Henry M. Baird · 273 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Names of factions must be abolished.

Yet the dawn of more enlightened principles could be detected in a subsequent part of the chancellor's speech. After prescribing a universal council—that panacea which all the state doctors of the day offered for the cure of the ills of the body politic—he advocated the employment, meantime, of persuasion instead of force, of gentleness rather than rigor, of charity and good works, as more effective than the most trenchant of material weapons. And, while he recommended his hearers to pray for the conversion of the erring, he exclaimed: "Let us remove those diabolical words, names of parties, factions, and seditions—'Lutherans,' 'Huguenots,' and 'Papists'—and let us retain only the name of 'Christians.'" In concluding his address, he did not forget to dwell upon the lamentable condition of the royal finances, thrown into almost inextricable confusion by twelve or thirteen years of continuous war and the expenses attending three magnificent weddings. He begged the estates, while they exposed their grievances, not to fail to provide the king with means for meeting his obligations.