through Christ. The law, according to Luther, is for the unconverted only. According to Calvin, it is also addressed to believers.

Luther did not accomplish a reformation of morals, nor did he even attempt it. This was not, undoubtedly, because he did not think it of the highest importance. "How," as he wrote to the brethren of Bohemia, who desired him to establish such discipline, "how can we, who live in the midst of Sodom, of Gomorrah, and of Babylon, bring about order, discipline, and exemplary life?" Luther thought that the reformation of morals should proceed simply and naturally from the influence of sound doctrine.

Let us here observe, again, how necessary the diversity of Lutheranism and the Reform is for the unity and even the existence of the Reformation. Who does not discern a profound Christian truth in the doctrine that faith leads to sound morals? Was it not necessary, after centuries in which the discipline of the church had caused innumerable troubles, and still greater superstitions, that there should be a protestation against these fatal errors? Was it not necessary that, beside the strength of the Reform, which has a sectarian tendency, there should be another force in the renewed church that should tend to enlarge the views of the faithful? Was it not necessary that, above all that men could do, above all their efforts to rebuke the disorderly and to watch over the Lord's inheritance, there should be a finger to point to heaven, and that a loud voice should pronounce this oracle: "The good shepherd goeth before his sheep, and his sheep follow him, for they know his voice"? But if one of these was necessary, the other was not less so. The work of Christian vigilance and pastoral guardianship was intrusted to the Reform; and we are reformed.

Zwingle started from this principle: "A universal renovation of life and morals is as requisite as a renovation of faith." Immediately after the Reformation, in Zurich, Berne, and Basle, ordinances for the promotion of good morals were published, prostitution was abolished, pensions and enlist

ments in foreign service were suppressed; and when afterwards the Pope, according to his ancient custom, required troops from Zurich, the citizens offered him instead two thousand monks and priests whom they could spare. Would to God that in our day we sent not Swiss soldiers to Rome. The morals of ministers were particularly insisted on: "As the Word of truth is solemn, the life of its servant ought also to be grave," said the ordinance of 1532.

But it was especially in Geneva that this principle was fully carried out. Calvin, with the zeal of a prophet and the resignation of a martyr who submits himself unreservedly to the severe Word of God, exacted of the church under his care absolute obedience. He struggled hard with the party of the Libertines, and by the grace of God he overcame. Geneva, which was so corrupt before, was regenerated, and evinced a purity of morals and a Christian simplicity so remarkable, that it drew from Farel, (after an absence of fifteen years,) an expression of admiration, in these memorable words: "I had rather be the last in Geneva than the first elsewhere."

And fifty years after the death of Calvin, a fervent Lutheran, John Valentine Andreæ, having passed some time within our walls, said on his return, "What I have seen there I shall never forget. The most beautiful ornament of that republic is its tribunal of morals, which every week inquires into the disorders of the citizens. Games of cards and chance, swearing and blasphemy, impurity, quarrelling, hatred, deceitfulness, infidelity, drunkenness, and other vices, are repressed. Oh! how beautiful an ornament to Christianity is this purity. We Lutherans cannot too deeply deplore its absence from us. If the difference of doctrine did not separate me from Geneva, the harmony of its morals could have induced me to remain there for ever."

This moral character was not confined to Switzerland and Geneva alone; it spread through France, Holland, Scotland, and wherever the Reform made its way. It has in a measure remained in some of those countries to the present day. A German author, Mr. Goëbel, having related that a

traveller, also a German, was unable to find in the churches of Scotland which he visited, a single instance of adultery and divorce, and very little impurity, exclaims: "Let the frightful immorality of Germany be contrasted with this; in the country as well as in the city let only the pastors be interrogated, and one will be filled with astonishment and terror." Alas! we cannot pride ourselves on such a state of things at present. These morals are no more. We do not pretend to say that there was nothing in this discipline adapted to hasten its fall; on the contrary, we think that the part the state took in these matters must inevitably have destroyed it. We reject all Christian discipline exercised by constables and soldiers; but we think we can lay aside all public force, retaining the power of vigilance, of charity, and of the word of God.

This was not done, and what is the result? Senebier said, "The prosperity of Geneva was long the fruit of Calvin's wise laws. In the purity of our ancient morals consisted our glory. We can prove that one of the causes of our misfortunes is the diminution of their influence. Thus Rome was lost, when its censors could not make themselves heard any more, and Sparta fell with the credit of those whose charge was to cause virtue to be respected." Senebier spoke thus in 1786, what shall we now say?

If

Ah! who could fail to understand what Montesquieu said, that the Genevese ought to bless and celebrate the day of Calvin's birth, and that of his arrival in their midst? But what the most profound politician of the eighteenth century clearly saw, the Genevese have not comprehended. Instead of celebrating the birthday of the Reformer, they and their children celebrate that of a noted sophist, a man of ardent soul, of unsurpassed talent, but who sent to the hospital the sad results of his libertinisın! They have erected a magnificent statue to the memory of Rousseau, and they have erected none to Calvin ! "We will do it at Edinburgh," said a Scotch divine to me last year. "Edinburgh," added he" is now the metropolis of the Reform."

The revival of faith and sound morals among the Reformed,

is the statue which Calvin, that great but unassuming man, would have desired. Shall we not erect it? And, if now, as in Saxony in the days of Luther, a too rigid law is inapplicable, shall we not at least remember, that whoever asks for a reformation of morals possesses the spirit of the Reform, and that it is the most sacred duty, not only of ministers, but of all reformed Christians, to cause all those who invoke the name of the Saviour to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a perverse nation."

V. This leads us to a fifth consideration. The Reform has both in its principles and its progress something more decided than Lutheranism. The principle of Lutheranism was, to preserve in the church all that is not condemned by the word of God; whilst that of the Reform was, to abolish in the church all that is not prescribed by the word of God. Lutheranism is a reformation of the church; the Reform, its renovation; or, to express this distinction by the different pronunciations of the same word, Lutheranism is a reformation, the Reform a re-formation. Lutheranism took the church, such as it was, contenting itself with effacing its stains. The Reform took the church at its origin, and erected its edifice on the living Rock of the Apostles.Whilst Luther, hearing what Carlstadt was doing, writes,

we must remain in the middle path," and opposes those who cast down the images, Carlstadt, the first Reformed, from the year 1521 boldly reforms the church of Wittenberg, of which he was the Prevost, abolishing the mass, images, and confessions, the fast-days, and all the abuses of papacy. Zwingle, almost at the same time, proceeds in the same manner at Zurich; and as to what took place in Geneva, we shall merely transcribe here an inscription which, for nearly three centuries, remained on the walls of our City Hall, from 1536 to 1798, and which expresses, better than we could do, the uncompromising character of the Reform. At the time of the Jubilee of 1835, it was to have been placed in the church of St. Peter, but it has not yet been done.

"In the year 1535, the tyranny of Roman Antichrist having been overthrown, and its superstitions abolished, the most holy religion of Jesus Christ was established here in its purity, and the church better organized, by an extraordinary blessing of God. And at the same time, this city itself having repulsed its enemies, and put them to flight, was again set free, but not without a remarkable miracle. The Council and the people of Geneva have here erected this monument to perpetuate its memory, so that the testimony of their gratitude toward God should descend to their posterity." What has resulted from this difference between Lutheranism and the Reform?

Two very distinct courses, each of which has its favorable aspect. The course of Lutheranism is defensive, successive; that of the Reform is offensive, acquisitive. To Lutheranism belongs the principle of resistance and passivity; to the Reform, that of activity and life.

Is it necessary to recall to your mind that these two tendencies are important to the prosperity of the church?― Must we insist that in a well-organized community immobility of principle should be joined to mobility of life?

There is not even a family where two opposite tendencies are not to be found. To counterbalance the decisive and imposing authority of the father, the conciliating and indulgent tenderness of the mother is requisite. Thus, in a political state, the conservative and the liberal elements should be constantly combined. An exclusive immobility leads to violence, hatred, and revolution. Had we not an example of this during the reign of Charles X? An excess of mobility leads to levity, superficiality, agitation, and pride. Do not nations furnish us with a demonstration of this? These two elements are so indispensably necessary to the life of the whole body, that, if by some means you could annihilate one of the two, it would soon re-appear. In France, in 1830, the ancient conservators being excluded, those who, for fifteen years, had played the part of liberals, became themselves

conservators.