When, under the Restoration, France had regained her political liberty, it was not long before that liberty bore its natural fruits in French Protestantism; it was accompanied, both on religious and political subjects, by the manifestation of discordant ideas and discordant tendencies, which were soon to struggle for victory. {134} As at epochs of great intellectual crises eminent men emerge who represent dominant ideas, so now M. Samuel Vincent and M. Daniel Encontre immediately appeared in the Protestant Church: both were pastors, and each worthily represented one of the two principles which naturally develop themselves in the bosom of Protestantism, faith in traditions and the right of private judgment; principles different without being contradictory; principles which may subsist in peace provided they remain respectively in their proper places, and within the limits of their rights. M. Samuel Vincent was a man of a mind remarkably comprehensive and of great versatility and fecundity; but his habits at the same time were those of a student, fitting him rather for intellectual meditation than qualifying him either for expansive sympathies or for action; he was versed in the philosophy and erudite criticism of Germany, at that time novel and rare to France; he made the essence of Christianity, according to his own expression, "to consist in the liberty of inquiry." [Footnote 14:] [Footnote 14: Vues sur le protestantisme en France, par M. Samuel Vincent. 2e édition, p. 15. Paris, 1859.] {135} He rejected all written articles of faith, every limited idea of religious unity, and claimed within the Church, for both pastors and congregation, the greatest latitude in matters of opinion and of teaching. But when he clung closely to this view of the subject, and was pressed to indicate the extreme point to which, within the Church itself, the diversity of men's individual beliefs might be carried, his embarrassment became extreme, for he had too much sense to admit that this diversity had no limit, and that a Church, whether Protestant or not, could exist without certain articles of faith common to all its members, and recognized by them all. "Protestantism," said he himself, "must not be merely a negation; it should also have its real and positive side; it must be beyond all things a religion; that is to say, it must be in the possession of the means to endure and of the means to edify men by the propagation of a doctrine benevolent and Christian. ... Christianity is the basis of ecclesiastical teaching." [Footnote 15] [Footnote 15: Vues sur le protestantisme en France, par M. Samuel Vincent, pp. 17, 22.] {136}