New countries and new men will come before us. In our next volume we shall travel through Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, and other parts of Europe, retracing the great features of their religious history. We shall even return to Luther and Melanchthon, whose society is at once so healthy and so pleasant; and also see Calvin at his work in Geneva. One circumstance, besides that already indicated, warns the author to restrict his labor, and might suddenly interrupt it. Time is growing short for him, and he cannot complete his work without the aid of Him who is the master of our days. This volume begins with England. A faithful history of the Reformation is now perhaps more necessary to that country than to any other. The general opinion on the Continent, excepting that of the blind partisans of popery, is that the cause of Reform is won, and that there is no need to defend it. Strange to say this is not entirely true with regard to England—a country so dear to the friends of truth and liberty. Nay, even among Anglican ministers, a party has been formed enthusiastic in behalf of rites, sacerdotal vestments, and superstitious Roman doctrines, and violent in their attacks upon the Reformation. The excesses in which some of its members have indulged are unprecedented. One of them has instituted a comparison between the Reformers and the leaders during the Reign of Terror—Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, for instance—and declares the superiority of the latter.[1] 'The Reformation,' says this Anglican priest in another place, 'was not a Pentecost; I regard it as a Deluge, an act of divine vengeance.' In the presence of such opinions and of others which, though less marked, are not less fatal, the history of the Reformation may furnish some wholesome lessons. The history of England is succeeded in this volume by a narrative of the events which led to the triumph of the Reformation in Geneva. That history ought to interest the Protestants of every country, the little city having afterwards played so considerable a part in the propagation of evangelical truth and in the struggles of Protestantism with Popery. For the purpose of his narrative, the author has continued to consult the most authentic sources: original documents, letters written by the persons of whom this history speaks or by their contemporaries, and the chronicles, annals, and books published at that epoch. He has made use of such collections of documents as have been printed; frequently he has had recourse to MSS. of the period which have not yet been published.