welcome and encourage their brethren in the faith. The cruel result to themselves we shall be obliged to notice in the succeeding reign. At present, we will not precede the course of our narrative.

The difficulties of Protestantism in France have been most remarkable. A slight turn of the balance only has often seemed wanting to make that fine country a Protestant one. If the reformation had gained ground in the reign of Louis XII. instead of that of his gay and proud successor, Francis I., there is little doubt that it would have triumphed. And, again, if the latter generous and chivalrous, though arbitrary prince, had not yielded to the suggestions of ill advisers and the considerations of worldly policy, under what favourable auspices would it not have progressed!

As we follow the course of history, men may deplore the seeming results of chance; but they ought to know, notwithstanding, that the Lord reigneth, be the inhabitants of the world never so unquiet" Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."

The convocation of Catholic clergy assembled by Louis at Tours, decided that the king had power to make war upon the pope. The deputies of the still oppressed Vaudois, or Protestants, obtained an audience of the same tolerant monarch; and, having been informed by them that "they believed in the Scriptures, the ten commandments, and the symbol, or creed, but not in the pope, nor in the doctrines

he taught," the king sent commissioners to Merindol and Cabrières, places then inhabited by these Protestants-to inquire into the facts of their case. The commissioners reported that, among them, baptism was administered, the articles of belief and ten commandments taught, the sabbath solemnly observed, and the word of God expounded." On hearing which, Louis replied that "these people were then much better than himself and his Catholic subjects." These two facts serve as brief indexes to the state of religious feeling at the epoch immediately preceding the great reformation of Martin Luther.

It is not intended to go into the history of the reformation in Germany, nor into that of the well-known French reformers. The object of this work is to exhibit the history of Protestantism in France. Some observations, however, must be made respecting the German reformation, with which, more or less closely, the religious changes of those times, in so many countries of Europe, were connected.

It is remarkable that most of the important discoveries of science, and many of the most rare departments of literature, have, at the same moment, been engaging the minds and labours of persons quite unknown to each cther; who have each claimed the honour of an invention or discovery, each supposing his labours unshared by any individual. A single announcement has brought these simultaneous labours to light, and, in some cases, the world

has been, and is, at a loss to whom to ascribe the meed of priority.

So has it been with the reformation in the church. The leaven was at work in other places besides the convent of Wittenberg, but the process was unnoticed, until Martin Luther came forth from his cell and published aloud to a startled world the discoveries that others had made in secret. At the very time when Luther was going on his monkish mission to Rome, the doctrines of the gospel were being preached at Paris; and the work of the reformation had commenced in the university there, while Luther was yet an Augustine monk.

The principles and opinions of the reformation did not spread from Germany to France in the first instance; though the writings of the German controversialists afterwards greatly increased them. Neither did they extend from France to Germany; they sprang up independently in each country, and, it may be affirmed, by the same means. Luther found a Bible in his monastery, and Lefèvre had a Bible in his university.

Lefevre was a devout doctor of the law, a preacher of the theology of his church, and a strict observer of all its rites-praying before the images of the virgin Mary up to about the fifty-fifth year of his life. At evening-time it became light with him, and the learned reformer, Beza, spoke of "that good old man" as being "the first who courageously began the revival of the pure religion of Jesus Christ,"

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The object of Lefevre was, not to discover or expose the errors or corruptions of the church of Rome, from which, indeed, he never completely separated-so much as to find for himself the consolations of the gospel, and to declare to others the way of salvation he had found. The light which he received with joy from the Bible, he diffused through the university in which he taught. It was not, then, the common people who heard him gladly, but young men whose minds burned for knowledge, and who crowded to his teaching, not only because he was beloved, but because the truth he taught was intelligible to anxious, inquiring, vigorous minds.

Among the pupils was William Farel, whose career, as one of the boldest of the reformers, is already sufficiently known. The same study of the Scriptures made Farel a convert to the gospel doctrines; and the closest intimacy subsisted between the venerable doctor and the more ardent disciple.

The character of Lefèvre is full of interest; and, were this a history of the reformation only, it would be pleasing to dwell upon it. He might be said by "preaching up Christ, to preach down error." He scarcely appears in the light of a reformer, or controversialist, but in that of a teacher and preacher of religious truth.

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Uncompromising, indeed, were the truths he taught. Religion," said Lefêvre, “has one Foundation, one Head-Jesus Christ. The

cross of Christ alone opens heaven and shuts the gate of hell." This was the doctrine with which Martin Luther, then in his convent, had afterwards to assail the foundation on which rest the erroneous doctrines of the papal church.

The principles of this Protestantism rapidly advanced at the celebrated university of Paris. The fact was soon made known, and in this manner. Cardinal de Vio, who afterwards disputed with Luther at Augsburg, wrote a treatise, in which he asserted that the pope was absolute monarch of the church. King Louis XII. desired to have the opinions of the university upon this treatise, and laid it before that body in the year 1512. The result was, that one of the youngest of the doctors, named James Allman, wrote an answer to the cardinal's statement, which he read before all the professors of theology; for which refutation he obtained great applause. Such, so far as Protestantism was concerned, was the state of affairs at the close of the reign of Louis XII.

Only three months before his death, that aged monarch was married to Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII., who, in her eighteenth year, and devotedly attached to another, was sacrificed to the political interests of a brother who really loved her. The princess Mary was attended to her new kingdom by a child who afterwards became too famous in our history— Anne Boleyn, then thirteen years old. France, she is believed to have learned the

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