Calvin’s mind must have been immediately made up after perusing the ‘Restoration of Christianity.’ He would denounce its author as a heretic and blasphemer to the ecclesiastical authorities of France, and--_Deus ex machina_--an instrument was at hand to further his purpose. There lived at this time in Geneva a certain William Trie, a native of Lyons, a convert from the Romish to the Reformed faith, and, as proselyte, well known to Calvin. Trie, it would appear, had not been left altogether at peace in his new profession of faith. He had a relation, Arneys by name, resident in Lyons, who did not cease from reproaching him by letter as a renegade, and exhorting him to think better of it, and return to the faith he had forsaken. Trie would seem to have been in the habit of showing his letters to Calvin, and of having aid and advice from him in answering them; Calvin, it was said, upon occasion even dictating the epistles in reply. But now he could use the neophyte in his own as well as the general behalf, and set about the business forthwith under cover of a letter from the convertite Trie to his relation Arneys:-- Monsieur mon Cousin,--I have to thank you much for your fine remonstrances, and make no question of your friendly purpose in seeking to bring me back to the point from which I started. As I am not a man of letters like you, I do not enter on the points and articles you bring up against me. Not, indeed, but that with such knowledge as God has given me, I could find plenty to say in the way of reply; for, God be praised, I am not so ill-grounded as not to know that the true Church has Jesus Christ for its head, from whom it cannot be dissevered, and that there is neither life nor salvation apart from Holy Scripture. All you say to me of the Church, I therefore hold for phantasm, unless Christ, as having supreme authority, presides therein, and the Word of God is made the foundation of its teaching. Without this, all your formulas are nothing.... As to what you say about there being so much more of freedom, or latitude of opinion, with us here than with you, still we should never suffer the name of God to be blasphemed, nor evil doctrines and opinions to be spread abroad among us, without let or hinderance. And I can give you an instance which, I must say, I think tends to your confusion. It is this: that a certain heretic is countenanced among you, who ought to be burned alive, wherever he might be found. And when I say a heretic, I refer to a man who deserves to be as summarily condemned by the Papists, as he is by us. For though differing in many things, we agree in believing that in the sole essence of God there be three persons, and that his Son, who is his Eternal Wisdom, was engendered by the Father before all time, and has had [imparted to him] his Eternal virtue, which is the Holy Spirit. But when a man appears who