the Holy Spirit?” Wesley also denounced the new theory, declaring it to “tend toward infidelity.” The grand men who were coming forward in their efforts to advance knowledge unavoidably encroached upon many of the “truths of scripture” and both churches were equally engaged in their efforts to suppress them, by argument if possible, but if not, by fire and stake. The Protestant church, which has always made a claim of especial enlightenment, vied with the other in its cruel and relentless warfare upon what is known among the churches as heresy, the proper definition of which is reason and common sense. We have said that the case of Galileo was the monumental shame of Christendom; the case of Servetus was a monumental crime, which Protestantism alone must answer for. The persecution of Michael Servetus by John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Reformation, was one of the most unjust and inhuman exercises of religious authority that the world has seen. There were many features in this tragedy of burning at the stake, that were out of the common. The victim was a man of unblemished character, of great learning, and a scientist, with a genius for investigation. He was a skilled practitioner of medicine, out of which profession he derived his income. He had made some advances in medical science, coming so near to a discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it is quite likely, but for his untimely death, he would have reached it instead of Harvey, many years afterward. His active mind had led him to devote much of his leisure to the study of theology, and, laboring among its problems, he strove to reconcile a number of orthodox beliefs and doctrines with the scientific knowledge of his time, not combating them or contriving at their destruction, but by changing the sense of words, to make them apparently accord with known elements of truth. He was an ardent supporter of the Reformation, and a friend and admirer of Calvin, and he began and maintained for some time, a correspondence with him, with the view of obtaining his advice and support. The proposed modification in the sense of scriptural texts, was not favorably received by Calvin, and the two were drawn into a controversy, which finally became acrimonious. The world, at present, partially recovered from its long period of hypnotized reason, is able to appreciate the small value of the questions which engaged these two men, and which led one to strike the other down to death, and it is also able to judge how much Servetus was in advance of his adversary in their discussions.