ne laid down in authoritative confessions of faith, the
Church cannot endure; secondly, that the old confessional writings
cannot be maintained, and are universally given up; and thirdly, that it
is impossible to draw up new ones.

French Protestantism suffered less from the Revolution than the Catholic
Church, and was treated with tenderness, and sometimes with favour. The
dissolution of Continental Protestantism began in France. Before their
expulsion in 1685, the French divines had cast off the yoke of the
Dortrecht articles, and in their exile they afterwards promoted the
decline of Calvinism in the Netherlands. The old Calvinistic tradition
has never been restored, the works of the early writers are forgotten,
no new theological literature has arisen, and the influence of Germany
has borne no considerable fruit. The evangelical party, or Methodists,
as they are called, are accused by the rest of being the cause of their
present melancholy state. The rationalism of the _indifferens_ generally
prevails among the clergy, either in the shape of the naturalism of the
eighteenth century (Coquerel), or in the more advanced form of modern
criticism, as it is carried out by the faculty of Strasburg, with the
aid of German infidelity. Payment by the State and hatred of Catholicism
are the only common marks of French Protestant divines. They have no
doctrine, no discipline, no symbol, no theology. Nobody can define the
principle or the limits of their community.

The Calvinism of Switzerland has been ruined in its doctrine by the
progress of theology, and in its constitution by the progress of
democracy. In Geneva the Church of Calvin fell in the revolutions of
1841 and 1846. The symbolical books are abolished; the doctrine is based
on the Bible; but the right of free inquiry is granted to all; the
ruling body consists of laymen. "The faith of our fathers," says Merle
d'Aubigne, "counts but a small group of adherents amongst us." In the
canton of Vaud, where the whole ecclesiastical power was in the hands of
the Government, the yoke of the democracy became insupportable, and the
excellent writer, Vinet, seceded with 180 ministers out of 250. The
people of Berne are among the most bitter enemies of Catholicism in
Europe. Their fanaticism crushed the Sonderbund; but the recoil drove
them towards infidelity, and hastened the decrease of devotion and of
the influence of the clergy. None of the German Swiss, and few of the
French