vivam et narrabo opera Domini_--I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord.’ This quotation from the hundred and eighteenth Psalm, where the Messiah speaks by the mouth of David, shows that Berthelier possessed a certain knowledge of Scripture; perhaps it shows us, too, that his soul had cast all its burdens on the Lord.[265] At that time (1519), when christians, trusting in the Bible, were rising at Wittemberg against absolute power in spiritual things, citizens trusting in the ancient charters of liberty were rising at Geneva against absolute power in temporal things. At that time there was no fusion of these two principles. Perhaps Luther did not become liberal; Berthelier certainly did not become protestant. But in the presence of death this great citizen sought consolation in the Word of God and not in the ceremonies of the priest, which is the essence of protestantism. The passage he wrote on the wall has reference to the Saviour’s resurrection. Did Berthelier find in this transformation of the King of believers a solid reason for expecting for himself a resurrection, a glorious transformation? Did he hope, after this world, for a glorified world of imperishable felicity, the everlasting abode of the children of God?--We believe so. CHAPTER XX. PHILIBERT BERTHELIER THE MARTYR OF LIBERTY. TERROR AND OPPRESSION IN GENEVA. (AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1519.) The prisoner was soon diverted from these wholesome thoughts by the arrival of the officers of justice. According to the privileges of Geneva, he could only be tried by the syndics; but the bastard suspected this lawful tribunal, and finding no honest man that would undertake to act against the law, he issued a provost’s commission to Jean Desbois, a man of Chambéry, then living at Geneva, and ‘formerly a tooth-drawer,’ say contemporary documents. This extemporised judge, vain of his functions, wished to begin the examination. ‘When the syndics, who are my judges, question me, I will answer them,’ said Berthelier, ‘but not you, who have no right to do so.’--‘I shall come again,’ said Desbois after this futile attempt, ‘and shall compel you to answer me then.’ The provost went and reported to the bishop the unsatisfactory commencement of his high functions.[266]