ead of a religious movement
whose influence was ultimately felt throughout all Western Europe.
It is true that Calvin was not the originating genius of the
Reformation--that he belonged only to the second generation of
reformers, and that he learned the Protestant faith from Luther.
But he became for the peoples of Western Europe what Luther was for
Germany, and he gave his own peculiar type of Protestantism--that type
which was congenial to his disposition and experience--to Switzerland,
to France, to the Netherlands, to Scotland, and through the Dutch, the
English Puritans, and the Scotch Presbyterians, to large portions of
the New World. Calvin, to be sure, is not widely popular to-day even
in those lands which owe him most, for he had little of that human
sympathy which glorifies the best thought and life of the present age;
but for all that, he has left his mark upon the world, and his
influence is not likely ever to be wholly outgrown. His emphasis upon
God's holiness made his followers scrupulously, even censoriously
pure; his emphasis upon God's will made them stern and unyielding in
the performance of what they believed to be their duty; his emphasis
upon God's majesty, paradoxical though it may seem at first sight,
promoted in no small degree the growth of civil and religious liberty,
for it dwarfed all mere human authority and made men bold to withstand
the unlawful encroachments of their fellows. Thus Calvin became a
mighty force in the world, though he gave the world far more of law
than of gospel, far more of Moses than of Christ.

[Illustration: JOHN CALVIN.]

Calvin's career as a writer began at an early day and continued until
his death. His pen was a ready one and was seldom idle. In the midst
of the most engrossing cares and occupations--the cares and
occupations of a preacher, a pastor, a teacher of theology, a
statesman, and a reformer to whom the Protestants of many lands looked
for inspiration and for counsel--he found time, though he died at the
early age of fifty-four, to produce works that to-day fill more than
threescore volumes, and all of which bear the unmistakable impress of
a great mind. In addition to his 'Institutes,' theological and ethical
tracts, and treatises, sermons, and epistles without number, he wrote
commentaries upon almost all the books of the Bible; which for
lucidity, for wide and accurate learning, and for sound and ripe
judgment, have never been surpassed. Among the mo