this rapid spread of the doctrines of the Reformation after the long
period of comparative stagnation preceding. One of these was undoubtedly
the astonishing progress of letters in France during the last forty
years. From being neglected and rough, the French language, during the
first half of the sixteenth century, became the most polite of the
tongues spoken in Western Europe--thanks to a series of eminent prose
writers and poets who graced the royal court. The generation reaching
manhood in the latter years of the reign of Henry the Second were far
better educated than the contemporaries of Francis the First. The public
mind, through the elevating tendencies of schools fostered by royal
bounty, was to a considerable degree emancipated from the thraldom of
superstition. It repudiated the silly romanese, passing for the lives of
the saints, with which the public had formerly been satisfied. It
scrutinized minutely every pretended miracle of the papal churches and
convents, and exposed the trickery by which a corrupt clergy sought to
maintain itself in popular esteem. Thus the growing intelligence and
widening information of the people prepared them to appreciate the
merits of the great doctrinal controversy now occupying the attention of
enlightened minds. Interest in the discussion of the most important
themes that can occupy the human contemplation was both stimulated and
gratified by a constant influx of religious works from the teeming
presses of Strasbourg, Basle, Lausanne, Neufchatel, and especially
Geneva. And the verdict of the great majority of readers and thinkers
was favorable to the Swiss and German controversialists.

[Sidenote: Calvin's Institutes.]

[Sidenote: Marot and Beza's Psalms.]

Next to the Bible, translated originally by Olivetanus, and in its
successive editions rendered more conformable to the Hebrew and Greek
texts, the "Christian Institutes" exerted the most powerful influence.
The close logic of Calvin's treatises, speaking in a style clear,
concise and nervous, and touching a chord of sympathy in each French
reader, made its deep impress upon the intellect and heart, while
captivating the ear. Calvin's commentaries on the sacred volume rendered
its pages luminous and familiar. Other works exerted an influence
scarcely inferior. The "Actions and Monuments" of the martyrs, by Jean
Crespin, printer and scholar, not only perpetuated the memory of the
witnesses for the truth, but stimulated