Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

the time. It tended, in short, to isolation. Up to his
first coming to Geneva he had lived only in French
circles; the greater world of the Reformation he
had not entered; and had he never made
acquaintance with a wider sphere, there was a
danger of his being only the man of Geneva, and
giving to a little State what was meant for
Christendom. He must go forth, he must tread
German earth, he must breathe German air, he
must survey from this post of observation the
length and breadth of the great movement, at the
center of which is his own permanent place, and
for three successive years must his eye be kept
fixed on that wide field, till what is merely national
or denominational has dropped out of view, or at
least assumed its proportional importance, and only
what is oecumenical and eternal remains. Here at
Strasburg he will associate not with scholars and
burghers only, but with practical Reformers, with
princes, and with the leading minds of many
various nationalities; and thus we find that when a
second time he presents himself at the gates of
Geneva, he is no longer the Frenchman simply, he
is of no nation because of all nations. To the clear,
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