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CHAPTER XI · Calvin endeavors to repress it.

Nor were they very solicitous respecting the dangers that might arise from over-precipitancy. Not so with Calvin, from whose closely logical intellect the influence of a thorough training in the principles of French law had not been obliterated. Never was disapprobation more clearly expressed than in the reformer's letter to the church of Sauve—a small town in the Cevennes mountains, a score of miles from Nismes—where a Huguenot minister, in his inconsiderate zeal, had taken an active part in the "mad exploit" of burning images and overturning a cross. This conduct Calvin regarded as the more reprehensible in one "whose duty it was to moderate others and hold them in check." He denied that "God ever enjoined on any persons to destroy idols, save on every man in his own house, or in public on those placed in authority," and he demanded that this "fire-brand" should exhibit his title to be lord of the territory in which he had undertaken to exercise so distinct a function of royalty. "In thus speaking," he added, "we are not become the advocates of the idols. Would to God that idolatry might be exterminated, even at the cost of our lives! But since obedience is better than all sacrifice, we must look to what is lawful for us to do, and must keep within our bounds." "Have pity, very dear brethren," he wrote in conclusion, "on the poor churches, and do not wittingly expose them to butchery. Disavow this act, and openly declare to the people whom he has misled, that you have separated yourselves from him who was its chief author, and that, for his rebellion, you have cut him off from your communion." Calvin's advice was that of the whole body of Protestant divines in France and its neighborhood. Even an idolatrous worship must not be overturned by violent means.