fallen sister, though a sorceress, deceiving the nations by the multitude of her sorceries, be, after all, a middle spirit, with more good than evil? Or better still, an angel in disguise, and her virgin worship, and saint and image worship, her indulgences and relic worship, only the "playful devices" by which she conceals from common eyes her angelic nature and pure celestial goodness? And thus, toying with the mistakes. and wonder of his own friends, and laughing to scorn the predictions of his opponents, looking down from a fancied eminence of superior wisdom on those who saw that a Diocesan Popery, with twenty fragments in one island, could never stand against the claims of a system not more superstitious, but far more grand and imposing, he sank deeper and deeper in the mire of his own baseless speculations, "deceiving and being deceived." He has freed himself from the charge of wilful dishonesty, by revealing a capacity for self-deception rarely equalled and never surpassed. Nowhere, in one single stage of his progress, can we detect any trace of the least regard to the laws of evidence, of instinctive yearning after truth and reality. Fierceness in thought and speech, if not in act, in the maintenance of his shifting creed, was the accepted substitute for patience, humility, and prayer in the steps of its acquirement. The kaleidoscope was shaken from year to year, and gave forth new and attractive combinations. The word of God was dishonoured from the outset by the deliberate decision, that it could teach no doctrine. It was left to register decisions borrowed from independent sources, from the Epistles of St. Ignatius, or a walk in Christ Church meadow, or new and bright ideas that might strike him in letters to his friends. And thus, instead of a shining light, shining more and more unto perfect day, his course was that of a meteor, sending forth for a time sparkles and coruscations, but losing itself quickly in silence and darkness among the brotherhoods of Antichrist. The master sin brought with it its own punishment. His parting voice to the Church of England, in the Essay on Development, contained the startling confession,-"We have tried the Bible, and it has disappointed us." It will always disappoint those who degrade it from its due honour, and make it dance attendance on their own private speculations or ecclesiastical traditions. But those who search it with reverence, as the oracles of the living God, and seek to bring into subjection every thought to its treasures of revealed wisdom, will make a very different report of this good land of promise. They will mourn deeply over the humiliating spectacle which these Confessions, miscalled an Apology, reveal. In the utter wreck which has come on one who once seemed to promise fair, and to whom young and generous minds were willing to look up as a trusted

leader, they will find a commentary on those solemn cautions of the great Apostle of the Gentiles: "Be not high-minded, but fear." "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he

fall!"

MERLE D'AUBIGNÉ'S HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION
IN EUROPE.

History of the Reformation in Europe in the time of Calvin. By A. H. Merle D'Aubigné, D.D., Author of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, &c. Longman & Co. 1864.

WE have several times reviewed the historical works of Dr. Merle D'Aubigné, and have dealt freely with his faults, which are partly those of a foreign style, and partly those of an impetuous nature. He is, we believe, his own translator, and therefore he wants that quiet and subdued tone without which the historical writings of foreigners seldom appear to advantage in an English dress. They are wanting in gravity, and therefore in dignity. A still greater fault is, that he is more anxious to paint a scene well, than to attain that accuracy in the minuter facts in which the interest, because the certainty, of the history depends. At the same time, Dr. Merle D'Aubigné has great merits. He writes with his whole heart in his subject. Ho seldom dwells, so as to become wearisome, upon unimportant points. He sails down the broad stream of history without troubling himself to land us on every creek, or visit every tributary stream. Above all, he is ever true to evangelical principles, and always throws them into the foreground. This alone is great merit, and demands our sincere respect; it would do so, were his qualifications as a writer much inferior to those which he really possesses. We shall turn, then, at once from the writer to his subject, "The Reformation in Europe in the time of Calvin."

There are times when the world, if we may so speak, seems to be ashamed of its lethargy, and produces, within the compass of a few years, more great men, and consequently is the scene of more great events, than for previous centuries. Thus, at the period of the Reformation, it was not only the theologians, but men of every pursuit, who seem to have been of unusual stature. The three chief sovereigns of Europe were no ordinary men. Henry VIII. is a tyrant only when judged by a standard with which neither he nor his subjects were acquainted. On the other hand, he had many of the qualities of a great ruler. He was imperious and arrogant, but his own subjects have handed down his name to us un

stained by anything which they considered to be a blot. Francis I. has won the praises of all the modern writers of history, the first of chevaliers, the model of all princely virtues. Charles V. comes down to us tainted with the gloom of an ascetic and the pride of a Spaniard; but a great commander, and the most able sovereign whom Europe had known since the dark ages. And all these found ministers equal to themselves. It is true, we shall have to present them to our readers in very different characters, and as men of lighter worth; for we must try them by a standard not much in use amongst historians, even the balance of the Sanctuary.

As we enter the historical field, we find it already occupied. Three royal personages have taken their station on the foreground. These are Francis I., his noble sister Margaret, and her husband, Henry of Navarre. Margaret claims our attention first. Dr. Merle D'Aubigné speaks of her as a pious but weak woman. We are not yet willing to accept this as a correct estimate of a person so remarkable. A certain grandeur of mind clothes the language and adorns the lives of most of the ladies of the Reformation. It would be a strange paradox if an age of great men was not associated with a race of noble-minded women. The queen of Navarre had to sustain, at one and the same time, characters the most opposite. She was a queen, and the leader of the Protestants; she was a wife, and her husband was moody and uncertain, and no real friend to the Protestant cause. Thus she was exposed to the difficulties to which all pious wives are subject, whatever their rank in life. She must serve God with a pure conscience, and she must, if possible, please her husband. If the day should ever come when all hearts are open to the inspection of mankind, we doubt whether this will not be found the most difficult task which God assigns to any of His creatures.

She quitted the splendid court of St. Germain with a small retinue, that she might live with simplicity in the states of her husband, and spend her life in works of piety. In 1533, she entered the city of Nerac, and took the road that leads to the vast gothic castle of the D'Albrets, with two litters drawn by six mules, three baggage mules, and three or four carriages for her ladies. This must have been a very scanty retinue for the sister of the magnificent Francis. Here she spent a few months visiting the sick and doing good, but in a manner consistent with her high station and its duties. The winter was spent with her husband at Pau, where they had a castle. She found pleasure in adorning it with the most magnificent gardens then known in Europe, and was fond of walking in them, conversing with such men as the Cardinal De Foix, the Bishop of Tarbes, and other distinguished persons, members of the Church of Rome. For the queen herself had not yet taken the final step, and separated herself from its communion. Indeed, the leaders

of the Reformation, both in France and Switzerland, still cherished the hope that the Church of Rome might be reformed. Calvin was almost alone when he dared to proclaim that her wound was incurable, and that no reformation could cleanse her, or avert the wrath of God. This gives the appearance of inconsistency to Margaret of Navarre. She began the day by attending morning service in the parish church, sharing in the rites of the Church of Rome; in the afternoon she collected privately in her chamber the Evangelical members of her court, and the little band of exiles who had found a refuge at Pau. Roussel, Lefèvre, or some other Evangelical minister, gave them an exhortation, and "they rejoiced for the consolation." But the queen knew that she was watched by the cardinals around her, and she endeavoured to temporize, placing herself in circumstances which only increased her difficulties, and sometimes exposed her to ridicule. One day, for instance, some of the little flock to whom Roussel and Lefèvre ministered, wished to receive the Lord's Supper. The queen did not venture to celebrate it in the church, or even in her own chamber; but under the terrace of the castle there was a large hall called the Mint, a secret underground apartment. Here, by the queen's orders, her servants carried a table, covered with a white cloth, and laid on it a plate containing a few pieces of bread, and by its side some cups of wine. Roussel officiated, but not in priestly costume, and it is interesting to read how correct were his views of the Christian Sacrament, and how simply they could be expressed. "Those who believe," said he, " that there is nothing but an empty sign in the Sacrament are not of the school of faith." "He took common bread," says the indignant Catholic narrator, "and not little round wafers stamped with images." "Remember," continued Roussel, with a grave voice, "that Christ suffered and died for us." He then handed round the cup, without making the sign of the cross. The worshippers, deeply moved, bore a heavenly expression on their faces, and felt the presence of the Lord. The same Christ dwelt in the minister and in the people. No spy nor cardinal appeared, and the communicants, after presenting an offering for the poor, withdrew in peace."

Notwithstanding its secresy, this celebration was talked about in the castle. The king of Navarre was annoyed. A thoughtless, changeable, and ever violent man, and liable to worldly relapses, he began to grow impatient at his wife's piety, and especially at the "feastings in the cellar." He was habitually in a bad humour, and found fault with all that Margaret did. Sometimes Henry's conduct to the queen exceeded the boundaries usually assigned even to royal illtempers. M. Merle D'Aubigné describes a scene, in which, with all our sympathy for the poor queen, we must confess

there is something ludicrous. One day, returning to the castle from a hunting party, Henry inquired for the queen; he was told that a minister was preaching in her chamber, and the blood of the irritable monarch flew into his face. A faithful servant, interpreting the omen aright, ran to warn the queen; minister and hearers took the alarm, and fled by a back way. Henry entered abruptly, and finding the queen alone, struck her in the face. He then left her, our historian says, "indignant and confounded." We will suppose the queen was indignant and the king confounded. He was but a dastard at heart, and probably began to apprehend the consequences; nor had he long to wait. Francis took him in hand, and gave him to understand that he should allow of no such insolence. "Francis," says Brantôme the historian, "scolded Henry D'Albret soundly."

The poor queen tried another plan, still hoping to win over her husband, and, weak as he was, to instruct him by a play, since he would not listen to a sermon. She had the great hall fitted up as a theatre, and prepared a drama on the birth of Christ. The parts were distributed among her noble maidens. Nothing can be more silly than the play, or more splendid than the style in which she presented it to her audience. She persuaded two cardinals to be present. The hall was crowded with the court and strangers of rank. The queen's household was there; it consisted of ten esquires, thirty-eight maids, seventeen secretaries (!), and twenty valets. The king and queen occupied the front rank of the amphitheatre. Like many another compromise, this mystery-play displeased all parties. The cardinals withdrew from the court, for the play taught evangelical truths. Christians who were much in earnest, asked if it were lawful to introduce angels, and even God Himself, upon the stage. The king, however, felt the kindness of his wife, and Margaret took advantage of his softened disposition to induce her Nabal to listen to a few sermons. From the play he went to the preaching, which took place in the queen's chamber. But it is not by contrivances such as these, however innocent, that the work of God in the reformation of churches has ever been effected. These mystery-plays had been for centuries the pride of Coventry and Chester; but our Reformation owed nothing to them. Our reformers never spoke of them but with ridicule. It may be true that, in a dark age, they conveyed some glimmerings of truth to the common people; but truth taught by mountebanks never turned a soul to God.

But the scene widens, and Calvin enters upon his great work in France. We soon find ourselves confronting Francis I., renowned in chivalry; but here he stands before us in another light.