Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
At twenty-five years of age, now a splendid classical scholar, radiant
with faith and hope and the vision of a new age for humanity which the
recovered gospel was to bring in, Castellio went to Strasbourg to share
the task of the Reformers and to put his life into the new movement.
Calvin, then living in Strasbourg, received the brilliant recruit with
joy and took him into his own home. When the great Reformer returned
to Geneva in 1541 to take up the mighty task of his life he summoned
Castellio to help him, and made him Principal of the College of Geneva,
which Calvin planned to make one of the {90} foremost seats of Greek
learning and one of the most illuminating centres for the study of the
Scriptures. The young scholar's career seemed assured. He had the
friendship of Calvin, he was head of an important institution of
learning, the opportunity for creative literary work was opening before
him, and he was aspiring soon to fulfil the clearest call of his
life--to become a minister of the new gospel. His first contribution
to religious literature was his volume of "Sacred Dialogues," a series
of vivid scenes out of the Old and New Testaments, told in dialogue
fashion, both in Latin and French.[2] They were to serve a double
purpose: first, to teach French boys to read Latin, and secondly, to
form in them a love for the great characters of the Bible and an
appreciation of its lofty message of life. The stories were really
good stories, simple enough for children, and yet freighted with a
depth of meaning which made them suitable for mature minds. Their
success was extraordinary, and their fine quality was almost
universally recognized. They went through twenty-eight editions in
their author's lifetime, and they were translated into many
languages.[3] His bent toward a religion of a deeply ethical and
spiritual type already appears in this early work, and here he
announces a principle that was to rule his later life and was to cost
him much suffering: "The friend of Truth obeys not the multitude _but
the Truth_."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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