formulated the principles of persecution, praised this act as a
memorable example to posterity. Posterity however was one day to be
ashamed of that example. In 1903 the Calvinists of Geneva felt impelled
to erect an expiatory monument, in which Calvin “our great Reformer” is
excused as guilty of an error “which was that of his century.”

Thus the Reformers, like the Church from which they parted, cared
nothing for freedom, they only cared for “truth.” If the mediaeval ideal
was to purge the world of heretics, the object of the Protestant was to
exclude all dissidents from his own land. The people at large were to be
driven into a fold, to accept their faith at the command of their
sovran. This was the principle laid down in the

[80] religious peace which (1555) composed the struggle between the
Catholic Emperor and the Protestant German princes. It was recognized by
Catherine de’ Medici when she massacred the French Protestants and
signified to Queen Elizabeth that she might do likewise with English
Catholics.

Nor did the Protestant creeds represent enlightenment. The Reformation
on the Continent was as hostile to enlightenment as it was to liberty;
and science, if it seemed to contradict the Bible, has as little chance
with Luther as with the Pope. The Bible, interpreted by the Protestants
or the Roman Church, was equally fatal to witches. In Germany the
development of learning received a long set-back.

Yet the Reformation involuntarily helped the cause of liberty. The
result was contrary to the intentions of its leaders, was indirect, and
long delayed. In the first place, the great rent in Western
Christianity, substituting a number of theological authorities instead