Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

enthusiasm of feeling, but the enthusiasm of faith.
These five young men were to die for the Gospel,
but this was an every-day service in those days.
Every disciple was supposed to be ready to lay
down his life, and to do so with the calm
magnanimity of the soldier who does his duty and
nothing more. Calvin himself was prepared at any
hour to walk to the stake with the same absence of
ostentation, the same obliviousness of doing a
grand act, as if he had been stepping into his pulpit.
Was there, then, no enthusiasm in those days? Yes,
enthusiasm indeed there was; but it was an
enthusiasm that sustained itself, from day to day
and from hour to hour, at so lofty a pitch that it
could rise no higher. It could have no spasm, no
burst. Hence, neither was boast in the mouth of the
men who did the act, nor applause in the mouths of
those who witnessed it. The spectacle is all the
more sublime.
On the 16th of May the five young students
were led to the fire. They died with a heroism
worthy of their age. "Being come to the place of
execution," says Crespin, "they ascended with a
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