s unblemished morality, his lofty piety, and soaring soul, all
flippant criticism is contemptible and mean. He ranks with immortal
benefactors, and needs least of all any apologies for his defects. A man
who stamped his opinions on his own age and succeeding ages can be
regarded only as a very extraordinary genius. A frivolous and
pleasure-seeking generation may not be attracted by such an
impersonation of cold intellect, and may rear no costly monument to his
memory; but his work remains as the leader of the loftiest class of
Christian enthusiasts that the modern world has known, and the founder
of a theological system which still numbers, in spite of all the changes
of human thought, some of the greatest thinkers and ablest expounders of
Christian doctrine in both Europe and America. To have been the
spiritual father of the Puritans for three hundred years is itself a
great evidence of moral and intellectual excellence, and will link his
name with some of the greatest movements that have marked our modern
civilization. From Plymouth Rock to the shores of the Pacific Ocean we
still see the traces of his marvellous genius, and his still more
wonderful influence on the minds of men and on the schools of Christian
theology; so that he will ever be regarded as the great doctor of the
Protestant Church.

AUTHORITIES.

Henry's Life of Calvin, translated by Stebbings; Dyer's Life of Calvin;
Beza's Life of Calvin; Drelincourt's Defence of Calvin; Bayle;
Maimbourg's Histoire du Calvinisine; Calvin's Works; Ruchat; D'Aubigne's
History of the Reformation; Burnet's Reformation; Mosheim; Biographie
Universelle, article on Servetus; Schlosser's Leben Bezas; McCrie's Life
of Knox; Original Letters (Parker Society).

FRANCIS BACON.

* * * * *

A.D. 1561-1626.

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.

It is not easy to present the life and labors of

"The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind."

So Pope sums up the character of the great Lord Bacon, as he is
generally but improperly called; and this verdict, in the main, has been
confirmed by Lords Macaulay and Campbell, who seem to delight in keeping
him in that niche of the temple of fame where the poet has placed
him,--contemptible as a man, but venerable as the philosopher, radiant
with all the wisdom of his age and of all preceding ages, the miner and
sapper of ancient falsehoods, the pioneer of all true knowledge, the
author of that inductive and e