doubtless
correct that he was a rather indifferent skeptic, disdainful of
religion. He, too, considered the Reformers only to reject them as too
much like their enemies. No Christian church could hold the worshipper
of Cicero and of letters, of glory and of humanity. And yet this sad
and restless man, who found the taste of life as bitter as Rabelais had
found it sweet, died for his faith. He was the martyr of the
Renaissance.

[Sidenote: Bodin]

A more systematic examination of religion was made by Jean Bodin in his
_Colloquy on Secret and Sublime Matters_, commonly called the
_Heptaplomeres_. Though not published until long after the author's
death, it had a brisk circulation in manuscript and won a reputation
for impiety far beyond its deserts. It is simply a conversation
between a Jew, a Mohammedan, a Lutheran, a Zwinglian, a Catholic, an
Epicurean and a Theist. The striking thing about it is the fairness
with which all sides are presented; there is no summing up in favor of
one faith rather than another. Nevertheless, the conclusion would
force itself upon the reader that among so many religions there was
little choice; that there was something true and something false in
all; and that the only necessary articles were those on which all
agreed. Bodin was half way between a theist and a deist; he believed
that the Decalogue was a natural law imprinted in all men's hearts and
that Judaism was the nearest to being a natural religion. He admitted,
however, that the chain of casuality was broken by miracle and he
believed in witchcraft. It cannot be thought that he was wholly
without personal faith, like Machiavelli, and yet his strong argument
against changing religion even if the new be better than the old, is
entirely worldly. With France before his {631} eyes, it is not strange
that he drew the general conclusion that any change of religion is
dangerous and sure to be followed by war, pestilence, famine and
demoniacal possession.

[Sidenote: Montaigne]

After the fiery stimulants, compounded of brimstone and Stygian hatred,
offered by Calvin and the Catholics, and after the plethoric gorge of
good cheer at Gargantua's table, the mild sedative of Montaigne's
conversation comes like a draft of nepenthe or the fruit of the lotus.
In him we find no blast and blaze of propaganda, no fulmination of bull
and ban; nor any tide of earth-encircling Rabelaisian mirth. His words
fall as softly and as thick as