We have already related the heroic struggles which had restored to Geneva her freedom and her independence.[540] We did so, less on account of their intrinsic interest than because they exercised a powerful influence, whether for good or for evil, on the Reformation. We have seen how political emancipation permitted and was favorable to religious emancipation. We have now to observe the obstacles raised up by those who, while they rejected popery, did not embrace the Gospel. The Huguenots (that is, as our readers will recollect, the name which was given to the partisans of the alliance with the Swiss Confederation) were divided after Calvin’s arrival. Some of them were friendly to and supported the Reformation; others pronounced themselves against him, and opposed his work. The opposition did not consist merely of men of the lowest rank, vulgar and dissolute. There were on both sides, in the great national party, some generous characters, some honorable citizens. Unfortunately, as the State and the Church were at that time not only united but blended with each other, these two parties were at the same time both right and wrong. The political Huguenots were right with respect to the State, and in error respecting the Church; and the evangelical Christians were right with respect to the Church, and in error with respect to the State. To make the confusion greater still, the true principles of Church and State were at that period very little understood. Many of the eminent citizens who had exposed themselves to famine, pillage, and death for the sake of being free, who had resolved not to have for their master either their bishop, or the Duke of Savoy, or the King of France, or even Berne; who had marched in the van for the political emancipation of Geneva; now asserted their right to enjoy in peace the liberty for which they had so long fought. We have admired them in their heroical struggles. We will not brand them in this new opposition. Politically they were right. In a certain sense they were also right religiously. The religion of Jesus Christ will not be imposed by force, and it rejects all compulsion. In the attempt to establish itself in any town, it refuses alike the intervention of the martyr-fires of the Holy Office and the decrees of a council of state. Jesus Christ said, _Wilt thou be made whole?_ This is not the place for an inquiry into the aids which this will of man receives from on high: we hold simply to the declarations of the Saviour, and we say that man ought to feel the want of the Gospel, and if he does not want it, no one has any right to impose it on him. To act as the syndics then did was to ignore the divine spirituality of the kingdom of God, and to make of it a human institution. Another motive may possibly have contributed to arouse opposition. Farel, Calvin, Courault, Saunier, Froment, and Mathurin Cordier were foreigners, Frenchmen. They had drawn around them their