Henry M. Baird · 146 of 379

CHAPTER VIII · Danger menacing the city of Geneva.

That small republic, insignificant in size, but powerful through the influence of its teachers and the books with which its presses teemed, was the eyesore of Roman Catholic France. It was the home of French refugees for religion's sake; and the strictest laws could not check the stream of money that flowed thither for their support. It was the nursery of the reformed doctrines; and the death penalty was ineffectual to cut off intercourse, or to dam up the flood of Calvinistic books which it poured over the kingdom.

Calvin himself and his friends momentarily expected the blow to fall upon their devoted heads. But the same hand that so often in the eventful history of Geneva interposed in its behalf, by a signal occurrence warded off the stroke.