stance of creatures and things. All things, all creatures,' said Servetus, are portions of the substance of God.' Speaking in his own person, and interposing at this point, Calvin says: Annoyed as I was by so palpable an absurdity, I answered: What, poor man, did one stamp on this floor with his foot and say he trod on God, would not you be horrified in having subjected the Majesty of God to such unworthy usage?' He, on this, replied: 'I have not a doubt but that this bench, this table, and all you can point to around us, is of the substance of God.' When it was then objected to him that on such showing the Devil must be of God substantially; he, smiling impudently, said: 'Do you doubt it? For my part,' continued he, I hold it as a general proposition that all things whatsoever are part and parcel of God, and that nature at large is His substantial manifestation.' Calvin, we imagine, might have spared Servetus on this head when we call to mind how he commits himself to pantheistic views in that passage of his 'Institutions' we have already referred to, where he says he only objects to call Nature God because of the harshness and impropriety of the expression. He might further, with reference to the Devil, have bethought him of the verse of Isaiah xlv. 7, where these words occur as coming from Jehovah himself: I form the Light and create Darkness; I make peace and create evil.' Or of this from Amos iii. 6: Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?' Or yet this of Ezekiel xx. 25:

I gave them statutes that were not good,' &c. The Jews, through by far the greater part of their history, as a people acknowledged no Dualism in their Deity, as, indeed, they only looked on their God Jahveh as the greatest among the Gods. He was the good and the evil principle in one. But it is easy to imagine the damaging impression which Servetus's logical but terribly unorthodox statement must have made on the minds of his Judges, ill-informed presumably as they were on such questions. Had Calvin been minded to help instead of determined to crush Servetus, he might even have quoted Luther, who speaks in this wise in his Table Talk: 'God is present in all created things, and so in the smallest leaflet and tiniest poppy-seed— Gott also gegenwärtig ist in allen Creaturen; auch im geringsten Blättlein und Mohnkörnlein.'

Nor were the personal griefs of Calvin overlooked in the inculpation of the prisoner. Beside the thirty letters printed in the 'Christianismi Restitutio,' addressed to the Reformer, a copy of his 'Institutions' was now laid before the Court. This, like the MS. of the 'Restitutio,' sent privately and confidentially to Calvin, was covered on the margins with numerous annotations, little in conformity, as may be supposed, with the accepted tenets of the Church of Geneva, and more rarely still complimentary to the author. At such insolent procedure we know that Calvin was greatly offended, as appears by the language he thought fit to use when writing to Viret and incidentally noticing the

liberties that had been taken with him by the annotator: There is not a page of the book,' he says, 'that is not befouled with his vomit.'

Neither was the tergiversation of the prisoner in what he had said about Geroult's part in the printing of the Restitutio' unnoticed. He is now reproached with the variations in his replies on the subject to the Lieutenant on the 14th, and to the Court on the 15th. His first answer we believe was truthfulGeroult knew all about the book, as we shall find from a letter of Arnoullet to his friend Bertet; his second was untruthful, but uttered to shield the man who had aided him in his enterprise, compromised, as he had come to see, by what he had said before.

CHAPTER V.

THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE, WITH THE ATTORNEYGENERAL OF GENEVA AS PROSECUTOR.

ARRIVED at this stage, all the documents on which it was proposed to proceed being before the Court, and something more than a presumption of the prisoner's heretical opinions having already been made to appear, Nicolas de la Fontaine, on his petition to that effect, and his bail, Anthony Calvin, were formally discharged as parties to the suit, its further prosecution being handed over to Claude Rigot, the Attorney-General of the city of Geneva.

Before breaking up, however, and as if to occupy the time until the usual hour of rising, a number of questions irrelevant to the main plea, but tending to gratify the curiosity of the Court, were put to the prisoner. Among the number of these he was asked particularly how he had contrived to escape from the prison of Vienne. He informed the Judges, that he had only passed two nights there; that the Vibailly, De la Cour, was well disposed towards him, he having been of great service to M. Maugiron, an intimate friend of the Vibailly, who had ordered the gaoler to use

him well, and allow him the freedom of the garden. Taking advantage of this, he had scaled the wall and got away in the manner already described, the Vibailly having taken care that he should not be pursued and recaptured.

He added that he had intended and even tried in the first instance to get to Spain, his native country; but finding the obstacles so many, and fearing arrest at every moment, he retraced his steps and made his way to Geneva, purposing to proceed to Italy.

Questioned further about the printing of the Restitutio Christianismi,' he said it had been thrown off to the extent of 1,000 copies, of which the publisher had sent a bale to Frankfort in anticipation of the Easter book-fair of that great mart. This was a piece of information that was not lost on Calvin. He wrote a few days after, having meantime gained further information, to one of the Frankfort members, giving him intimation of what had been done, telling him where the packet was bestowed, and recommending its immediate seizure and destruction, for which he seems also to have furnished some sort of warrant or authority, how obtained we are not informed, though it was probably from Frelon.

Interrogated as to the money he had about him when imprisoned at Vienne, he replied that his cash and valuables had not been taken from him on his arrest there, but were still in his possession when he reached Geneva.