Calvin and Melanchthon. To the latter he wrote: “I am not the man to hate another because he differs from me in opinion.”[21] When Sturm of Strasburg accused him of lying, he said: “You should have left such coarse terms to Luther: they are unbecoming a mind like yours. But you are mistaken, and I am sure you will return to your usual polite style. If ever you, Bucer, or Melanchthon have need of me, I am ready to serve you in more than words.” It is pleasing to meet with such a character, when religious prejudice ran so high on both sides. One of the most terrible tragedies to which the persecuting edicts gave rise occurred at Meaux, in October, 1546, when sixty persons were seized in the house of Stephen Mangin, where they had met to hear a sermon. As the soldiers were taking them through the streets to prison, some of the Protestant spectators burst out with Marot’s noble version of the seventy-ninth Psalm-- Behold, O God! how heathen hosts Have thy possessions seized; Thy sacred house they have defiled, Thy holy city raz’d. From Meaux they were transferred to Paris for trial, which resolved itself into an attempt to extort a confession from them by torture. They were sentenced to be carried back to Meaux, and fourteen of them were to be burned alive in the market-place, after suffering the question extraordinary. Others were to be hung up by the shoulders during the execution of their brethren, and then to be flogged and imprisoned for life in a monastery. As they were passing through a forest on their way back, a man followed them shouting: “Brethren, remember Him who is in heaven above.” He was caught, flung into the cart, and put to death with the rest. Stephen Mangin, who was regarded as the ringleader, first had his tongue cut out; he was then dragged on a hurdle from the prison to the place of execution, where he and his companions, after being tortured, were burned at fourteen stakes arranged in a circle, praising God to their last breath. One Dr. Picard, a celebrated man in his day, preached a sermon on the occasion, in which he declared it was necessary to salvation to believe that these fourteen poor creatures were condemned to the bottomless pit; and if an angel came from heaven to say the contrary, he must not be listened to; “for God would not be God, if he did not damn them eternally.”