Gross and filthy calumny was one of the familiar weapons in the theological contests of that century. Both sides employed it--Luther and Calvin not less than others--for it belonged to that age to hate, and hence to misinterpret, opponents. "Search the records of the city of Noyon, in Picardie," wrote Stapleton, an eminent controversialist on the Catholic side, and professor in a Catholic college of Calvin's own day, "and read again that Jean Calvin, convicted of a crime" (infamous and unmentionable), "by the very clement sentence of the bishop and magistrate was branded with an iron lily on the shoulders." The records have been searched; nothing of the kind is to be found in them; but the picture was drawn and scattered over France. Precisely the same charge was made against Luther. That both the reformers died of infamous diseases was another of the scandals of the time. In reading these controversies, it is convenient to keep in mind the remark of the collector of the Calvin pictures: "When two theologians accuse one another, both of them lie." One of these calumnies drew from Calvin a celebrated retort. "They accuse me," said he, "of having no children. In every land there are Christians who are my children." Another caricature, shown on the following page, representing Calvin at the burning of Servetus, had only too much foundation in truth. The reformer was not indeed present at the burning, but he caused the arrest of the victim, drew up the charges, furnished part of the testimony that convicted him, consented to and approved his execution. Servetus was a Spanish physician, of blameless life and warm convictions, who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. Catholic and Protestant equally abhorred him, and Protestant Geneva seized the opportunity to show the world its attachment to the true faith by burning a man whom Rome was also longing to burn. It was a hideous scene--a virtuous and devoted Unitarian expiring in the flames after enduring the extremest anguish for thirty minutes, and crying, from the depths of his torment, "Jesus, thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy on me!" But it was not Calvin who burned him. It was the century. It was imperfectly developed human nature. Man had not reached the civilization which admits, allows, welcomes, and honors disinterested conviction. It were as unjust to blame Calvin for burning Servetus as it is to hold the Roman Catholic Church of the present day responsible for the Inquisition of three centuries ago. It was Man that was guilty of all those stupid and abominable cruelties. Luther, the man of his period, honestly declared that if he were the Lord God, and saw kings, princes, bishops, and judges so little mindful of his Son, he would "_knock the world to pieces_." If Calvin had not burned Servetus, Servetus might have burned Calvin, and the Pope would have been happy to burn both. [Illustration: Calvin at the Burning of Servetus.]