to the
grave, and the refusal of many more to submit to the queen's supremacy had left a
large proportion of the parochial churches
vacant. Hence, writes Heylin, "Such was
the necessity which the Church was under
that it was hardly possible to supply all the
vacant places in it but by admitting some
of the Genevan zealots to the public ministry.  Private opinions were not regarded,
nothing was more considered in them' than
zeal against popery, and their abilities in
divine and human studies to make good
that zeal.
" And if so many were advanced to places
of note and eminence, there is no question
to be made but that some numbers of them
were admitted into country cures, by means




122         PRESB YIERBIANISM.
whereof they had as great an opportunity
as'they could desire not only to dispute
their Genevan doctrines, but to prepare the
people committed to them for receiving such
innovations, both in worship and government, as were resolved in time convenient
to be put upon them."
The exiles had brought with them on their
return numerous copies of the Genevan
Bible, with its notes "and comments, which
formed another element in the powerful
leaven working in the realm. Many of the
returned preachers labored as they dared' with all diligence to bring the Church of
England to a conformity in all points with
the rules of Geneva. These, although the
queen had laid by the heels" (Heylin, of
course), "yet it is incredible how upon a
sudden their followers increased in all parts
of the kingdom, and this upon a double
account; first, by the negligence of some and
the connivance of other bishops, and partly
by the secret favor of certain great men in
the court." Among these were the earl of




ENGLAND.             123
Leicester, Lord North, Lord Knollis and
Lord Walsinghlam, "who knew how mightily some of the Scotts lords and gentlemen
had, in short time, improved their fortune
by humoring their Knoxian brethren in the
lReformation."
The motive is attributed by Heylin; the
fact is all we need care for.
At length, in ~May, 1572, Parliament met
and showed some disposition toward, if not
a Puritan reform, at least a mitigation of
royal rigors in dealing with the Puritans.
To this Parliament leading Puritans addressed a treatise setting forth their grievances, presenting a platform for Church
government, for the election of ministers,
affirming their equality and specifying
their duties, and pleading for the establishment by law of a discipline more consonant
with the word of God and in agreement
with that of the Reformed churches. The
authors of this treatise presented it in person to the House of Commons, and were
sent to prison for their pains. This tyran



124        PRESB YTERIxANISII.
nous rejection of this petition resulted in
the organization of the first English presbytery.
Situated on both sides of the river Wandel at its junction with the Thames, five
miles from the general post-office in London, is the village of Wandsworth. Far
enough from the.court to be out from under
the royal eye, near enough to be within
reach of fraternal correspondence and sympathy with their friends in the city, this
town was chosen by the Puritans as the
place for effecting the proposed organization.
At this place, on the 20th of November,
1572, assembled in strictest secresy a small
body of ministers, with a considerable company of laymen, and organized a presbytery.
Eleven elders were chosen, and their offices
described in a register entitled the "Orders
of Wandsworth."
Thus in the year 1572 we find a vast
body of Presbyterians scattered through
England, and besides the churches in the
islands of Guernsey and Jersey, and the




SCOTLAND.            125
foreign churches in London, the English
presbytery organized at Wandsworth.
SCOTLAND.
The moral and religious condition of
Scotland just before the Reformation was
such as to call a blush to the cheek of
Rome, were it not that Rome's cheek had
been long beyond the reach of a blush.
Half of the wealth of the nation belonged
to the clergy, and most of this half was in
the hands of a few individuals. Ecclesiastics rivaled the nobility in magnificence and
preceded them in honors. Inferior benefices
were often put up for sale, or bestowed on
the illiterate and unworthy minions of courtiers. The lives of the clergy were scandalously licentious.  Monasteries covered
the land, and were notoriously the haunts
of lewdness and debauchery. The kingdom swarmed with ignorant, idle and luxurious monks who like locusts devoured the
fruits of the lands. The people were sunk
in profoundest ignorance. Under the teach



126         PBESB YTERIANISM.
ing of their superiors they were thoroughly
persuaded that the chief end of man, as a
religious being, consisted in reciting ayes
and credos, attending upon the duties of the
confessional, paying tithes, making offerings,
paying for masses, going on pilgrimages,
refraining from eating flesh on Fridays,
and in doing whatever else was contrary
to sound doctrines and to common sense.
Thus much had Romanism done to civilize and Christianize the people. Into this
scene of infamy came Presbyterian Protestantism to scourge out the desecrators that
made merchandise of the souls of men, to
overturn the tables of the money-changers,
and to turn the whole den of thieves into a
house of prayer. The first beams of light
penetrating this darkness came from Wickliffe, the morning-star of Reform. Early
in the fifteenth century John Resby, a disciple of Wickliffe, came from England into
Scotland, and popery burned him. Twentyfive years later came Paul Craw, a Bohemian disciple of Huss, preaching the truth,




SCOTLAND.            127
and he, too, soon found a martyr's grave.
In 1528, Patrick Hamilton, of royal lineage and fine intellectual endowments, came
home from his communings with Luther
and Melanchthon,. and lifted up his voice
for Reform; and on the last day of February, James Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews, burned him at the stake. Such was
the effect of this atrocious murder upon the
public mind that one said to the archbishop,
still breathing out threatening and slaughter, "If your reverence will burn any more,
it were well you did it in a cellar, for the
smoke of Hamilton hath infected all it
blew on."
But who can successfillly oppose the
mighty word of God, the fire and hammer
that breaketh the rock in pieces, sharper
than any two-edged sword, mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds?
The leaven had now been so long and
powerfully working among the people, the
hideousness of popery had now become so
widely spread and the spirit of men so




128        PRESB YTERIANISM.
thoroughly aroused that in December, 1557,
there was a grand coming together of the
reforming lords and gentry of the realm at
Edinborouglh, who formed and subscribed
this bond:
"We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the antichrists of our time, cruelly
doth rage, seeking to downthrow and destroy the evangel of Christ and his congregation, ought, according to our bounden
duty, to strive in our Master's cause even
unto death, being certain of victory in him,
the which, our duty being well considered,
do promise before the majesty of God and
his congregation that we, by his grace,
shall with all diligence continually apply
our whole power, substance and our very
lives to maintain, set forward and establish
his most blessed word of God and his congregation, and shall labor at our possibility
to have faithful ministers purely and truly
to minister Christ's evangel and sacraments
to his people. We shall maintain them,
nourish them and defend them, the whole




SCOTLAND.            129
congregation of Christ, and every:member
thereof, at our whole power, and expending
of our whole lives again Satan and the
wicked power that does intend tyranny and
trouble against the aforesaid congregation.
Unto the which holy word and congregation we do join us, and also do renounce and
forsake the congregation of Satan, with all
the superstitions, abominations and idolatry
thereof, and moreover shall declare ourselves manifestly enemies thereto by this
our faithful promise before God, testified to
his congregations by our subscriptions at
these presents.  At Edinburgh, the third
day of December, 1557 years, God called to
witness."
This the first step toward formal organization of the evangelical forces is known as
"THE FIRST COVENANT."  It was signed
by the earls of Argyll, Glencairn and Morton, Archibald, lord of Lorn, John Erskine
of Dunn and a great number of distinguished men, who were thenceforth called
the "lords of the congregation."
9




130        PRESBYTERIANISM.
Rome responded to this protest by the
martyrdom of Walter Mill, and the preachers responded to the martyrdom by passing
through the land and preaching with new
boldness and fervor the unsearchable riches
of Christ.
Few Presbyterians from abroad visit the
beautiful city of Edinburgh who do not also
visit the venerable house which was the residence of several years of the Reformer Knox.
It stands on the north side of High street,
that memorable thoroughfare with the towering castle at the western extremity, and
sloping down for a mile to the noted palace of Holyrood.  It is a quaint, timestained old pile of stone, irregular in its
architecture, with  narrow  windows and
outside stairway.  It was in the narrow
enclosure in the rear of this building that
Knox was overheard praying, " 0 Lord, give
me Scotland or I die."  And it was in this
house that Knox and a company of distinguished coadjutors were met in deep consultation on the memorable first of August,




SCOTLAND.            131
1560. It was the day when Parliament was
to assemble in the Tolbooth farther up the
street. To this place of meeting the lords,
now gathered at Holyrood, were to march
in the solemn procession usually  called
"the riding of Parliament."  "High street
was already astir with multitudes eager to
witness the spectacle, and congregating in
groups, anxiously speculating on the probable issues of the meeting. The outward
aspect of the crowds bore witness to scenes
of recent warfare and lingering apprehensions of danger. The men were all armed,
though not in uniform, each having armed
himself with the weapons he could most
readily procure, pikes, pistols, arquebuses
or crossbows. Strangely picturesque must
have been the scene as they marched. about
in this martial gear, with their long beards,
voluminous coats and long flapping waistcoats."
By and by the noise in the streets drew
the inhabitants to the windows to gaze on
the spectacle.  But among all the gazers:




132         PRESB YTERIA4NISM.
few perhaps were filled with thoughts more
solemn and emotions more profound than
Knox and his associates. This Parliament
was, under God, largely to affect the fate
of the Reformation in Scotland. The eyes
of Europe were fixed on that body. When
it was organized, the all-important question
of religion was introduced by a petition
signed by many Protestants of different
ranks, to the effect that "the anti-Christian
doctrine maintained in the popish Church
should be discarded, that means should be
used to restore purity of worship and primitive discipline, and that the ecclesiastical
revenues, which had been engrossed by a
corrupt and indolent hierarchy, should be
applied to the support of an active and
pious ministry, to the promotion of learning and to the relief of the poor"-onethird for the support of colleges and schools,
one-third for the relief of the poor and
one-third for the support of the ministry.
The petitioners held themselves ready to
prove that those "who arrogated to them



SCOTLAND.            133
selves the name of clergy were destitute of
all right to be accounted ministers of religion, and that from the tyranny which they
exercised and their vassalage to the court
of Rome they could not be safely tolerated
and far less entrusted with power in a Reformed commonwealth."
In response to this petition a committee
was appointed, consisting of Johns, Winraven, Spotswood, Willock, Douglas, Row
and Knox, to draw up a confession of faith.
In four days this body of men presented a
confession in agreement with those of other
Reformed Churches. The Protestant mlinisters were on the floor of Parliament to
defend the confession if assailed. No opposition was made.  Only two lords voted
against it. In addition to the adoption of
the confession this Parliament abolished the
papal jurisdiction, prohibited under certain
penalties the celebration of the mass, and
rescinded all laws formerly made in support
of the Roman Catholic Church and against
the Reformed faith.




134        PRESB YTERIANISM.
In connection with this external national
Reform, measures were taken by the ministers to complete the work among the masses
of the people. Leading ministers were distributed among the more important towns.
But as the country parts were equally in
need of ministers, and there was nothing
like a sufficient number to meet the necessities of the case, the realm was divided
into districts, and ministers appointed, with
the title of superintendents, to see that the
gospel was preached as widely as possible
among the people.
This memorable year, 1560, was fittingly
closed by the meeting of the first General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland. This
meeting was determined on by the Reformers, clerical and lay, soon after Parliament
had abrogated Romanism in the realm and
legalized Reform. On the 20h of December the Assembly met at Edinborough, and
consisted of forty members, thirty-four laymen and six ministers. These six, however, were men of theological and ecclesias



SCOTLAND.            135
tical knowledge so ripe, of piety so pure
and of influence so commanding as to leave
no ground to fear either for the orthodoxy
of the body in doctrine, or for the scripturalness of its measures with reference to
church discipline. The same eminent men
who had drawn up the confession of faith
were appointed to frame a complete system
of ecclesiastical government. For a pattern
they looked as little to Geneva as to Rome,
but away from both to the New Testament.
When, after having spent much time in
prayer, meditation and labor upon their
work, they had brought it to a conclusion,
they presented it to the General Assembly,
by which it was amended and adopted, and
hazs since been known as "The First Book
of Discipline."
This book was too purely scriptural to be
ratified by the privy council, but it was
formally accepted and subscribed to by a
large majority of its members. It provides
for the minister or pastor to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments; the doc



136         PRESBYTERIANISi~.
tor or teacher to interpret Scripture, confute
errors and instruct in theology; the ruling
elder to assist the pastorin examining discipline and government; and the deacon to
have special charge of the revenues of the
church and the poor. These were the prorminent officers of the church.
Besides these, the Book, to meet the exigencies of the times, provided for certain
superintendents to travel from place to
place among the regions destitute of the
means of grace, to preach, plant churches
and inspect the conduct of the less affluently qualified ministers in the country
districts. It also provided for a class of
laborers, termed exhorters and readers, who,
though not fitted for the ministerial office,
might yet do good service by visiting and
giving instruction among the more ignorant of the population.
It further provided that the people should
elect their own ministers.  The affairs of
each church were to be managed by the
pastor, elders and deacons, who constituted




SCOTLAND.             137
the kirk session, and who were to meet
as often, at least, as once a week. There
were to be associations of ministers and
elders, which soon became formal presbyteries. Above these were the provincial
synods, and over all the General Assembly,
composed of ministers and elders commissioned  from  different parts of the kingdom.
In June, 1563, the Assembly met and
established, as writes Hetherington, "one
of the most important principles of our
existing system of church government."
It was "statute and ordained" that any
person thinking himself aggrieved by the
sentence of the kirk session should have
liberty to appeal to the synod, and if necessary from  the synod to the General Assembly."
The rapid growth of the Church in Scotland is seen in the fact that while the first
General Assembly, in 1560, consisted of
only forty members, and of these only six
were ministers, and  these six  ministers




138         PRESB YTERIANISM.
formed fully one-half of all the Protestant
ministers in the realm, at the meeting of
the Assembly of 1567, seven years after the
first, "the Church embraced two hundred
and fifty-two ministers, four hundred aild
sixty-seven -readers and one hundred and
fifty-four exhorters, and this growth was in
spite of incessant opposition on the part of
those in power, "bent on the destruction
of the Church by every artifice that craft
and malice could suggest." Nor was the
rigor of its internal discipline at.all behind
its external growth. "Offenders of every
kind and degree were compelled to yield
obedience to its sacred authority, noblemen
and ladies of the highest rank submitted
to its disciplinary censures, lordly prelates
were constrained to bow their unmitred
heads to its rebuke; over the refractory
members of its own body its power was
extended in the impartial administration
of even-handed spiritual justice, and even
the stormy tumults of a fierce and turbulent populace were often quelled and hushed




SCOTLAND.            139
into peace and silence at the utterance of
its calm and grave command."
Thus the year 1572 found in Scotland a
most complete, compact and thoroughlyorganized Presbyterianlsm.




THE CHAMPIONS.JAVING now taken a rapid survey of
the religious field three hundred years
ago, let us set before our eye the chief
champions on both sides who marshaled the
hosts for conflict.
1. First and foremost among the leading
antagonists of Presbyterianism then, as in
every age, was the pope of Rome. The
wearer of the triple crown at the opening
of the year 1572 was Michele Ghislieri,
alias Pius V. In sanctity this pope was,
according to the Romish standard, next to
immaculate, while in persecuting spirit lihe
surpassed the ferocity of the American savage. His bull, in calna domini, ordered to be
read through all time, on every Thursday before Easter, in every parish church throughout the world, excommunicates all princes,
Ito




THE CIHAMPIONS.         141
magistrates and other men in authority
who in any way favor heresy or interfere
with ecclesiastical jurisdiction, who appeal
from the pope to a general council or
who say that the pope is subject to a council.  In February, 1569, Michele excommunicated Queen Elizabeth, absolving all
her subjects from their oath of allegiance
and consigning to perdition all who thenceforth submitted to her authority. He was
in principle as bloody a persecutor as Nero
or Diocletian. Among his proud, ferocious
boasts was this: "I have no other object in
life than that of suppressing heresy, and
my efforts have received divine aid. I have
converted many who departed from  the
faith; the bodies of certain men who were
leaders in heretical opinions I have caused
to be dug up and burnt." His injunction
to the French butchers of Protestants was,
"Take no Huguenot prisoner, but instantly
kill every one who falls into your hands!"
So enthusiastic was he in his admiration of
the demon Alva that he sent him a conse



142        PRESB YTERIANISM.
crated hat and sword. On the first day of
May, 1572, this one of the "chief monsters
that plague the nations" passed to his
account, and was succeeded on the 13th
day of the same month by Hugh Buoncompagni, cardinal of St. Sixtus, who took
the name of Gregory XIII.
One of the first acts of this pope was the
promotion of his illegitimate son John to
the cardinalship. He had become father
to this son before he became cardinal, and
in his office as cardinal he seems to have
been much less profligate than the present
bosom friend of Pope Pius IX., the notorious Antonelli. Closely connected with
the Guises of France, he was inexhaustible in his expedients for the destruction of
Protestantism, and it was under his eye
that the jubilations over the massacre of
St. Bartholomew were conducted.
2. Prominent among the willing instruments of the pope was Catherine de Medici.
This woman was a child of a highly-distinguished Florentine family. She was the




THIE CHAIAMIPIONS.     143
daughter of Lorenzo de Medici and niece of
Pope Clement VII. At the age of eleven
she was left an orphan.  Florence having revolted and expelled the creatures of
the pope, he besieged it for eleven months.
Catherine was then in a convent in the city,
and so intense was the hatred of the Florentines toward his Holiness that the city
council proposed to hang Catherine, his
niece, in a basket over the walls that she
might be a mark for her uncle's artillery.
Well would it have been for her' thus to
have died and escaped the career of crime
through which she passed to the grave!
Francis I. was'now king of France.
He had three sons. The second of these,
Henry, was fourteen days older than Catherine. King Francis was in need of money;
his son Henry was ready to take a wife.
Lorenzo de Medici had his daughter Catherine, niece of the pope, and Lorenzo was
ready to furnish the wife, and the pope the
money, on condition that Francis would
accept the two together. The alliance was




144        PRESB YTERIANISl.L
galling to the pride, but grateful to the
purse, of the king; and being then in no
fear that Henry would become his successor on the throne, Francis reluctantly consented.
Catherine was overjoyed. "Now," she
exclaimed, "I shall be daughter-in-law of
the great king of France!" With a brilliant retinue she sailed for France, and
the wedding was celebrated at Marseilles.
Three years after, the king's oldest son was
taken off by poison, and at length Francis
died, an exhausted libertine, and Henry became king and Catherine queen of France.
This woman was very beautiful, of considerable talent, of boundless ambition, of
fathomless  cunning, deceitful above  all
things and desperately wicked. She paid
assiduous court to the notorious Diana de
Poitiers, mistress of her husband, and virtually  queen of France.  In  1559 her
husband was killed in a tournament and
their son Francis II. became king, and his
beautiful young bride, Mary of Scotland,




THE CHAMPIONS.         145
niece to the duke of Guise and the cardinal
Lorraine, the queen.
Catherine now thought herself virtually
queen, since the sovereigns were so young
and the king so feeble, but she was sadly
disappointed.  The Guises at once took
complete charge of the royal puppets and
of the kingdom.  Poor Catherine!  But
where there is a will there is a way. She
now joined with the Huguenot leaders, and
schemed to arrest and imprison the sovereigns and make way with the Guises, and
thus come to power. This plot being discovered and brought to naught, she joined
the opposite party, and did her utmost to
induce the king to have Cond6 assassinated.
Francis refused, and one of the Guises
exclaimed in his vexation: "Now, by the
double cross of Lorraine, we have a poor
creature for a king!" But this royal obstacle was not allowed long to stand in the way.
He died suddenly, and not without the horrid suspicion that his mother had a hand in
tihe murder. By the death of Francis the
1Q




146        PRESBYTERIANISM.
poor sickly boy, Charles IX., became king
and his infamous mother virtually dictator
in the realm. "She now gave full swing
to her atrocious genius. She first plunged
her children into such a vortex of licentious pleasure  that they  were speedily
divested of all moral sense," and thus ready
instruments in any atrocity
Such, in 1572, was one of the chief
organizers of the massacre of St. Bartholomew —niece of one pope, a willing tool of
another and a ringleader in all schemes
for ridding France of the professors of the
religion of Jesus.
3. Next to Catherine, and co-operating
with her as the most bitter foes of true
religion three hundred years ago, were the
Guises.
In 1527, Francis I. had made Claude, a
son of the duke of Lorraine-an ancient
province in the north-east of France-duke
of Guise and peer of the realm. Of these
Guises, in 1572, there were two upon the
stage. One was Charles, brother of Mary




TIlE CItAMPIONS.         147
of Guise, uncle to Mary queen of Scots
and a- cardinal, a cordial hater of the
Reformed religion and plotter for its overthrow. A  second, who took good care to
leave no one in uncertainty as to his share
in the work, was.Henry, duke of Guise
and nephew of the cardinal.
His father during the furious conflict of
the times had been shot by a Protestant,
and Henry had vowed bitter vengeance
against the  adherents  of Protestantism.
Restless, ambitious, full of intrigue, his
ostensible zeal for religion was chiefly a
cover for schemes for self-aggrandizement.
This man was one of the leaders in the St.
Bartholomew massacre.
4. Confronting these as the great champion of the truth in France stands the
admiral Gaspard de Coligny.
His father had been made grand-marshal
by Francis I., and he was present at the memorable interview between his king and Henry
VIII. of England on the " Field of the Cloth
of Gold." His mother was Louisa, sister of:




148        PRESBYTERIANISS'.
the proud constable Montmorency. He was
born 1517, the year of Luther's theses at
Wittenberg.  Brave to  recklessness, his
stirring spirit was charmed with the perils
of a hotly-contested battle.  In an age of
utter licentious levity he was grave and
serious in thought and deportment.  He
was "thoughtful, cautious, devoted to a
principle, suspicious of an impulse, directed
by conscience and mindful of his responsibility to his king, his country and his God.
His character was the material of which the
serious Huguenot, Puritan and Covenanter
were made. Mhore like Cromwell than like
Conde, he would have been at the head of
the army what Calvin was at the head
of the Reformed Church. The word discipline thrice given would have been his
three rules of warfare. Success in battle
he thought depended as much on obedience
as upon courage; his mode was not to raise
a yell, make a rush and sweep all before
him; the living hurricanes should move
according to laws. Although trained under




THE CHAMPIONS.         149
his raving, swearing, mass-lipping old uncle,
he went calmly to work and coolly finished
it. A victory did not exalt him more than
a defeat cast him down. Of all the Huguenot chiefs he was the lion-hearted, and
neither- wife nor comrade nor king could
ever charge him  with infidelity."  Thus
eloquently writes his American biographer,
Dr. Winm. AM. Blackburn.
The natural seriousness of Coligny's mind
was deepened, the current of his thoughts
turned toward objects loftier and more grand
than those of camps and courts, and his
character moulded for his future career as
champion of the truth by the influence of
his first wife, the beautiful and accomplished
Charlotte de Laval, who was a daughter of
Christ and the Reformation. His military
genius was stimulated and fed by its promptand emphatic recognition on the part of
the king. "For your bravery everywhere,"
said the monarch to Coligny, "your superior
discipline and your meritorious services at
Cerisole and Boulogne, I confer upon you




150        PRESB YTERIANIS~I.
another rank of knighthood, the collar of
my order, that of St. Michael;" and he soon
added, "I appoint you colonel-general of
the French infantry."  In 1552 he was
made by the king admiral of France.
But a yet higher promotion awaited him
from the lip of the Captain of our salvation, and this through defeat, imprisonment and prostration on a bed of sickness.
Philip II., with a vast and well-appointed
army, was about to attack St. Quentin, and
having taken this place, to advance on Paris.
St. Quentin, a frontier town of Picardy,
eighty-seven miles north-east from Paris,
stood on a hill which sloped down to the
river Somme. Around it was a broad ditch,
and on three sides a marsh. Coligny determined to throw himself and his forces into
the city. Between it and him lay the foe.
His officers protested; Coligny persisted.
With some seven hundred soldiers he outstripped the rest, cut his way through all
opposition, and at midnight put the walls
of the city between him and the besiegers,




THE CIIAMIPIONS.       151
who at once swarmed around the city. He
found the city walls tottering, its towers
almost defenceless, with but' little ammunition and some fifty muskets'half fit for use.
The scanty supply of provisions was husbanded.  The women and children were
shut up in the churches. The battle was
fought under the walls, and lost, terribly
lost. Coligny, surrounded by about eight
hundred soldiers, saw from his watchtower
the ruin of the French. In one hour the
field was covered with the flower of the
French soldiery and nobility weltering in
their blood. Knowing, however, that by
holding, out he might detain the victors a
while before its walls, and thus give Paris
a breathing-time, instead of surrendering,
he gathered the people and made them take
an oath to behead the first man who should
propose to surrender. He himself took the
oath, pledging them his head if any of them
should hear him speak the word surrender.
For seventeen days the little band resisted,
till, through eleven breaches made in the




152        PRESB YTERIANISM.
crazy walls by the cannonade, the foes
swarmed in upon them.  Coligny rushed
into the thickest of the fight, and was taken
wounded, but fighting hand to hand, and
sent to prison.  He lost St. Quentin, but
saved France.  And, more, himself was
saved with great salvation. In prison he
fell sick.  During his convalescence he
called for a Bible. On its pages he hung
as a child on the words of a mother. God's
words were found and he did eat them, and
those words were to himn the joy and rejoicing of his heart. HIis brother sent him
books and opened the way for a correspondence with Calvin, who wrote to him, "I
have heard that our heavenly Father hath
so fortified you by the power of his Spirit
that I should rather praise him for his
kindness than urge you to greater efforts."
Coligny was released from prison on paying a ransom. Resigning the government
of Paris and the Isle of France, he sat
down at the feet of his Christian wife for
instruction in the deeper things of heart




THE CHAMIPIONS.        153
religion. One evening as he and she were
gazing upon the starry heavens she said
to him,
"How wonderful that you should have
been so blest in your captivity!"
"Would you encourage me to remain
firm, whatever might happen?"
"Indeed, I would," replied his helpmeet;
"for though the trial of seeing you in prison
for your faith would crush me, I would rather
be crushed to nothing a thousand times than
have you deny Christ."
"Enough.  It was only for your sake
that I thought of these terrors.  As for
myself, I have dwelt upon the joys of religion. What a delight to have a family altar,
a chaplain in our castle, a church growing
up in our town and a gospel preached to
the poor!"
"And the joys beyond these," she answered, " the glories of the eternal heavens!"
Time rolled on. The kingdom was half
Huguenot, this half embracing three-fourths
of the men of letters. "Give me," said




154        PRESBYTERIANISI.L
Catherine to the admiral, "a list of your
Protestant churches." He gave her a list
of two thousand one hundred and fifty
organized under regular pastors, besides
many flocks of sheep without a shepherd.
"How many troops can you raise?" she
asked. "As many thousands as you wish,"
he answered.
Coligny had reformed his own family,
had become the advocate of the Reformation in the realm, had presented the firstexample of godliness to the nobility of
France when they were sunk in evil and
immorality, and when wars arose he was
made the Huguenot lieutenant-general.
This now was the man that filled the
championship of the Church in France in
1572, and confronting him on the side of
the papacy were the Guises and Catherine
de Medici.
5. Like contrast of character meets us in,
passing from France into the NETHERLANDS
in the persons of Alva and William the
Silent.




THE CHAMPIONS.          155
The ancestors of William had for six hundred years been sovereigns of the duchy
of Nassau, a patch of territory about half
as large as the State of Rhode Island. His
mother, Juliana, was a devoted Christian.
His father was a true Protestant. Look at
him as set before us by the graphic pencil of Motley: A Spanish cast of features,
dark, well chiseled and symmetrical; his
head small and well placed upon his shoulders; his hair dark brown, as were also his
moustache and peaked beard; his forehead
lofty, spacious, and already in 1555, when
he was only twenty-two years old, prematurely engraved with the anxious lines of
thought; his eyes full, brown, well opened
and expressive of profound reflection. He
dressed in the magnificent apparel for which
the Netherlands were celebrated above all
other nations.
We thus see him as Charles V. leaned
upon him in the memorable scene of the
abdication-that Charles who had put out
of the world in various persecutions more




156         PRESBYTERIANISI.
than one thousand a year for every one of
the fifty-five years of his life thus far-the
princely page and the imperial persecutor.
It was a grand and most imposing scene.
It was at Brussels, in the great hall of the
ducal palace, October 25, 1555. The hall
was hung with tapestry and festooned with
flowers. At one end, under a royal canopy,
was a platform, and upon it three gilded
chairs. A vast and gorgeously-appareled
assembly filled the hall.  The clock has
struck three.  Charles enters leaning on
William.  He ascends the platform  and
seats himself in the central one of the three
gilded chairs. He rises, leans on William
and delivers his address of abdication. Thus
the Netherlands passes into the grasp of
the terrible Philip II.
In the providence of God, William is
thrown into close connection with another
tool of papal tyranny, Henry II. of France.
The war -between France and Spain closes
in 1559 with the treaty of "Cateau-Cambresis," by the terms of which four nobles




WILLIAM OF ORANGE.
Page 157.








THE CHAMPIONS.         157
become hostages at the court of France.
One of these four is William of Orange.
King Henry is fond of the company of the
handsome young prince. They go out to
hunt in the woods of Vincennes.  The
king and the prince are alone together.
The king has a grand project on his mind.
He is communicative.  William  listens.
"You know," says the king, "that heresy
is increasing at a frightful rate in mny realms
and in Spain, and it may be in all the world.
My conscience will never be easy nor my
throne secure till I have rid my kingdom
of these vermin. The king of Spain feels
with me in this matter.  We are now
united, and we have resolved, by the blessing of Heaven, to blot out the very name of
Protestants from'our dominions." Philip
in the Netherlands and Henry in France
were soon to quench heresy in the blood of
its abettors. Fine news this for the ears
of the young Netherlander, the son of heretical parents! But he does not remonstrate,
for it is William the Silent who is listen



158        PRESB YTERIANISM.
ing. But profoundly does he ponder the
details of the fiendish plot. One lesson for
the future champion of the truth of God!
A few days after this William requests
leave to visit the Netherlands, and there
uses all his influence with the. authorities
to have the Spanish troops, who were to
~have been the instruments in the work of
death, removed from the country.
In 1567 a threatening insurrection broke
out in Antwerp. Fifteen thousand Dutch
Huguenots flew to arms. There was fierce
talk of repaying Catholic oppression by
pillaging  their dwellings and churches.
William  saw nothing but disaster.in the
movement. He persuaded the Lutherans
to take no part in the matter. Then he
rode into the midst of the infuriated Huguenots, and by his eloquence and weight
of character induced them to lay: down their,arms and disband.."But for his courage
and prudence on this occasion millions of
money and multitudes of human lives had
been sacrificed."




THE CHAMPIONS.          159
Later in this year William withdrew with
his family to Dillenburg, the ancestral seat
of his family in Germany; tyranny had
become too strong, and he preferred exile
to slavery. Up to this time he had been
nominally a Romanist, but his kindly nature
revolted at papal cruelty, and papal power
was now  to crush all freedom, civil and
religious.  Now the bloody scheme whispered in his ear by the king of France
in the forest of Vincennes was to be -carried into execution. Here at Dillenburg he
was led to deeper meditations on the nature
of true religion. Here he became a pupil
of the Holy Ghost.  "It was about this
time," writes Motley, "that a deep change
came over his mind. Hitherto his course
of life and habits of mind had not led him
to deal very earnestly with things beyond
the orld. The severe duties and the grave
character of the cause to which his days
were henceforth to be devoted had already
led him to a closer inspection of the essential attributes of Christianity. He was now




160         PRESBYTERIANISM.
enrolled for life as a soldier of the Reformnation. The Reformation was henceforth
his fatherland, the sphere of his duty and
his affection.  The religious  Reformers
became his brethren, whether in France,
Germany, the Netherlands or England.
"Hitherto he had been a man of the
world and a statesman, but from this time
forth he began calmly to rely upon God's
providence in all the emergencies of life.
His letters written to his most confidential
friends, to be read only by themselves, and
which have been gazed upon by no other
eyes until after the lapse of nearly three
centuries, abundantly prove his sincere and
simple trust."
6. Face to face with this grand character
in the fierce conflict of 1572 we find Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, DUKE OF ALVA.
Alva, "tall, thin, erect, with small head,
long visage, lean yellow cheek, dark twinkling eyes, adust complexion, black, bristling
hair and a long, sable, silvered beard descending in two wavy streams upon his




TIlE CHAMPIONS.         161
breast.   He did  not combine a great
variety of vices, but those he had were
colossal, and he possessed no virtues. He
was neither lustful nor intemperate, but his
professed eulogists admitted his enormous
avarice, while the world has agreed that
such an amount of stealth and ferocity, of
patient vindictiveness and universal bloodthirstiness, were never found in a savage
beast of the forest and but rarely in a
human bosom."
As a soldier he was inferior to no general
of his age.  As a disciplinarian he was
second not even  to Coligny.  "He was
more audacious, more inventive, more desperate, than all the commanders of that or
any other age.
" As a financier he exhibited a wonderful
ignorance of the first principles of political
economy.  No man before ever gravely
proposed to establish confiscation as a permanent source of revenue to the State, yet
the annual product of the escheated property of slaughtered heretics was regularly
11




162        PRESB YTERIA NISM.
relied upon during  his administration to
replenish the king's treasury.
"As an adhninistrator of civil and judicial affairs of the country, Alva at once
reduced its institutions to a frightful simplicity. In place of the ancient laws of
which the Netherlands were so proud, he
substituted the Blood Council. This tribunal was even more arbitrary than the Inqui-sition. Never was a simpler apparatus for
tyranny devised than this great labor-saving
machine.  Never was so great a quantity
of murder and robbery achieved with such
despatch and regularity.  Sentences, executions and confiscations to an incredible
extent were turned out daily with appalling
precision.
"No mode in which human beings have
ever caused their fellow-creatures to suffer
was omitted from  daily practice.  Men,
women and children, old and young, nobles
and paupers, opulent burghers, hospital
patients, lunatics, dead bodies,-all were indiscriminately made to furnish food for the




THE CHAMPIONS.         163
scaffold and the stake. Men were - tortured,
beheaded, hanged by the neck and by the
legs, burned before slow fires, pinched to
death with red-hot tongs, broken upon the
wheel, starved and flayed alive.  Their
skins, stripped from the living body, were
stretched upon drums to be beaten in the
march of their brethren to the gallows.
The bodies of many who had died a natural death were exhumed and their festering
remains hanged upon the gibbet, on pretext
that they had died without receiving the
sacrament.  Women and children were
executed for the crime of assisting their
fugitive husbands and parents with a penny
in their utmost need."In 1572 this man is sixty-four years old.
For four years he has filled the office of
governor-general of the Netherlands. For
forty-five years he has waded through blood.
In six years he has ordered to death eighteen thousand six hundred human beings.
Well may Motley add that" the character
of the duke of Alva, so far as the Nether



164        PR ESB YTER L4 NISM.
lands are concerned, seems almost like a
caricature. As a creation of fiction it would
seem grotesque."  This is the champion of
the pope that in the Netherlands stood face
to face with the large-hearted, tenderhearted Dutch Huguenot, William the
Silent, in the great conflict three hundred
years ago i
But Alva was only the tool-the right
willing tool indeed-.of another far away,
whose  mandates  he  most scrupulously
obeyed-Philip II. of Spain.
7. Phtilip II. in  person was "a small,
meagre man, much below the middle height,
with thin legs, narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air of a habitual invalid." One
of his eulogists writes of him, "His body
was but a human cage in which, however
brief and narrow, dwelt a soul to whose
flight the immeasurable expanse of heaven
was too contracted."  He was in person
greatly like his father, "the same broad
forehead and blue eye, the same aquiline
but better proportioned nose. In the lower




CD
1-14








THE CHAMPIOiVS.         165
part of the countenance the remarkable
Burgundian deformity was likewise reproduced. He had the same heavy, hanging
lip, with a vast mouth and monstrously
protruding lower jaw. His complexion was
fair, his hair light and thin, his beard yellow, short and pointed. He looked habitually on the ground when he conversed, was
chary of speech, embarrassed and even
suffering in manner." In talents he was
below mediocrity. "His mind was incredibly small."
How he stood affected toward the cause
of truth may be learned in one characteristic incident in his life. It was the 18th
of October, 1559. Philip had just arrived
at Valladolid from the Netherlands. There
were in the hands of the holy Mother
Church thirteen heretics ready for sacrifice. In the great square was a huge pile
of combustibles ready to be lighted. Present there were the king, his sister, his son,
the high officers of the State, the foreign
ministers and all the nobility of the king



166        PPRESBYTERIANISM.
dom, together with an immense concourse
of soldiers, clergy and people. A sermon
was preached by the bishop of Cuenga, on
what text we know not. At the close the
inquisitor-general, Valdez, cried with a
loud voice,
"0 God, make speed to help us!"
Philip drew his sword. Then Valdez:
"Your Majesty swears by the cross of
the sword whereon your royal hand reposes
that you will give all necessary favor to
the Holy Office of the Inquisition against
heretics, apostates and those who favor them,
and will denounce and inform against all
those who, to your royal knowledge, shall
act or speak against the faith."
The king answered,
"I swear," and signed the paper.
The fire was then kindled and the thirteen sufferers consumed. One said to the
king, "How can you thus look on and permit me to be burned?"  The king answered,
"I would carry the wood to burn my own
son were he as wicked as you."




THE CHAMPIONS.         167
These were the leaders in the Netherlands three hundred years ago-Philip II.,
Alva and William the Silent.
8. In England the one prominent figure
is Queen Elizabeth.
As already remarked, the Reformation
in England sprang from the hearts of the
masses of the people, instructed from the
Bible by their pastors and by the Spirit of
God. For the great cause there no Luthers,
Zwingles, Calvins, Colignys or Williams
appeared. On the part of the Reformers
were students here, writers of pamphlets
there, and everywhere the hidden, hunted
Christian people.
In opposition to these stood the queen of
the realm. Elizabeth seems to have been
an unhappy compromise between too little
and too much. She possessed talents too
large to allow her to resign herself and the
government into the hands of her ministers,
and too small to enable her to govern without them.  Thus all their schemes were
complicated with this unmanageable ele



168         PRESB YTERIANIS.IJ.
ment, the queen's fancies and will.  Changeful as the weather, irascible and petulant,
she was to her ministers very much what a
pet porcupine might be to a delicate lady.
She was too shrewd to be largely or long
deceived, yet schemes of the most delicate
character and of momentous interest often
had their fate bound up in a successful
management of her caprices.  Intensely
self-willed, her one idol was the royal prerogative. Whatever she did in spite of
the advice or with the consent of her ministers was dictated by its bearing on her
prerogative. "She understood her prerogative, which was as dear to her as her
crown or her life, but she understood nothing of the rights of conscience in matters
of religion, and like the absurd king, her
father, she would have no opinion in religion acknowledged, at least, but her own."
Destitute of conscience herself, how could
she care for conscience in others? Charles I.
lost his head for an arbitrariness of despotism no more flagrant than that of Queen




THE CItHAMPIO1NS.      169
Elizabeth.  Outstripping all legal enactment other than her own will, she, in 1567,
sent her agents into the parishes, and gave
orders that if the people neglected attendance upon the parish churches and fre-'
quented conventicles they should for the
first offence be deprived of their freedom
of the city of London, and after that be
punished according as she should order.
When Archbishop Grindal, who had gone
to cruel lengths in enforcing the queen's
mandates, at length hesitated and drew back,
she was so enraged that by an order from
the Star Chamber she confined him immediately to his house and kept him for six
months from the exercise of his official
duties.
With her Parliament she dealt just as
summarily as with individuals.  When
motion was made in the House of Commons
for an address to her Majesty, asking the
release of certain members of the House
from  prison, the answer was, "that the
House must not call her to account for what




170         PRESBYTERIANIlSI.
she did of her royal- authority; that she did
not like to- be questioned, nor did it become
the House to deal in such matters."
When Mr. Attorney Morrice moved to
inquire into certain proceedings of her
bishops, and the members proceeded to the
discussion of the motion, this imperious
woman sent for the Speaker, and bade him
tell his fellow-legislators that -this Parliament was called merely to enact sharp laws,
to compel neglecters of her church service
to attend upon it; that it was not meant that
they should meddle with matters of State
or causes ecclesiastical; that she was highly
offended; that it was her royal pleasure that
no bill touching any matters of State and
causes ecclesiastical should be presented in
the House. At the same time, Mr. Attorney
Morrice was seized by the sergeant-at-arms,
"discharged from his office in the court of
the duchy of Lancaster, disabled from the
practice of barrister-at-law, and kept for some
years prisoner in Tutbury Castle." Thus in
theory, and largely in fact, the government




THE CHAMPIONS.          171
during this reign, lords, commons, legislature, executive and judiciary, consisted of
one strong-minded woman.
As to theoretical religion, she was more a
papist than a Protestant, and more an unbeliever than either.  A formal papist her
political situation forbade her to be; how
could this female Henry VIII. submit to
the pope in opposition to her predecessor,
the male Henry VIII., her own father?
Besides, her great men and a vast mass of
her citizens would have interfered even at
the expense of a revolution. On the other
hand, if she hated Satan, worse than she
hated Puritanism, and especially Presbyterian Puritanism, the evil one was pretty
well hated.  The lord treasurer in the
Star Chamber said, "The queen cannot satisfy her conscience without crushing the
Puritans; she thought none of her subjects
worthy of protection that favored innovations, or that directly or indirectly countenanced the alteration of anything established
in the Church." Now, as the things estab



172        PRESBYTERIANISM.
lished in the Church were her own arbitrary
decrees, it is evident that, in 1572, England
not only still had a pope, but already an
infallible one.
Such being her theoretic notions about
religion, no wonder if her personal piety
was of a sort quite other than that enjoined
in the New Testament. Indeed, in her passionate moods-and she not infrequently
gave way to towering wrath-she could
on occasion be as profane as any sailor in
the royal navy. On a question between
Bishops Ely and Cox this pious queen wrote
to the latter in this mild strain: "Proud
prelate, you know what you were before I
made you what you are. If you do not
immediately comply, by —   I will unfrock
you!" It seems, then, that the bishop wore
the frock and Queen Bess the trousers.
And yet she was distinguished by some
very unmanly traits. "Her vanity," writes
Froude, "was as insatiable as it was commonplace.  No flattery was too tawdry to
find a welcome with her; and as she had no




TIIE CHAMIPIONS.        173
repugnance to false words in others, she was
equally liberal of them herself. Her entire
nature was saturated with artifice. Except
when speaking some round untruth, Elizabeth never could be simple. Her letters
and her speeches were as fantastic as her
dress, and her meaning as involved as her
policy.  She was unnatural even in her
prayers, and she carried her affectations
even into the presence of the Almighty."
To "gainstand," as Knox would say, this
compound of imperious bigotry,' impiety
and overweening vanity, with her intense
hatred of Puritanism, there were in England in 1572 only the great body of Bible
students and the believers, some learned,
many ignorant, some noble, many obscure,
some wealthy, many very poor, praying in
secret, stealing into conventicles, worshiping
God in Jesus Christ with the sword ever
gleaming in the air close to their heads.
9. In Scotland, in 1572, two towering
champions confront each other-John Knox
and the earl of Morton.  There were not




174        PRESBYTERIANISM.
wanting others of power and skill on either
side, but without doubt these two were then
the leaders in the field.
James Douglas, earl of Morton, had been
one of the "lords of the congregation" who
with others had signed the "First Covenant," pledging his life and substance to
"the setting forward of the blessed word of
God and his congregation." But having
received considerable favors of the queenregent Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary,
afterward queen of Scots, he for a while
vacillated between the contending parties,
and seemed to be, as Sadler, the English
envoy at the time, describes him, "a simple,
fearful man."
At the death of the queen-regent, -however, Morton emerged from this state of
duplicity into the man he really was —bold,
decided, self-willed and utterly unscrupulous. He was distinguished for licentiousness in his private life, for ability, avarice,
rapacity and entire want of moral principle.
Cognizant of the plot for the murder of




. THE CHAMPIONS.        175
Darnley by Bothwell, he, though refusing
to take part in it, yet gave no information
whereby the crime might have been prevented; and when the deed was done, he was
among those who subscribed a bond to protect Bothwell from the legal consequence of
his crime, and he used every endeavor to
secure the marriage of Mary with her murder-stained paramour. By his misconduct
in public and private life he made himself
so generally odious that when at length he
was arrested, condemned to death and executed, there were few to mourn for him.
The Catholics hated him for the part he
had taken as a nominal Protestant, the
Protestants for his want of principle, his
vileness of character, and for the sore injuries he had inflicted upon the Kirk.  He
died, however, with a calm, undaunted spirit.
10. Face to face with this bad man stood
one at length acknowledged almost by
unanimous consent as from sandal to turban a true man, if there ever was oneJOHN KNOX.




176         PRESBYTERIANISM.
On the coast of Fifeshire, some forty
miles north-east from  Edinburgh, on a
small bay, the visitor finds the ruins of the
old castle of St. Andrew's.  There they
show the tourist the horrid old "Bottle
Dungeon."  It is cut out of the living rock,
one side of which is washed by the everrestless sea. The opening in the top is
circular and about seven feet in diameter.
Below, it widens to twenty-five feet, and is
of about the same depth. Down into this
granite bottle the victim was lowered by a
windlass, and there left to pine and starve,
or to await the hour of execution. In imagination one may still hear the sighing
of the prisoner and the moaning of those
appointed to die. In an old tottering relic
of the western wall of the castle they point
still to the window out of which Beaton
gazed in such content upon the burning
Wishart, and out of which so soon he himself hung a ghastly corpse.
It was in this old castle that Knox, soon
after the murder of Wishart, began to preach




THE CHAMPIONS.         177
the gospel of the kingdom, and from this
time till his death his name and character
and personal influence were the life and soul
of the Reformation in Scotland.  Richly
endowed with mental power, and with keen
insight both of men and of the nature- of
the service to which the hour bade him, he
was a true son of Issachar, with understanding of the times to know what Israel ought
to do. Not even the sages of our American
Revolution saw more clearly into the true
relations between subject and sovereign than
did this rough, vigorous Scotchman. In
one of those noted interviews with Mary,
the latter spitefully asked him, "Think you
that subjects having the power may resist
their princes?"
To this the Reformer answered, "If
princes exceed their bounds, madam, no
doubt they may be resisted even by power.
For no greater honor or greater obedience
is to be given to kings or princes than
God has ordained to be given to father or
mother.  But the father may be struck
12




178        PRESBYTERIANISM.
with a frenzy in which he would slay his
children.  Now, madam, if the children
arise, join together, apprehend the father,
take the sword from him, bind his hands
and keep him in prison till the frenzy be
over, think you, madam, that the children
do any wrong?  Even so, madam, is it with
princes that would murder the children of
God that are subject unto them.  Their
blind zeal is nothing but a mad frenzy;
therefore, to take the sword from them, to
bind their hands and to cast them into
prison till they be brought to a more sober
mind, is no disobedience against'princes, but
just obedience, because it agreeth with the
will of God."
"Thus spoke Calvinism," writes Froude,
"'the creed of republics in its first hard
form."
Of this man this elegant and learned historian thus further speaks:
"John Knox became the representative
of all that was best in Scotland. He was
no narrow fanatic who in a world in which




THE CHAMPIONS.          179
God's grace was equally visible in a thousand creeds could see truth and goodness
nowhere but in his own formula. He was
a large, noble, generous man, with a shrewd
perception of actual fact, who found himself face to face with a system of hideous
iniquity.  He believed himself a prophet
with a direct commission from Heaven to
overthrow it.
" Such was Knox, the greatest living
Scotchman. The full measure of Knox's
greatness no man in his day could estimate.
No grander figure can be found in the
entire history of the Reformation in this
island. Cromwell and Burghley rank beside him for the work which they effected,
but'as politicians and'statesmen they had to
labor with instruments which they soiled
their hands in touching. In priority, in
uprightness, in courage, truth and stainless
honor, the regent Murray and our English
Latimer were perhaps his equals, but Murray was intellectually far below him, and
the sphere of Latimer's influence was on a




180        PRESBYTERIANISM.
smaller scale. The time has come when
English history may do justice to one but
for whom the Reformation would have been
overthrown among ourselves, for the spirit
Knox created saved Scotland; and if Scotland had been Catholic again, neither the
wisdom of Elizabeth's ministers, nor the
teaching of her bishops, nor her own chicaneries, would have preserved England from
revolution."
Of Knox the quaint Carlyle writes: "It
seems hard measure that this Scottish man
now should have to plead like a culprit
before the world intrinsically for having
been, in such a way as it was then possible
to be, the bravest of all Scotchmen. Had
he been a poor half-and-half, he could have
crouched into -a corner, like so many others.
Scotland had not been delivered and Knox
had been without' blame. He is the one
Scotchman to whom of all others his country and the world owe a debt. He has to
plead that Scotland would forgive him for
having been worth to it any million of




THE CHAMPIONS.          181
unblamable Scotchmen that need no forgiveness. He bared his breast to battle,
had to row in French galleys, wander forlorn in evils, in clouds and storms, was censured, shot at through his windows, had a
right sore fighting life; if this world were
his recompense, he had made but a bad
venture of it."
11. Knox stood not alone indeed in- Scotland in this memorable year. There were
others on his side of whom the world was
not worthy. Among these was a young man,
twenty-seven years old this year, and. an
honor to the cause and his race. This was
ANDREW MELVILLE. Weak in body, he was
anything but weak in intellect and courage.
He was distinguished as an Oriental scholar,
familiar with law, and with the great principles of civil government.  Master of a
strong voice, a fluent elocution, a cogent,
incisive diction, of great dialectic skill and
of ardent spirit, he could so utter what he
knew as not only to leave his hearers in no
doubt as to his. meaning, but also to work




182        PRESBYTERIANISM.
conviction in even unwilling and prejudiced
minds. His tone of spirit is shown in many
a sparkling incident.
On one occasion, when a committee from
the General Assembly, headed by Melville, waited on Morton as regent, the latter
said that"The General Assembly was a convocation of the king's subjects, and that it was
treasonable for them  to meet without the
king's permission."
"If this be so," answered Melville, "then
Christ and his apostles must have been
guilty of treason, for they called together
great multitudes without asking permission
of the magistrates."
Biting the head of his staff, Morton
"growled in that deep undertone which
marked his occasional fits of cold, ruthless
anger:"
"There will never be quietness in this
country till half a dozen of you be hanged
or banished!"
"-Tush, sir!" replied Melville; "threaten




THE CEtAMPIONS.        183
your courtiers after that manner. It is the
same to me whether I rot in the air or in
the ground. The earth is the Lord's. I
have been ready to give my life where it
would not be half so well expended. Let
God be glorified; it will not be in your
Ipower to hang or exile his truth."
No, Knox was not alone.  There was
Melville, and there were others with him.
Nevertheless, the one towering form on the
side of truth in Scotland in 1572 was that
of Joln Knox.
There, then, is the wide field of conflict,
reaching from Scotland to Piedmont, and
there stand the great champions before usthe pope yonder, Queen Elizabeth here,
between them Catherine and Coligny, William and Alva, Knox and Morton.
It only remains to glance at certain incidents in the actual conflict.




IV.
THE CONFLICT.
1. SCOTLAND.
IN SCOTLAND, in 1572, a war was waged
with an earnestness and zeal that became
the importance of the interests at stake.
Romanism was pretty thoroughly paralyzed,
but in the bosom  of the Reform  itself
worldly and wicked statecraft was doing
its utmost to hinder, hamper, cripple, corrupt and despoil the Church.
At the opening of this memorable and in
many respects disastrous year, James VI.
of Scotland, the son of Mary queen of
Scots and the wretched Darnley, was eight
years old. Mary, his mother, was prisoner
in the grasp of Elizabeth, and the earl of
Mar, weak rather than wicked, was regent.
The parties in the contest then waged
were the Church on the one hand and a
184




THE CONFLICT IN SCOTLAND.   185
worldly, grasping court on the other, Knox
leading the one, Morton the other. The
question in controversy was the disposal
of the Church revenues. The Reformation found the Church in possession of a
large amount of property and a rich revenue flowing in therefrom. The Protestant
nobility, had cordially consented to and
assisted in the abolition of papal jurisdiction; now the decision was to be made as to
the disposal of these revenues.  The demand of Knox and his party was that, while
a certain portion might be allowed to the
Romish bishops, abbots, priors and the
like during their lifetime, the rest, and at
the death of these incumbents their income
also, should be appropriated, one portion to
the support of the poor, another to educational institutions and a third to the support of the clergy. But the nobles looked
with greedy eye upon these treasures, and
under the lead of MIorton plotted and
schemed to direct the golden streams into
their own coffers.




186        PRESB YTERIANISM.
Accordingly, on the death of the popish
archbishop of St. Andrew's, Morton obtained a'grant from  the privy council
empowering him to dispose of the archbishopric and its revenue.  Not daring,
however, formally to hold the benefice in
his own hands, he induced John Douglas,
the rector of the University of St. Andrew's,
to take the office and title, with the understanding that Morton was to have the lion's
share of the income.  Douglas, as archbishop, had also, a seat in Parliament.
Thus the way was open for the infliction
upon the Church of a set of ungodly officers whose titles and duties were alike
disallowed by Presbyterians, and for the
diversion of the ecclesiastical revenues into
avaricious hands.
Against this plan Knox loudly exclaimed,
and the General Assembly sent a remonstrance to Parliament, denouncing the
scheme, protesting against Douglas taking
a seat in that body as lord-bishop, and
threatening Douglas with excommunica



THE CONFLICT IN SCOTLAND.   187
tion.  Morton's influence, however, prevailed.  Through the  influence of the
Church the tithe-collectors of St. Andrew's
refused to pay the money into the hands
of Douglas. Then Morton secured a mandate from the regent forbidding their collection of these tithes. Erskine of Dun,
however, prevailed with the regent to annul this prohibition. In his remonstrance
upon this point Erskine deplores the "great
disorder used in Stirling in the last Parliament in creating bishops, placing them in
Parliament and giving them a vote in that
body, in despite of the Kirk, and in high
contempt of God, the Kirk opposing herself to that disorder."
But Morton was not to be baffled. That
golden prize was too precious to be lost -if
there were any way to grasp it. The Kirk
must be entrapped into the scheme. Accordingly, in January, 1572, an irregular
and unauthorized convention of the superintendents and certain ministers assembled
at Leith for consultation. Mistaking its own




188        PRESBYTERIANISM.
powers, this body appointed a committee to
confer with the privy council, and agreed to
ratify the conclusions they might reach in
accordance with certain instructions. The
result was a joint committee of six ministers
and six of the council to settle affairs of'
national importance between Church and
State. This abnormal, unauthorized committee agreed to the subtle scheme for setting up Mortonism in the Church, by
which, under unlawful ecclesiastical forms,
the patrimony of the Church might feed
the greed of avaricious lords.
According to this scheme, the titles of
archbishop and bishop were to remain, as
also the bounds of the old popish dioceses,
until the majority of the king (he was now
eight years old) or until Parliament should
determine in the matter, these dignitaries
to be chosen by an assembly of learned
ministers, to have like jurisdiction with the
superintendents and to be subject to the
General Assembly in spiritual and to the
king in secular matters. Like arrangements




THE CONFLICT IN SCOTLAND.    189
were made respecting abbacies, priories and
the rest, and the holders of the larger benefices to have place in Parliament.
Morton was victor. Ambitious ecclesiastics would now fill the offices, draw the
revenues and pay over the chief share to
the patrons through whose influence they
found way into their high places.
The scheme soon received from the wits
of the day the- contemptuous name of Tulchanism. In the Highlands it was not
uncommon to deceive refractory cows into
giving their milk by stuffing the skin of
a departed calf with straw and placing it
beside the cow as her own offspring, and
now the milkmaid had little difficulty in
safely filling her pail. The name of this
surreptitious calf was Tulchan. No sooner
did the popular mind comprehend this new
procedure than it saw in the diocese the
cow, in the bishop the stuffed calf and in
the patron the one who secured the milk.
Hence these ecclesiastical tools were called
Tulchans.




190        PRESBYTERIANISIM.
Morton's  Tulchan, Douglas, was first
ordained and installed archbishop of St.
Andrew's, and Knox, being invited by
Morton to assist in inaugurating Douglas,
replied by anathematizing both Douglas
and Morton.
In August the General Assembly met at
Perth, and had barely the courage and good
sense to protest that the Leith arrangement
should be accepted merely as ad interim
until further order be obtained from  the
king, regent and nobility. This was bowing before the storm, and the poor Church
reaped a sad harvest from this unmanly
cowardice.
Two other serious calamities came upon
the Church-Knox died and Morton, the
originator of Tulchanism, became regent.
Mar, worn out with anxiety and toils, passed
away, and Morton took the helm of the
tossing, laboring, groaning ship of State.
But the greatest sorrow of all, as it at the
same time deprived the Church of her
Elijah and left in the hands of Ahab a




THE CONFLICT IN SCOTLAND.   191
ministry in the main timid and time-serving, was the death of Knox.
Long had he been sighing, "Call for me,
dear brethren, that God will in his mercy
please to put an end to my long and painful battle. For now, being unable to fight, I
thirst an end before I be more troublesome
to the faithful. God is my witness, whom I
have served in the Spirit, in the gospel of
the Son of God, that I have had it for my
only object to instruct the ignorant, to confirm the faithful, to comfort the weak, the
fearful and the distressed by the promise of
his grace, and to fight against the proud
and rebellious by the divine threatenings."
To Morton he said, " Well, God has beautified you with many benefits which he has
not given to every man. And, therefore,
in the name of God, I charge you to use all
these benefits aright, and better in time to
come than ye have done in times by-past.
If ye shall do so, God shall bless you and
honor you; but if ye do not, God shall spoil
you of these benefits, and your end shall be




192        PRESBYTERIANISM.
ignominy and shame."  I wonder if Morton thought of these words that day when
at the old Tolbooth he lay with his neck
on the block and.the grim axe of "the
maiden" descending upon it?
A vast concourse attended the funeral of
Knox; and looking into his grave, Morton
said, "There lies one who never feared
the face of man."  At Morton's execution
his headless trunk lay till sunset of the day
of his execution on the scaffold, and then,
"covered with a beggarly cloak," was carried by common porters to the burial-place
of criminals, unattended and unwept by
those who in his prosperity had been his
professed friends.
The close of the year 1572 left the poor
Kirk in Scotland tossed from billow to billow on a wild, dark sea-Morton carrying
it now according to his will with a high
hand, the General Assembly and the good,
faithful- men paralyzed by their recent
loss and overawed by the bold, bad regent,
Morton.




THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND.    193
2. ENGLAND.
IN ENGLAND the year 1572 was one of
sore distress among the scourged believers
in the truth.  Over their prostrate forms
the imperious queen rode in a heavy fourwheeled chariot.
Of the wheels of this chariot, one was
her Parliament.
In those palmy days of the divine right
of monarchs this body was much like a
school of trembling urchins under the rod
of a passionate mistress. When, in 1571,
Strickland moved for further reformation,
the queen's treasurer reminded him that
"all matters of ceremonies were to be referred to the queen, and that for them to
meddle with her prerogative was not convenient." The queen sent for Strickland and
forbade him  the Parliament house.  In
May, 1572, the lord-keeper charged Parliament in the queen's name, "See that the
laws enforcing the discipline and ceremonies of the Church are put in execution,
13




194        PRESB YTERIA NISIM.
see and- consider if others be wanting and
so gladius gladiumjuvabit; the civil sword'will supportthe ecclesiastical as beforetime
has been used."  When two bills of Reform
had passed the House, the queen sent for.the Speaker and demanded that the two bills
be given up to her, and bade the Speaker
to inform the House that it was her pleasure that no bills concerning religion should
henceforth be received unless the same
should first have been received and approved by the bishops or clergy in convocation., The servile Commons not only
sent her the bills, but humbly begged that
she would- not conceive an ill opinion of
the House if she did not approve of them.
A member who ventured to grumble at this
treatment was sent to the Tower.
Another wheel in this' heavy chariot was
the Act of Uniformity.
This act specified any number of minute
rules of worship, and, as if this were not
enough, the clause was added: "The queen
is hereby empowered, with the advice of




THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAVD.   195
her commissioners or metropolitan" (the
advising of Queen Elizabeth by any one
was not unlike the advising of a wolf by a
lamb), "to ordain and publish such further
ceremonies and rites as may be for the advancernent of God's glory and edifying his
Church and the reverence of Christ's holy
mysteries and sacraments."
Thus in reality one passionate, profane
woman  was constituted  dictator in  the
Church of Christ.  This act was abundantly hedged about with penalties. Whoever ventured to address his Maker in any
other language than that thus prescribed
was liable to the loss of goods and chattels
for the first offence, to twelve months' imprisonment for the second, and to confinement during life for the third.
The third of these chariot wheels was the
Court of High Comminssion.
The aim of this court was to bring the
law to bear upon the citizen. The court
consisted of men, mostly laymen, whose duty
it was to go through the realm and execute




196:       PtESB YTERIANISIM.
the laws made way for in the Act df Uniformity.
The fourth wheel was the court; called
the Star Chamber.  It was so called, it is
said, from the gilt stars that glittered in the
ceiling of the hall where the court used to
assemble, the only stars that ever shone
approvingly on either this body or its deeds.
This was a court composed of "certain
noblemen, bishops, judges and counselors
of the queen's nomination, to the number
of twenty or thirty, with her Majesty at
their head, who is the sole judge when present, the other members being only to give
their opinion."  Its determinations were
simply according to the royal will and
pleasure, which  determinations, however,
were made binding by act of Parliament.
This court was a terror to the whole realm.
With  such  a queen, so  armed  and
equipped for the execution of her one
bigoted, tyrannous will, what could her
opposers expect?  "Many were cited into
the spiritual courts, and after long attend



THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND.    197
ance and great charges were suspended or
deprived; the messenger of the court was
paid by the mile; the fees were exorbitant
which the prisoner must satisfy before he is
discharged; the method of proceeding was
dilatory and vexatious, though they seldom
called any witnesses to support the charge,
but usually tendered the defendant an oath
to answer the interrogatories of the court;
and if he refused the oath, they examined
him without it and convicted him upon his
own confession. If the prisoner was dismissed, he was almost ruined with the costs."
"If a godly minister," writes one complainant, "omit but the least ceremony
for conscience' sake, he is immediately indicted, deprived, cast into prison and his
goods wasted and, destroyed; he is kept
from his wife, and children and at last excommunicated."
To make sure work throughout the realm,
there were appointed in every parish four
or eight censor spies or j urats to take cognizance of all offences given or taken. These




198        PRESB YTERIANISM.
were under oath to take particular, notice
of the conformity of the clergy or parishioners, and to give in their presentments
when required. So that it was impossible
for an honest Puritan to escape.
The result was that- many churches in
London were shut up, and the country was
plunged into distress. Many persons heard
no sermon in years. Hundreds of people
flocked around the church doors, which were
closed against them, while their pastors
wandered through the land in poverty and
their families were reduced  to beggary.
The prisons, too-the horrible, filthy, pestilential dungeons-were filled to overflowing
with men, women and children of "whom
the world was not worthy."
In December, 1572, this petition was put
into the hanlds of the earl of Leicester:
"WTe were condemned, according to the Act
of Uniformity, to one year's imprisonment,
which we have now suffered patiently, besides four months' close imprisonment before
our conviction; by this means we and our




THE CONFLICT IN ENGLAND.    199
poor wives and children are utterly impov.
erished, our health very much impaired by
the unwholesome savor of the place and
the cold weather, and we are likely to suffer still greater extremities. We therefore
humbly beseech your lordship, by the mercies of God and in consideration of our poor
wives and children, that you will be a means
to the most honorable privy council that we
may be enlarged, or if that cannot be obtained, that we may be confined in a more
wholesome prison." Another petition of
like import was sent to the privy council,
and another still in the names of the women
and children.
Thus was it in "Merrie England" three
hundred years ago. A profane and heartless queen with her Parliament, Act of
Uniformity, courts of high commission and
Star Chamber on the one hand, and on the
other prisons full of starving, freezing men,
women and children, sheep of God's pasture, and all over the land tens of thousands worshiping God in secret chambers,




200        PISESB YTERANISM.
where any. moment her Majesty's spies like
hungry wolves might pounce upon them
and hurry them before relentless, despotic
courts, and thence to pestilential dungeons.
3. THE CONTINENT.
Passing to the Continent, we find the conflict fiercely raging chiefly in France and
the Netherlands.
IN GERMANY the moderate and peaceful
Maximilian II. wore the imperial crown,
and the empire nestled in religious quietude
under the broad wings of the "Augsburg
Concession."  The only sounds of conflict
which were heard within its borders were
such as arose from the ordinary warfare
between truth and error in the preaching
of.the gospel from hundreds of pulpits, and
from the local struggles between individual
friends and foes of the word of God.
IN SWITZERLAND, also, the cantons were
pretty: equally parceled out between the
adherents of Rome on the one hand and




THIE CONFLICT ON THE CONTINENT. 201
the Reformation on the other, and among
those mountains there dwelt a comparative
religious peace.
Over the WALDENSES the clouds, big
with the wrath of St. Bartholomew's Eve,
extended their black, threatening wings.
When that horrid massacre took place,
orders were sent to Biraque, the governor
of Saluzzo, to slaughter all the Protestants
within his jurisdiction. Appalled at these
sanguinary instructions, he called the chapter together; and while some were. heartily
in favor of proceeding to the work, a majority insisted that there must be some misconception or misrepresentation, and counseled
delay.  This delay saved the poor Waldenses of that province from a horrid doom,
for the burst of indignant execration that'
thundered through the world against that
awful deed made even Romanism  shrink
from  concentrating upon itself the additional odium of this additional crime.
In November, 1571, the Waldensians of'the valleys, dreading the sanguinary intol



202        PRESB YTERIANISM,
erance of Castrocaro, governor under the
duke of Savoy, appointed representatives
from  their various communities to meet
Bobi, in the valley, of'Luserne, and renew
their league for mutual assistance against
their oppressor. In this convention they
solemnly pledged themselves that "when any
one of their churches should be assailed all
the rest would combine in assertion of their
common rights; that no one should adopt
any measure in such matter without consultation with the rest; that they would adhere
as one man to the union transmitted them
by their fathers and never abandon their
religion."
Strange to say, there -is a letter extant
written to the duke of Savoy, in September,
1571, by that curious compound of weakness,
d uplicity and villainy, Charles IX. of France,
in favor of the persecuted Waldenses.
But when the sounds of the St. Bartholomew massacre came shrieking and moaning
through they gaps of the mountains, Castrocaro, catching the welcome scent of blood,




THE CONFLICT ON THE CONTINENT.  203
exclaimed, " Sixty thousand Huguenots have
perished in France, and do you, miserable
handful of heretics, think you are to escape!"
The papists around caught up the watchword, and got ready for another bloody
revel. The startled Waldenses began to
prepare for the worst. The women and
children sought the securest caverns in the
upper mountains; the men, remaining behind, prepared their weapons for defence and
set themselves to watch and pray.
But the outcry of horror which resounded through Europe at the assassinations in
France took effect upon the duke of Savoy,
nor was his heart untouched by the utterances of woe from the poor victims. He
protested against the awful enormity, vowed
that he would be participant in no such
crime, and the savage Castrocaro was obliged
reluctantly to sheath his sword.
Thus, while the year 1572 was one of apprehension and sometimes of terror among
the Waldenses, it was not one in which they
were called to resist unto blood.




204         PPiESB YTERIANISM.
4. THE NETHERLANDS.
IN. THE  NETHERLANDS, however, the
clouds everywhere gathered blackness, and
the poor Dutch Huguenots were called to
fresh woes. On the one side was William
as the champion of the Bible; on the other,
Alva as the champion of the Inquisition.
William was weak, Alva was strong; William was mild, Alva was fierce and bloody.
The story of the conflict of 1572 is a very
simple one. It was merely aggression and
merciless slaughter on the one hand, and,
so far as William's orders prevailed, defence
on the other.  The contrast in spirit between the two parties may be seen in these
two orders: to Diedrich Sonoy, his lieutenant-governor for North Holland, William wrote: "'See that the word of God is
preached, without, however, suffering any
hindrance to the Romish Church in the
exercise of its religion; restore the fugitivesand those banished for conscience' sake,
and require of all magistrates and officers




THE CONFLICT IN THE NETHERLANDS. 205
of guilds and brotherhoods an oath of
fidelity."
On the other hand, Alva's orders with
respect to Zutphen, which had offered but a
feeble resistance to his troops, were, "Leave
not a single man alive in the city, and burn
every house to the ground." Just about
the opening of the year, Alva had sent two
Italian assassins to England to poison or
shoot Queen Elizabeth.
William was now in Germany attempting
to secure means in men and money to carry
on the war. But his eye was on, and his
heart was in, and his influences powerful
over, the down-trodden, struggling Netherlands. Brill was suddenly captured by
Admiral de la Marck, never to be recovered
by Alva. -Flushing, too, was gained by the
patriots. "The first half of the year 1572
was distinguished by a series of triumphs,
rendered still more remarkable by the reverses which followed at its close. Nearly
all the important cities of Holland and Zealand raised the standard of him whom they




'206       PRESB Y TERIANIS1]!.
recognized as their deliverer.  With one
fierce bound the nation shook off its chain.
City after city also in Gelderland, Overyssel  and the See of Utrecht, all the important towns of Zealand, accepted the garrisons of the prince and formally recognized
his authority."  In these struggles, during
William's absence and contrary to his will,
deeds of terrible ferocity were enacted. The
estates of Holland met at Dort on the 15th
of July, elected William's tried friend, Paul
Bruys, advocate of Holland, and resolved to
raise the means for prosecuting the work of
liberation from Alva, Philip and Rome.
By this assembly the prince was clothed
with virtually dictatorial powers. Toward
the end of July, William  appeared on the
field at the head of an army. The dawn of
a bright day seemed to be gleaming in the
sky. Coligny wrote him that he'had succeeded in securing a promise from Charles
IX. of a strong French reinforcement. But
all at once, like a thunder-peal from a clear
sky, came the news of the St. Bartholomew




THE CONFLICT IN THE NETHERLANDS. 207
massacre. William was struck down, as he
said, as with a blow from a sledge-hammer.
The Spanish army was now besieging Mons,
tnd William was just within striking distance
fwhen the awful news arrived. William-was
beaten and his troops butchered, he himself
barely escaping capture and death. And
now over the Netherlands rolled the wave
of reverse and massacre. Mons capitulated.
The gibbet was set up and an awful butchery
began, and went on day after day, month
after month.  Mechlin fell, and for three
days long the city was abandoned to that
"trinity of furies, murder, lust and rapine,
under whose promptings human beings became so much more terrible than the ferocious beasts." Zutphen fell; the whole garrison was put to the sword. The citizens were
stabbed in the streets, hung on the trees in
the parks, stripped naked and turned into
the fields to freeze to death in the cold winter night. Five hundred were tied two and
two, back to back, and drowned in the
Yssel. Many were hung by the feet and




208         PRESBYTERIANISM.
left to die. Naarden fell, and "miracles of:
brutality were accomplished." Nearly the
whole population, soldiers and citizens, were
butchered.  Men were slain and women
outraged in the very churches and in the
streets. Alva wrote: "They have cut the
throats of the burghers and garrison, and
have not left a mother's son alive."
William escaped from Mons with, twenty
horsemen and repaired to Holland. The
year closed while the waves of war were
raging about the walls of the devoted city
of Harlem. Thus in the Netherlands the
year opened with sunshine, passed into
clouds and darkness and closed in blood.
The condition of God's people during its
latter months is written in the book of
inspiration: "They were tortured, not
accepting deliverance,. that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had
trial of cruel mockings and scourgings,
yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment:
they were stoned, they were sawn asunder,
were tempted, were slain with the sword:




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.     209
they wandered about in sheep-skins, and
goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy): they wandered in deserts, and in
mountains, and in dens and caves of the
earth."
5. FRANCE.
IN FRANCE the year 1572 opened under
an apparently serene sky, and yet the angels
saw that sky full of clouds and those clouds
black with storm and death. The Huguenot population numbered millions, and the
Huguenot leaders were strong, wise and
brave.. In 1570, under the lead of Coligny,
they had secured a treaty granting them
pardon for all past'offences, declaring them
capable of filling all offices, civil and military,
renewing the edicts for liberty of conscience
and ceding them for two years, as places of
refuge and pledges of their security, Rochelle, La Charite, Montauban and Coignac.
Thus the civil wars seemed to be ended, and
the only contests awaiting the faithful those
14




210         PRESB YTFRIANISM.
which were to be waged by the sword of
the Spirit.
Besides this, the king of France had concluded a defensive alliance with,England,
which promised still greater security to the
Huguenot cause.  In this security there
seemed to be, on the part of the Protestants,
profound repose.
In sddition to all this, the king of France
had offered his sister Margaret in marriage
to Henry, the young king of Navarre.
After much hesitation the mother of Henry
consented and came with her son to Paris,
where the wedding was to be celebrated.
She was received with great pomp and ceremony. The Huguenots, also, on invitation,
flocked to Paris to attend the nuptials. As
Henry was a Protestant, the son of a devotedly pious and ardently zealous Protestant mother, and Margaret was a papist, the
event seemed significant of kindliest harmony in Church and State.
But underneath all this seeming brightness there lurked the profoundest treachery.




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.    211
The Huguenots had been lured to Paris to
a marriage feast; they found that the feast
was preliminary to an awful slaughter. The
idea of a general massacre of the Huguenots
was anything but shocking to the papist
mind of that day. Butcheries of the Waldenses and Albigenses and butcheries in
the Netherlands had rather whetted than
cloyed the Romish appetite for the blood
of heretics. Philip of Spain and the pope
of Rome were always ready for it. Who
should bear the infamy of having first suggested this particular massacre is hardly
known. It is attributed by some to the
grand-master of the Inquisition at Rome,
red as he was all over with the blood of the
saints. But as to the willing agents in the
work there can be little doubt.  At the
head of the butchers stands the grim form
of Catherine de Medici. Side by side with
her was Henry duke of Guise. His father,
Francis, had been slain in his camp before
Orleans by Poltrot de Mer6,. a Protestant.
Henry chose to consider Coligny as the




212        PR ESB YTERIA TISM.
instigator of the murder, though both the
character and solemn denial of Coligny
removed all doubt from honest minds. But
fromt this time "death to Coligny and the
Huguenots" was the watchword of Henry
of Guise.
Another bitter foe was the widow of the
slain duke of Guise, Anne, now the duchess
of Nemours, who, from being a Protestant,
had become a fierce Romish bigot.
Another still was the king Charles IX., a
man subject to fits of passion that bordered
even on frenzy, andiwhom his mother knew
well how to lash into fury.
This king, however, was rather the. tool
than the originator of the plot. Often he
shrank with horror from  the suggestion.
But he-lived in mortal dread of his mother,
so familiar with poison and so deeply
suspected of having poisoned his brother.
Bitterly reproaching him for his reluctance,
Catherine said to him, with tears and tones
which were ever at her command, "Why
this ingratitude to-your mother?  You hide




THE -CONFLICT IN FRAJNCE.    213
yourself from me. You take counsel with
my foes. You will make France a prey to
the Huguenots. Either be guided by me
or let me go back to my native country, that
I may not witness such disgrace."  The
poor king was frightened, and begging his
mother's pardon, promised obedience.
Many events foreshadowed the coming
horror. In the rue St. Denis stood a huge
cross commemorating the execution of three
men, "principally because thley had there
celebrated the Lord's Supper."  For this
crime their house had been pulled down,
and on the spot this cross erected as a
warning to heretics. By the treaty of 1570
it was agreed that this memento of bloodslled should be removed. Its removal was
ordered by the king, but the officer was
deterred from obeying the order by fear
of the mob. One dark night, however, the
attempt was made. The attempt was discovered.  The mob assembled.  The cry
"To arms!" was heard in the streets. There
was a fierce riot, in which two houses were




214        PRESBYTERIANISM.
burned and a "sermoner" killed. At last
the cross was removed to the cemetery of the
Innocents. Another mob rushed through
the streets, crying, "Kill the Huguenots!"
Houses were pillaged and families were
murdered.  Such was the temper of the
Parisian papists surrounding the Huguenots
who had come to the marriage.
Another token  of the  coming woe:
Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, a
warm, devout Huguenot, who had brought
her son Henry to Paris to wed the daughter of Catherine; died. It was said that
poisoned perfumes had been sold her in a
Parisian shop kept by "the queen's poisoner."  Her dying words to her son were,
"I command you to persevere in the faith
in which you have been reared. Keep no
men in your service who have no fear of
God, and whose lives are scandalous. Beware of wicked women."
The report that the queen of Navarre
had been poisoned spread like wildfire, and
carried dismay into the bosoms of the Hu



THE CONFLICT IN FEANCE.    215
guenot chiefs.  Of the character of this
queen even a Romanist could say, "Her
heart overflowed with every virtue and quality that ennobles and elevates mankind."
It was the ninth of June, 1572. At the
funeral Heenry rode at the head of eight
hundred noblemen clothed in black, accompanied by troops of papists clad in scarlet.
The wedding was postponed, and through
the streets were heard the ominous muttering, "See these accursed Huguenots, these
outcasts of heaven, deniers of God, haters
of the saints! Sing us one of your whining psalms!" Well does Blackburn say,
"the Huguenots were walking on the sides
of a volcano."  Not a few of them, oppressed with a sense of coming ill, quietly
slipped away to their homes.
The day for the wedding, the eighteenth
of August, drew on. Coligny was at Chatillon, intending to be absent from the wedding. The king, however, begged him to
come to Paris. As he mounted his horse a
pious peasant-woman who had found Christ




216        PRESB YTERI.AN1SM.
in the admiral's house seized the stirrup,
clasped his knee and with entreaties and
tears said, "Ah, my good master, if you go
to that wicked court we shall never see you
again."  Then throwing herself at the feet
of the lady of Chatillon, she cried, " He will
never return.  He will occasion, too, the
death of more than two thousand others."
At last came the wedding-day. "Every
spot of ground between the Louvre and
the cathedral of Notre Dame was densely
crowded. From every window and balcony
the people gazed. King Charles, the Prince
of Conde and Henry rode together, dressed
alike as a sign of friendship. The men
were in gorgeous apparel, the bride blazed
in diamonds."
To his wife, about to become a mother,
Coligny wrote: "To-day the king's sister
was married to the king of Navarre.  The
next three or four days will be spent in
banquets, balls, masquerades and tournaments.  I hope to leave the city within
seven days."




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.      217
In the heart of Paris, on the northern
bank of the Seine, stands that matchless
architectural pile, the palace of the Louvre.
Its eastern front, overlooking a broad street,
is five hundred and thirty-eight feet in
extent, and its sides on either hand reach
westward five hundred and seventy-six feet.
Across the street, opposite the eastern front,
stands the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.
Near this was the house of Coligny. Four
days after the wedding, as the admiral was
crossing the street between the Louvre and
his own mansion, a, shot was fired from a
latticed window in the house adjoining the
church, and two balls struck him, one taking off the first finger of his right hand, the
other entering deep into his arm. Reeling
back, he exclaimed, "I am wounded!" The
cry arose, "The admiral is shot!"  Pointing to the house, he said, "There is where
it came from. Run tell the king!" The
admiral was borne to his mansion, and soon
it rang through Paris, "Coligny is slain!"
Some exulted, some were filled with anguish,




218        PRESBYTERIANISM.
all looked with wonder to see what would
follow. The crowd gathered, and some, dipping their fingers in the admiral's blood,
called on God for justice. The Huguenot
chiefs flew to Coligny's house, and one word
from him would have unsheathed hundreds
of blades to drink the blood of the Guises.
This was what Catherine expected and desired. Let the Huguenots begin the work
of death, and there will be good excuse for
butchering them all.
Poor, half-c'razy King Charles was playing in the tennis court when the word came,
"The admiral is killed!"  He threw down
h.is racket and fell into one of those frenzies
of raving and cursing that would have done
credit to a demon.
Contrast the two scenes, separated only
by the width of a street. In yon chamber
lies the bleeding admiral, the surgeon having amputated his finger and cut the ball
from his arm. "Nothing happens," he said,
"but by the will of God. Why do you
weep? I am happy in being thus irounded in




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.    219
God's cause. Pray that he may strengthen
me. I forgive with all my heart him who
fired upon me and those who incited him.
I suspect no one but the duke of Guise, and
I am not even sure about. him."
In a room in the Louvre, Catherine is
closeted with Anjou, her wicked younger
son. Charles enters, grinding his teeth and
forcing between them a low, hissing growl.
There they are, three wicked, shuddering
souls!  The door is flung open and the
king of Navarre, Rochefoucauld and Conde
enter.  Conde holds up a blood-spotted
hand and cries, "Justice!"  "Whose blood
is that?" cried Charles; "the admiral's?"
And Charles poured out a stream of blasphemies fresh from the pit. "It shall be
aveng'ed," said Charles. "Guise is a villain. I will take vengeance on him' so terrible that the child unborn will rue it."
The conspirators were at their wits' end.
What to do next they did not- know. There
had been a blunder. An enormous crime
had been perpetrated and nothing gained.




220        PRESB YTERIA NISM.
The admiral was still alive, the Huguenots
exasperated and the mad king was raving
at the conspirators.
Catherine and Anjou hid themselves in
their closet, and the latter exclaimed, "Our
noble enterprise has miscarried." It was
Friday night, and all night long the lights
gleamed in the Louvre, "as if the wicked
who plotted against the just were afraid that
God might come in the darkness." The
question was how to kill the Huguenots.
Saturday came, and still the question was
undetermined. A conclave was held in a
house without the walls. Anjou, De Retz,
Biraque, Tavannes and Nevers were there
with Catherine. "The king must be frightened into the scheme," said Catherine. In
due time the conspirators reappear at the
Louvre.
The city that day was all in a tremble.
There were muttered threats from the lips
of half-armrd soldiers, "low murmurs in
dark alleys, the brag of street boys, prophecies of blatant women, quarrels at the mar



THE CONFLICT.IN FRANCE.    221
kets and chaos everywhere." The Hiuguenots kept within doors, or if they walked
out they watched for the dagger. Tidings
now reached the ears of the Huguenots of
"much carrying of arms to and fro, of
pikes and lances secretly borne into the
Louvre, rumbling of artillery wagons, forging of weapons, burnishing of armor, posting of soldiers, galloping of couriers," and
every sign of awful preparation.  If the
devil ever spoke by the lips of man, it was
when Anjou advised that all Roman Catholics remove from the vicinity of the admiral's
mansion that their places might be filled with
the admiral's friends. Coligny thought it
very kind of the king. He did not see that
the sheep were thus penned up for slaughter.
But the king must be gained. De Retz
took him  in hand. HIe said: "A  great
great danger threatens you. The admiral
is a dangerous man. The effort to take his
life was not made by Guise alone. Your
mother and Anjou were with him. She saw
how dangerous he was, and wished to rid the




222        PRESB YTERIANISM.
kingdom of the-pest. It has failed, and the
Huguenots will take up arms this very
night."  Charles, of course, went into a
furious rage. And then Catherine opened
her "budget of lies." She said, "I have
intercepted their letters.  They have sent
beyond the Rhine for sixteen thousand
men. They mean to place Henry of Navarre on the throne."
Charles doubted. A cold sweat stood on
his brows. Catherine now asked, "Do you
wish to be murdered?  The Catholics will
stand by you. They wish to end these
wars at a blow." The king still hesitating,
Catharine stung him with the suggestion
that he was a coward. Goaded almost
to madness, he sprang to his feet, raving
like a madman; and bellowing forth his
oaths, he6 exclaimed, "Hold your tongues!
If you must kill the admiral, then kill all
the Huguenots-all! all! Don't leave one to
reproach me with the deed. Kill them! see
to it at once. Do you hear?" Then rushing
away, he left the conspirators to themselves.




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.    223
They spent all that day and a good part of
the night in arranging their plans.
Guise was summoned, and his uncle Aumale. "The city was divided into four districts. The general military superintendence was given to Tavannes. Montpensier
had charge of the Louvre, Guise the quarter of the admiral.  The hour was fixed.
The signal would be given by the great bell
on the Palace of Justice. The badge prescribed for the Romanists was a white badge
on the arm and a white cross on the cap."
Guise now went out and spread enormous lies among the people: "The Huguenot chiefs were in revolt, and bringing in
twenty-five thousand men to burn the city."'Tis Saturday night.  At dawn of the
day when the loving Jesus rose from the
dead the work of butchery will begin.
There remained with Coligny the royal
physician,.the chaplain pastor, Peter Merlin, Cornatou, Tolet, Le Bonne, five Switzers of Navarre's guard and a few servants.
The last to leave him that night were his




224        PRESB YTERIANISM.
son-in-law, Teligny, and his faithful daughter Louisa. All was quiet in the mansion
of the admiral.
Not so at the Louvre. After midnight
Charles was pacing his room, shivering as
one in an ague, the cold drops on his
forehead, the agony in his heart. Catherine and Anne, widow of the duke Francis
of Guise, all the conspirators, were there.
"It is too late to retreat," said Catherine
to Charles. "God never gave a man so fine
an opportunity. If you delay, you will lose
it." The trembling royal wretch sprang
forward, laid hold of his cloak, and said
with all his madness, "Well, begin!"
Guise withdrew. It was yet an hour and
a half before the bell would ring. Catherine and her wretched crew clung to each
other in silent horror.  The dread of a
prodigious, ghastly  crime crushed  their
spirits.
It was not yet four o'clock. They could
not wait. Catherine and her guilty crew
on one side of the street, the wounded Co



THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE..Z}
ligny and his friends on the other, were
startled by the tramp of cavalry and footmen. There was a crash at Coligny's door,
a rush up the stairs, and shots and shrieks.
Coligny had been lifted out of bed, and was
praying with Pastor Merlin. The door of
the room was dashed open.
"Are you the admiral?" demanded the
assassin.
"I am," replied the old man. "But you,
young man, should respect my gray hairs,
and not attack- awounded man."
A curse and a thrust. of a sword to the
hilt into the admiral's heart was the reply.
The impatient, guilty Guise from the
pavement below called out, "Behm, have
you finished?"
"It is over," answered Behm.
"Throw him down;" and soon the body
fell upon the pavement. A lantern was
held near, and the blood was wiped from
the face, when Guise said,
"Yes, it is he. I know him well. Lie
there, thou serpent!" and he gave the hardly
15




226        PRBESB YTERIANISI.
dead body a kick. Then the head was cut
off and sent over to Catherine.
"Well done, my men," said Guise; "we
have made a good beginning."
And now that the "good beginning" had
been made, the work must go on. The king
may repent, and that bell on the Palace of
Justice will not ring for three-quarters of
an hour. "Go," said Catherine, "and ring
the bell in the church of St. Germain
l'Auxerrois;" and the booming of that bell
"unbarred the gates of hell."
When the bell rang, the king and his
mother were looking from the windows of
the palace upon the balmy Sabbath morning.
" The weather," said Charles to his mother,
"is rejoicing over what we are about to do."
At the signal the crowds rushed into the
streets, and pistol shots and shouts and
screams filled the air. The excitement of
the moment filled the king with a frenzy,
and grasping a gun, he fired into the crowd,
crying, "Kill! kill!"
The soldiers had a list of the Huguenot




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.    227
houses and lodgings. They broke down the
doors and slew and ravaged and pillaged.
The dawn now came and showed them their
victims. "If one shut the door in the face
of a ruffian, or refused to inform on his
neighbor, or begged for his life, or wore not
the white badge, or would not join in the
slaughter," he was a heretic and was killed.
"Every rioter, every low villain, every
malcontent, every menial greedy for plunder,
every profligate, put on the white cross and
became a volunteer. The populace became
one vast mob; while dukes and lords were
killing at the Louvre, the bands of the sections, men, women and even children, strove
which should be first in the pious work.
All Catholic Paris was at the business.
Through street, lane, quay and causeway
the air rang with yells and curses, pistolshots and crashing windows; the roadways
were strewed with mangled bodies; the doors
were blocked with the dead and the dying.
From garden, closet, roof or stable crouching creatures were torn and stabbed; boys




228        PRESB YTEBRIANISM.
practiced their hands at strangling babies
in their cradles, and headless bodies were
trailed along the trottoir. Carts struggled
through the crowd, carrying the dead in
piles to the Seine."
"Imagine a vast city in which sixty thousand men armed with pistols, stakes, cutlasses, poignards, knives and other bloody
weapons are running about on all sides,
blaspheming and murdering all they meet.
The pavements were covered with dead
bodies, the doors, gates, entrances of palaces and private houses steeped in blood; a
horrible tempest of yells and murderous
cries filled the air, mingled with the reports
of firearms and the piteous shrieks of the
slaughtered, the dead bodies falling from
the windows, the court of the Louvre red
with blood: and the Seine running crimson!"
There was a full week of rioting and
murdering. To sanction and stimulate the
work, Rome wrought a miracle at noon on
that awful day. A hawthorn bush in the
"Cemetery of the Innocents," Which had




THE CONFLICT IN: FRANCE.    229
not bloomed for four years, now suddenly,
out of season, by aid of a cunning friar, was
covered with white blossoms. The king,
court, council, clergy and all the rest of the
murderous rabble went in procession to the
cemetery to refresh their pure eyes with a
sight of the miracle.
"See," said they, "the white cross triumphs!"
On their way the friars killed Huguenots
and the monks cried out, "The Church revives by the death of heretics!"
The king, now fully in the spirit of the
revel, gave orders for conducting the massacre. Eight hundred Huguenots were torn
from the places in which they had sought
refuge, led to a spot on the banks of the
Seine called the "Vale of Misery," where
they were shot or made to walk the plank
into the river.
The headless body of Coligny was
dragged about the streets, put over a fire
and scorched, thrown into the river, taken
out again, dragged about the street again,




230        PRESB YTEIRIANISM.
and then hung upon the gallows by the
feet. His head, there is reason to believe,
was sent to Rome to feast the eyes of the
infallible.  His castle was despoiled, the
trees rooted up, the property confiscated,
his family declared ignoble and all possible
terrors heaped upon his children. His wife
was at length seized, thrown into prison at
Nice, persecuted and tormented for nearly
twenty-seven years, until she was driven to
madness and death.
Nor was the tide of massacre restrained
within the walls of Paris. It flowed in one
wave of blood, fire and war over France.
Almost every village had its festival of
blood. Nor was its duration limited to a
day or a week. "For two months this horrible tempest swept over France, being more
or less bloody according to the temper of
those in authority." At Bourges, Rouen,
Nevers, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyons, Orleans, Treves, the slaughter was immense.
The number of victims of this truly
Romish exploit it is impossible to tell. "At




THE CONFLICT IN FRANCE.    231
Paris tile number may have been six thousand, in France fifty thousand," though
some say seventy thousand, and others one
hundred thousand.
The news of this piece of demonism filled
the Protestant world with horror.  The
queen of England clothed herself in mourning and spurned the apologies of the French
envoy with contempt. Knox in Scotland
said to the French ambassador, "Go tell
your master that God's vengeance will never
depart from him nor his house, that his
name shall remain an execration to posterity, and that none proceeding from his
loins shall enjoy the kingdom in peace except he repent."  The prediction was more
than fulfilled. But how was the story of
this enormity received by Rome and Romanism? At Madrid there was unbounded
joy. Philip even laughed —an astonishing
phenomenon in his life. He "seemed more
delighted than with all the good fortune
or happy incidents which had ever before
occurred to him,"




232        PRESB YTERIANISM.
In the Spanish camp before Mons the
joy was unbounded. With anthems in St.
Gudule, with bonfires, with festive illuminations, roaring artillery, with trumpets
also and with shawms, was the glorious
holiday celebrated in court and in camp."
In Rome the bells rang, the bonfires blazed,
the guns of St. Angelo thundered. The
man who brought the precious tidings received a thousand crowns. The pope and
cardinals marched in procession to the
church of St. Louis, where Lorraine chanted
the Te Deum. The pope sent to Charles IX.
the golden rose. He had a medal struck,
on one side of which was a destroying angel,
the cross in one hand, a sword in the other,
slaying heretics, and on the other a likeness
of his Holiness, with the legend Hfugonottoruwm Strages, 1572. He also h'ad three frescoes painted in the Vatican, one representing the attack on the admiral, another the
king in council plotting the deed and a
third the massacre itself.




V.
CONCL USION.
THUS was it with Presbyterianism three
hundred years ago, and well were it
for us all were we more familiar with the
thrilling, bleeding, glorious tale.  Well
were it for our Church could our youthful
Presbyterians be induced to fill their minds
with the records of those days that so sorely
tried men's souls, with the true character
and history of our glorious Presbyterianism, with the heroism  to which it gave
birth, the heroes that glorify its progress
and the services it has rendered the world.
More than once it saved the Reformation in
Britain, and once at least it saved free constitutional government from overthrow.
How instructive, foo, and in many respects how cheering, is the contrast between
those days and ours! Over all the round
233




234          PRESB YTERIANISM.
world, almost, no hindrance to the free
propagation of the unsearchable riches of
Christ.
"From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand,
From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver
Their land from Error's chain."
An active response to this world-wide
call is forbidden by no satanic Catherine de
~Medici, by no blood-seeking Alva, by no
imperious self-willed Elizabeth. Through
all the changes of three centuries but one
sturdy opponent of the truth remains
unchanged in spirit, though wondrously
changed. in power, and that is the Roman
papacy. By the blasphemous decree of
infallibility, which assures us that the pope,
issuing his edicts ex cathedral upon the subjects of morals and religion, cannot err, all
the past enormities of the papacy, its edicts
of blood and woe, are solemnly appropriated




CONCL USION.          23 
to itself and sealed as the infallibly righteous decrees of God.  Not from  innate
bloodthirstiness, not from natural delight
in persecution to butchery and flame, but
simply as a duty to the truth, to the Church
and to God, would the Romish apostasy,
had it the power to-day, repeat the bloody
work in any and every land. But, thanks
be to God! the lion is gone into senility,
his teeth are drawn and his claws are out,
and hence there remains to him only the
harmless privilege of bemoaning the palmy
days of St. Bartholomew and wishing in
vain for their return.
Since those days Presbyterianism has
passed through many sore trials, has in
some countries sadly betrayed its trust, but,
withal, it has won many a notable victory.
On the subject of the present Englishspeaking Presbyterianism we quote the eloquent Dr. Blakie of Edinburgh:
"The career of English-speaking Presbyterianism may be said to have commenced
in 1560, when the first General Assembly




236         PRESB YTERJANISM.
of the Church of Scotland met, under
Knox, and numbered six ministers and
thirty-four laymen. Three hundred years
ago the English language was almost confined to England and the Scottish Lowlands, and the people who spoke it might
fairly be estimated at five millions. That
handful has increased to about seventy-five
millions, and wherever the language has
gone Presbyterianism has gone also. The
six ministers of 1560 have as their successors in Scotland alone three thousand
ministers. In Ireland there are about six
hundred ministers and congregations. In
England there are at least two hundred
and fifty.  In the Dominion of Canada
there are upward of five hundred ministers
and churches of our order. In Australia,
New  Zealand, Africa, West Indies, etc.
there are about five hundred more. All
the Presbyterian churches in the United
States put together number about seven
thousand two hundred. The Presbyterian
churches that look back to the assembly




CONCL USION.           237
of Edinburgh, in 1560, as their mother
assembly, number in all about twelve thousand ministers and churches, living in the
British Isles, in the United States, in British America, and in the isles of the southern seas. With the exception of the ten
or twelve per cent. that constitute the Established Church in Scotland, the whole of
this body owes its support to the freewillofferings of the people, and therefore possesses at least the kind and degree of life
and activity necessary for continuing its
own existence. No political revolution can
greatly affect its strength or its welfare."
May God add his blessing- and imbue the
Presbyterianism of the world with the orthodox fidelity of the Waldenses, with the
prayerful zeal of Knox, as on his knees in
the enclosure behind his house in High
street he prayed, " O God, give me Scotland,
or I die!" and with the purity, dignity and
nobility of character illustrated in Admiral
Coligny, and with the generous, tolerant
spirit of William the Silent! Amen!