trial, one Nicolas de la Fontaine set up for his accuser. Some writers say this man had been Calvin's cook or valet, however this might be, it seems he was an inmate with him, and acted under his direction. A respectable writer says "Whether Calvin's cook was capable of giving any judgment of Servetus errors about the trinity, about the doctrine of fate, and about the most obscure questions of that kind, (in the discussion of which the church has been for so many ages hitherto fatigued,) and should throw the first stone at him; or whether he ought not to be liable to the same punishment as a false witness, is left to the judgment of those who were acquainted with the ignorance of the man. Again, whether it is not very inconsistent with the character of a pastor of the church of Christ, to entice a servant that belongs to his kitchen, to act the part of an accuser in a capital crime; let them judge, who know the dispositions of the apostles? But that cook was not his real accuser, only one that personated an accuser; that the magistracy being imposed on by that fallacy, might suffer Calvin, who was the real accuser, to carry on the whole cause against Servetus, a piece of conduct, which Calvin would have censured as unjust, according to the laws of the city, had he been himself

in prison. It is more likely La Fontaine was a poor scholar, and a kind of domestic servant to Calvin. Servetus, says expressly, in one of his petitions to the magistrates, that Calvin was his master.'

The arrest of Servetus at Geneva, was a gross violation of justice and hospitality, to say nothing of the principles of christianity. He was neither a member of Calvin's church, nor a subject of the Genevese state; consequently he could not be accountable to either the civil or

ecclesiastical power in that city. He had published no book, nor committed any act of which the law could take cognizance, on the territory of the republic; it follows that, even allowing him to be a heretic, and heresy to be a capital crime, it was contrary to every rule of justice for the magistrates of Geneva to arrest him. To seize the traveller who merely stays to refresh his weary body at an inn in their city, is most inhospitable. Was this their christian entertainment of strangers, to cast them into a damp prison as soon as they found them on their territory? Were these their bowels and mercies to a persecuted brother, who had narrowly escaped being burnt alive, in a slow fire, by the antichristian church of Rome? Was

this their cup of cold water to a disciple of Jesus, in the day of his adversity? Was Geneva reformed for no other purpose than to intercept those who fled from the merciless fury of popish persecutors, to be a harbor of unsocial bigots, lordly usurpers of dominion over conscience? Poor Servetus! thou didst escape from the jaws of the lion, but it was only to fall into the paws of the bear! It will be seen in the sequel, that the treatment of the Doctor in the prison of Geneva was far more brutal than that he received in the prison at Vienne. In the latter he was treated like a gentleman, but in the former, it will be seen, he was treated with rudeness and barbarity.

Calvin ought to have been the last man in the world to call for the arrest of Servetus, and to promote a criminal prosecution against him. He could not do it without raising a suspicion that his own doctrines could not be supported by scripture and argument, without the aid of penal laws, and persecuting measures, the props of papal superstition. He could not do it without laying himself open to the suspicion of acting under the influence of the base principle of personal revenge, on account of the personal altercation he had been engaged in with the the Doctor. As he regarded Servetus in the

light of an enemy, he had a fine opportunity of doing honor to his own cause, and of showing the influence of the gospel upon his mind; by manifesting to him the spirit of christian charity, receiving him with hospitality, protecting him from harm, guaranteeing to him his liberty and safety, and rejoicing in his escape from the fangs of persecution; but letting so glorious an opportunity slip, of doing honor to christianity, and his own system in particular, he disgraced the christian name, and rendered it impossible for any one to call himself a calvinist without taking a deliberate murderer for his leader. Ah calvinism! thou derivest thy name from a man stained with the blood of his christian brother, who differed from him in opinion.

SECTION III.

The Trial of Sercetus.

Servetus was brought to the bar, the first time on the 14th of August, La Fontaine demanded that he should answer thirty-eight interrogatories. Most of those interrogatories concerned his opinions. The reader will find in another section the propositions for which he was committed to the flames. Servetus

confessed, that he had published in Germany, a book entitled, De Trinitatis Erroribus. He also confessed that he was the author of the Christianismi Restitutio. He acknowledged that he had written some annotations on the bible and upon Ptolemy's geography.

The thirty seventh interrogatory was expres sed in these words: 'Likewise, that in the person of Mr. Calvin, minister of the word of God in this church of Geneva, he had defamed in a printed book, the doctrine that is preached, uttering all the injurious and blasphemous words that can be invented.'

Servetus answered to this, 'That Mr. Calvin did abuse him before in several printed books, and that he answered him (in the same manner) and showed that he was in the wrong in some passages; and that when the said Calvin wrote to him, that he was of opinion, that he wrote the same in his turn, and that the same Calvin was mistaken in a great many points.'

'It looks very strange (says the author of the history of Servetus) that such passages as these should make any part of an indictment in a capital cause; what, could not a Spaniard, a German, or a Polonian, that had happened to have writ any thing contrary to the tenets preached in Geneca, take up his lodging for