ENGLAND, GENEVA, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 530 BROADWAY. 1877 EDITOR’S PREFACE. A whole year has elapsed since the publication of the sixth volume of the _History of the Reformation_. But this delay is owing to the fact that the editor has been unable to devote to this undertaking more than the scanty leisure hours of an active ministry; and not, as some have supposed, to the necessity of compiling the _History_ from notes more or less imperfect left by the author. The following narrative, like that which has preceded it, is wholly written by M. Merle d’Aubigné himself. The editor repeats the statement made on the publication of the last volume—that his task has consisted solely in verifying the numerous quotations occurring in the text or as foot-notes, and in curtailing, in two or three places, some general reflections which interfered with the rapid flow of the narrative, and which the author would certainly have either suppressed or condensed if it had been permitted him to put the finishing touches to his work. We can only express our gratitude to the public for the reception given to the posthumous volume which we have already presented to them. Criticism, of course, has everywhere accompanied praise. The estimates formed by the author of this or that character have not been accepted by all readers; and the journals have been the organs of the public sentiment. One important English review[1] has censured the author for placing himself too much at the evangelical point of view. It is unquestionable that this is indeed the point of view at which M. Merle d’Aubigné stood. This was not optional with him; he could not do otherwise. By conviction, by feeling, by nature, by his whole being, he was evangelical. But was this the point of view best adapted to afford him a real comprehension of the epoch, the history of which he intended to relate? This is the true question, and the answer seems obvious. If we consider the fact that the theologians of the revival at Geneva have been especially accused of having been too much in bondage to the theology of the sixteenth century, we shall acknowledge that this evangelical point of view was the most favorable to an accurate understanding of the movement of the Reformation, and to a just expression of its ideas and tendencies. No one could better render to us the aspect of the sixteenth century than one of those men who, if we may so speak, have restored it in the nineteenth.