tion. It was an honour paid to him just when all human honours were fading to nothing. Farel made his will. It was mainly a setting forth of his gratitude to God, his faith, his doctrines, his confession, and his hope that his last words might confirm those who had received the truth from his lips. He bequeathed his little property to his brothers Walter and Claudius (to whom he had left his paternal inheritance when he left Dauphiny), and exhorted them to remain stedfast in the faith which they had before accepted through his agency. A fourth part of his books he left for the ministers in his district, and the rest to his brother Walter and to his nephew Gasper Carmel, the minister who afterwards preached on the estates of a brother of the Admiral Coligny, and became pastor of the reformed church in Paris. A third part of what was left of money and furniture was to be given to the poor, thus retaining sufficient to pay all his debts. Calvin wrote his name as the first witness. Gladly would Farel have departed to his Lord; but the Master had another design. Calvin prayed for his sick brother, and the Lord restored him to health.'

The world will be old before a certain class of men will cease to charge John Calvin with the burning of Servetus. The truth about this painful case will, probably, not be fully examined until the millennium; the

1 After his recovery, Calvin apologizes for the shortness of his visit, saying, ‘I was desirous of escaping the remainder of the grief incident to your premature death. . . . Since I have buried you before the time, may the Lord grant that the Church may see you my survivor. My own private comfort is joined with the public good of the faithful in this prayer; for my warfare will be the shorter, and I shall not be subjected to the pain of lamenting your death.' The old hero must have been touched by such evidences of Calvin's tender love and high regard.

misrepresentations have already had a long day and a wide circulation. We cannot fully enter into the subject in these pages. If Calvin has been blamed, Farel has been reproached for cherishing a more bitter spirit toward Servetus.

After a long course of heresies, blasphemies, and profanations; after years of disturbance which he caused among the churches; and after various attempts to correct his errors and reform the man, this Spaniard, Servetus, was arraigned before the Council of Geneva. Calvin was not the instigator, nor the plaintiff, nor the judge. Servetus was not condemned for heresy, nor for his falsehoods, nor for his opposition to the Genevese ministers. It was for blasphemy, a crime punished by death under the law of Moses, and regarded as worthy of such rigour by almost all men in his own times. For many years after him the blasphemer was put to death. The blasphemies of Servetus are too awful to be written.

The Libertines, and all the enemies of the truth and of the Church, took the part of Servetus; and this put Calvin in such a position that he seemed to be severe against him, when his motive was to defend the gospel, the Church, and the honour of Jehovah. The accused was not at all in Calvin's hands. This great reformer had never such absolute power in Geneva as his enemies represent, and he had seldom less power than when Servetus was on trial. His influence just before this was at so low an ebb that he was tempted to leave the city. The senate was against him; the ruling party was composed of his enemies; and among them were the Libertines, who rejoiced at the prospect of being able soon to overthrow him. They deprived the clergy of all share in the management of the state.

It is true that Calvin laid his complaints against Servetus before the senate, and, although its members were mostly utterly opposed to Calvin, they took up the charges and brought the man to trial. Dr. Henry, who has most thoroughly sifted the case, says, 'Calvin had no intention to expose Servetus to capital punishment. He only wished to render him harmless, to make him recant his blasphemy, and so preserve Christianity from injury.' And further, 'We find that it was his blasphemy, his rash jesting with holy things-the insult with which he had treated the majesty of God—that weighed heaviest upon (against) him. The judges passed over everything else.' The law of that day punished blasphemy with the sword. The majority of the judges decided that Servetus should die by fire. So little had Calvin to do in this matter that he wrote, "What will become of the man I know not: as far as I can understand, sentence will be pronounced to-morrow, and executed the day after.' He again wrote to Farel, 'I think he will be condemned to die; but I wish that what is horrible in the punishment may be spared him.' And again, after the sentence had been fixed, he wrote, urging Farel to come to Geneva, and saying, 'We have endeavoured to change the mode of execution, but without avail.' Farel was soon in the city, to learn what we have not space here to write. It was Calvin's wish that this excellent man should attend the condemned to the place of execution, so that in his last hours he might have the ministries of truth and kindness from one whom he had not reviled.

Early on the morning of October 27, 1553, Farel went to the prison. He inspired confidence in Servetus, who could not have desired a better companion on the ter

rible journey to the Champel, where he must die. Farel was intent upon leading his soul to the true faith, and he began to remind him of his errors, and their only remedy in the love of God. He urged him to acknowledge Christ as the Eternal Son of God, a fact that Servetus had strongly and blasphemously denied. After this attempt was proved to be in vain, he told him that if he would die as a Christian he should forgive all men, and be reconciled to Calvin, whom he had grossly abused. Servetus consented. Calvin was sent for, and he came. One of the council asked Servetus why he wished Calvin to come. He replied, 'To ask his forgiveness.'

'I readily answered,' wrote Calvin, and it was strictly the truth, that I had never sought to resent any personal affront received from him. I also tenderly reminded him that, sixteen years before, I had diligently sought, at the hourly peril of my life, to win him to the Lord; that it was not my fault that all pious people had not extended to him the hand of friendship, and that this would have been the case had he but shown some degree of judgment; that, although he had taken to flight, I had still continued to correspond peaceably with him; that, in a word, no duty of kindness had been neglected on my part, till, embittered by my free and candid warnings, he had resigned himself not merely to a feeling of anger, but to absolute wrath against me. Turning, however, from that which concerned myself, I prayed him to implore the forgiveness of God, whom he had so awfully blasphemed.. ! But Servetus

answered nothing, and Calvin left him.

The council assembled and waited for the unhappy man to retract; but he renewed his assertions of inno

cence.

Farel had a tender heart toward him, and implored the council to soften the punishment; but the members were so horrified at the wickedness of Servetus, that they would not change the sentence.

A hill outside the city still bears the name of Champel, and thither Servetus was led, preceded by a throng of people. He saw the stake prepared for him, and he threw himself upon the earth, where he seemed to be praying in silence. Farel turned to the multitude, and, believing that Satan had such blasphemers in his power, he said, 'You see what power Satan has when he once gets pos-, session of us! This man is learned above most others, and perhaps believed that he was acting right; but now the devil hath him. Beware, lest this same thing happen to yourselves.'

At

Farel still urged him to acknowledge his errors, to speak to the people, and publicly retract his blasphemies; to pray to Jesus, not only as the Son of the Eternal God, but as the Eternal Son of God, and thus he might still touch the hearts of the council, and be spared the worst horrors which he dreaded. But it was all in vain. Farel's request he did at last ask the people to pray for him. When Farel told him that if he had a wife or child, and desired to make his will, there was a notary present, he made no answer. During the terrible scene that followed, he cried continually to God for mercy; but he would not address Christ as the Eternal Son of God. Among his last words were these, in which he still persevered in one of his doctrines: 'Jesus, Thou Son of the Eternal God, have mercy upon me.' He would not say,

'Thou Eternal Son of God.'

We are very far from justifying these proceedings. But let it be remembered that in his day the Romanists were