Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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libraries by Liebe, Mosheim, Bretschneider, Crottet, Jules Bonnet, Henry,
Reuss, and Herminjard.
No theologian has left behind him a correspondence equal in extent, ability,
and interest. In these letters Calvin discusses the profoundest topics of
religion; he gives advice as a faithful pastor; administers comfort to
suffering brethren; pours out his heart to his friends; solves difficult
political questions, as a wise statesman, in the complications of the little
Republic with Bern, Savoy, and France. Among his correspondents are all
the surviving Reformers—Melanchthon, Bucer, Bullinger, Farel, Viret,
Cranmer, Knox, Beza, Peter Martyr, John à Lasco; crowned heads—
Queen Marguerite of Navarre, the Duchess Renée of Ferrara, King
Sigismund Augustus of Poland, the Elector Otto Heinrich of the Palatinate,
Duke Christopher of Würtemberg; statesmen and high officers, like Duke
Somerset, the Protector of England, Prince Radziwil of Poland, Admiral
Coligny of France, the magistrates of Zürich, Bern, Basel, St. Gall, and
Frankfort; and humble confessors and martyrs to whom he sent letters of
comfort in prison.
§ 160. GENEVA AN ASYLUM FOR PROTESTANTS
FROM ALL COUNTRIES.
Calvin gave to Geneva a cosmopolitan character which it retains to this
day. It became, through him, as already stated, the capital of the Reformed
Churches, and was called the Protestant Rome. Philip II. of Spain wrote to
the French king: “Geneva is the source of all misfortune to France, the
refuge of all heretics, the most terrible enemy of Rome. I am ready at any
time, with all the power of my kingdom, to aid in its destruction.” That
city was, indeed, in the sixteenth century what North America has become,
on a much larger scale, since the seventeenth century. It was an asylum for
persecuted confessors of the evangelical faith without distinction of
nationality, an impregnable moral fortress built upon the rock of the
Bible. f1225
Zürich, Basel, and Strassburg were the only places in that age which can be
compared with Geneva in generous hospitality to strangers.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the city of Geneva numbered
12,000 souls, in 1543 not more than 13,000; but in the seven years from
1543 to 1550 it increased to 20,000, or at the rate of 1000 a year. This
increase was chiefly due to the continuous influx of persecuted Protestants