It was a period just subsequent to the bloody conflicts between the Gomarists and Arminians. Arminius was no more; but Barneveldt had just mounted the scaffold. Hugo Grotius had been sentenced to imprisonment for life, and was meditating in prison his noble _Theory of the Law of Nations_. The Reformers were widely at variance on the question of predestination. Calvinism, with its appalling fatalistic doctrine, was doomed in the consciences of right-minded men. The French Lutherans, imitating Melancthon's return to the truth, and abandoning Luther's deplorable doctrines concerning _free will_, now upheld divine justice and human liberty. But right-minded men are scarce at all periods. The Calvinist sect and its fervent ministers protested in a large part of France against what they called a return to the heresy of Rome. The events that took place in our Southern provinces, the frenzied meetings determining upon a resistance that had become anti-French, the republican spirit, ill understood, seconding by obstinacy and ignorance the deplorable projects of the Austro-Spanish policy, which aimed at kindling civil war in France; the glorious but regrettable resistance at Montauban; so much blood shed, so much heroism expended to perpetuate the struggle which Rome and Austria found to their advantage, proved plainly enough that the light of intelligence was behind a cloud, and that no liberal mind could say to itself: "I will go into this church, I will go into this army, and there I shall find unadulterated the best social truths of my time." It was not advisable therefore to pay too much heed to facts, and when one was well-informed and intelligent, to believe in any special truth above all those which were preached throughout the world, since the sword, the halter, the stake, murder, rape and pillage were the methods of conversion used by the opposing parties in dealing with one another. Lucilio Giovellino reflected upon all these things and resolved to proceed according to the Gospel as expounded by his own heart; for he saw too clearly that that divine Book, in the hands of certain Catholics and certain Protestants, might become and was becoming every day a code of fatalism, a body of doctrine leading to brutalization and frenzy. So he began to instruct Mario in philosophy, history, languages and the natural sciences all at the same time, trying to deduce from them all the logic and kindness of God. His method was clear and his explanations concise.