But that was the conciliation which had to be carried out in those times, and which ought still to be attempted in the Christendom of our times. Between negative protestantism and Roman-catholicism there is a middle path. On the one hand the gospel ought to supply this negative protestantism with what is deficient in it, and on the other to take away from Romanism whatever is erroneous in it. The huguenots, in part at least, were transformed in the city of Calvin by the great principles of the Reformation. It was by the potent virtue of the gospel that this little city, which had been only an Alpine burgh, was so marvellously metamorphosed and became in Europe the capital of a great opinion. One circumstance, however, tended to compromise its future. The Reform triumphed, but not without losing strength, for the sword struck foul in the struggle. 'If a man strive for mastery, he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.'[373] Calvin understood better than the other reformers the spirituality and independence of the Church; and yet giving way to the general weakness, he had recourse to the secular arm to maintain discipline, and was unable to prevent the death of Servetus. That fatal stake did more injury to truth than to falsehood. From that hour, the doctrine lost its power, a stain soiled its flag, and error seized the advantage of slipping into the ranks of those who were summoned to combat her. Eminent minds were seen abandoning the doctrines of the Reformation, chiefly on account of the civil intolerance by which they were defended. And thus a more or less culpable stagnation followed the powerful activity and glorious battles of the primitive days of the Reformation. There were no more combats round the expiatory cross, the eternal Word, the fall, grace, and regeneration. No more struggles, and therefore no more life. The christian fortress that Calvin had erected having been assailed for two centuries, shaken and dismantled, was on the point of being razed to the ground; when fortunately the struggles, entirely spiritual struggles, began again, and religion was saved by them. When God, after ploughing Europe in the early part of this century with the terrible share of a conqueror, awoke it from its long sleep, he remembered Geneva, and revived there as in other places doctrine and life. That city and all Christendom are now challenged again to the old struggles, and also to new ones, in which faith shall triumph over absolute thoroughgoing negations, which not only deprive man of the grace and adoption of the children of God, but deny also the immateriality and immortality of the soul. [Sidenote: VAUD AND GENEVA.]