means confined to
them, and probably had been suggested by similar grotesque ones in use
before, and were employed by the Court of High Commission, by the Church
of England, and by other churches too, in so far as they ever ventured
to exercise discipline on notorious offenders. Even those melancholy
trials of witches, for which they have been so severely blamed, were
not originated by them, and were countenanced quite as much by their
opponents, and by no one more than by the pope and his entourage, as
well as by James VI., the great patron of the bishops, and for long were
clamoured for by the people.

[Sidenote: The People remoulded.]

To us, living in the light and glorying in the toleration of the
nineteenth century, some of these disciplinary provisions may seem
harsh, several of the details frivolous, others inquisitorial; and the
very principle of such a close identification of the ecclesiastical and
civil, as that all offences against morality and church discipline were
to be also dealt with and punished by the state, more than questionable.
But to men living in the sixteenth century and just emerging out of the
ignorance and licence which the old church had tolerated, and longing to
be moulded into a community really holy and self-denying and quickened
to a higher life--enthused with a longing to reach loftier heights in
it--the iron discipline of Calvin and Knox was welcome as requiring only
what they felt to be their duty and their true interest. We may extend
to the disciple what the historian of French Protestantism has said of
the master, and so far varying the words of Haag affirm: "The
institutions of Calvin [and Knox] accomplished what was proposed. In
less than three generations the Genevese [and Lowland Scots] were
entirely remoulded. To frivolity and licentiousness succeeded that
somewhat austere strictness of morals which in earlier days
distinguished the disciples of the reformer[s]. History tells of only
two [three] men who have been able permanently to impress their stamp on
an entire people--Lycurgus and Calvin [and Knox], whose characters in
fact have much in common."[209] The Athenians made merry over the black
broth of the Spartans; but Sparta conquered Athens. How many accusations
and witticisms have been launched against the Calvinistic spirit, and
yet Calvinistic countries led the way in Christian activity and civil
freedom, and to them even those who abuse them are largely indebted for