We live in a literary age when criticism sways the sceptre. Criticism is good and necessary: it purifies history and clears the paths to the palace of truth. But if dogmatic epochs have their excesses, critical epochs have theirs also. It was said a long while ago that 'those who run too hastily after truth shoot beyond it.' The men who desire to renovate history are like those who desire to renovate cities. The latter begin by pulling down a few ugly houses which disfigure the neighborhood and impede the traffic; but at last they lay their hands on solid and useful edifices, buildings whose destruction is regretted by every one. Wise men will, in critical ages, take moderation and equity for their rule. These have often been wanting in recent days. There is a criticism called by the Germans _hypercriticism_, which not only denies what is false, but even what is true. The Holy Scriptures have been the special object of its attack. It has denied the authenticity of the writings of St. John, St. Paul, Isaiah and other sacred writers, and the truth of many of the facts which they record. If the sacred books have not been spared by this criticism, writings purely human, the facts of history, have not escaped unassailed. There have been numerous instances of this in Germany and elsewhere. Several facts which belong to the history of the Reformation of France and French Switzerland have been recently called in question both in reviews and pamphlets. The author has felt it his duty to prove the historical reality of his statements, not only in the Preface to the French edition of this volume, but in the February Number of the _Revue Chrétienne_ (1869) published in Paris by M. Meyrueis. He has not thought it necessary to give these details in the English edition, because the statements which called them forth are unknown in England. It will be sufficient to indicate the principal points which have been denied with too much precipitancy, and the correctness of which the author has proved by the soundest demonstration. The first fact relates to Le Fèvre of Etaples. The author stated in his History that that theologian, the writer of a remarkable translation of the Holy Scriptures into French, had taught the great doctrine of the Reformation—justification by faith through grace—as early as 1512, that is to say, four or five years before Luther. This having been disputed, the author proved it by the existence of Le Fèvre's _Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul_ published in 1512, in which that doctrine is distinctly taught, and which is preserved in the _Bibliothèque Impériale_ at Paris. He added other proofs derived from the writings of Farel and Beza, as also from the learned critic Richard Simon, Bayle, &c.