fools, unless they acknowledge that they have need of God for their schoolmaster all the days of their life.’[170] In Calvin’s view, every thing that had not for its foundation the Word of God was a futile and ephemeral boast; and the man who did not lean on Scripture ought to be deprived of his title of honor, _spoliandus est honoris sui titulo_. This was not the rule laid down for the orators of the agora. Calvin used to preach in the cathedral church of St. Peter, which was more particularly adapted for preaching. A great multitude thronged the place to hear him. Among his hearers he had the old Genevese, but also a continually increasing number of evangelical Christians, who took refuge at Geneva on account of persecution, and who belonged, for the most part, to the most highly cultivated of their nation. Among them were also some Catholic priests and laymen, who had come to Geneva with the intention of professing there the reformed doctrines, and to these men it was very necessary to teach the doctrine of salvation. But if, in the sixteenth century, people came from a great distance to hear Calvin, will they be ready at this day, without stirring from their homes, to make acquaintance with some of those discourses which at that period contributed to the transformation of society, and which were, as usually stated on the title-page, ‘taken down _verbatim_ from his lips as he publicly preached them’? They are considered by many persons the weakest of his productions, and it is hardly thought worth while even to glance at them. It is generally asserted that what was printed in the sixteenth century is unreadable in the nineteenth. Times are indeed changed; but there are still readers who, when studying an epoch, desire to see at first-hand the words of its most distinguished men. It is our duty to satisfy such readers. Calvin ascended the pulpit. The words which he uttered, instead of resembling those which were heard in the political gatherings of Greece and Rome, bore rather the impress of the sermon on the mount, addressed by Jesus Christ to his disciples assembled around him. We may enter the church of St. Peter’s any day that we like, and our judgment will soon be formed on these questions. Calvin has a word about the young, which is still a word in season for our day.