Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

determined the future fortunes of Geneva.
From being a nest of Libertines, who would
have speedily wasted their own and their city's
strength by their immoral principles and their
disorderly lives, and who would have plunged
Geneva into its former vassalage, riveting more
hopelessly than ever its old yoke upon its neck, this
small but ancient town was, by this turn of affairs,
rescued to become the capital of Protestantism--the
metropolis of a moral empire.
Here, not in state, like a Roman cardinal, but in
the lowliness of a simple pastor, dwelt, not the
monarch of that empire--for monarch it has not on
earth--but the presiding mind, the directing genius
of Protestantism. From this center were propagated
those energies and influences which, mightier than
armies, were rending the shackles from the human
soul, and calling nations from their tomb. Within
its walls the elite of Europe was assembling; and as
another and yet another illustrious stranger
presented himself at its gates, and crossed its
threshold, the brilliant intellectual glory of Geneva
427