crat. Servetus returned the copy, with some terribly sarcastic criticism on the margins of various pages; and this was the drop that filled the cup of bitterness to overflowing. Calvin wrote to his friend Farel, in 1546, that should Servetus ever come to Geneva, as he had intimated he might, he should never go back from that place alive, if he (Calvin) had authority to prevent it. The letter is part of the author's authority for his biography: no one challenges it. Here, again, was the very wrong of which the letter to King Francis made complaint-the condemnation of men unheard in their own defense. This seems to have been Calvin's habit while he held sway in Geneva. "Servetus, to Calvin's thinking," writes the biographer, "destroyed the Christian hope; and, repulsive as it seems to the modern man, he deemed it his duty to rid the world of such 'impiety,' should the opportunity be his, and Servetus still be unrepentant of his 'errors.'" The opportunity did not arise until several years had elapsed. But he watched for it with the patience of a cat for a mouse. In 1553 he secured a copy of the "Restitution," then just secretly printed at Vienne, in France. A letter about the book passed between Antoine Arneys, a cousin of Guillaume Trie's, one of Calvin's close friends, and by some unexplained reason it got into the hands of the authorities at Lyons. Prosecution of Servetus was ordered as a consequence; and the legal authorities were furnished by Trie with a number of Servetus' letters to Calvin as well as the annotated copies of the "Institutes." Who furnished this evidence? The author says that many scholars believe that it was Calvin, but says on the other hand that other scholars reject the theory. The circumstantial evidence points to Calvin as the instigator of the proceedings against Servetus in France. The author thinks so, evidently. Legal proceedings were begun in Vienne in the month of April and lasted until June, 1553. They terminated in a sentence of death by slow fire; but this fate was not to be carried out there, for Servetus had escaped from the prison, somehow, and made his way to Geneva, en route for Naples. He was recognized by Calvin while listening to one of his sermons, was arrested, and lodged in prison. Calvin felt that "he had been delivered into his hands," says the biographer, "and that he (Calvin) ought to prevent further 'contagion.' From the first Calvin hoped that Servetus would forfeit his life, for he wrote to his friend Farel: 'I hope the judgment will be capital, in any event, but I desire cruelty of punishment withheld.'' There was more at stake than the mere condemnation of heresy. Calvin's position in Geneva, at that time, had become exceedingly shaky. His popularity had been on the wane since the time of the plague. Therefore there was some sort of sympathy with his in tended victim among the citizens. At the hearing of the case on August 16th hot words were exchanged between Philibert Berthelier, representing the Lieutenant of Justice, and Calvin's counsel, Colladon. It was made evident that the case was to test the relative strength of rival parties in Geneva and the permanency of Calvin's control. Berthelier represented his bitter foes. "The condemnation of Servetus became vital to Calvin's Genevan status," says the biographer. He therefore appeared in person against the accused. This fact lends a still darker color to the whole villainous transaction. The case assumed the character of a personal issue between two differing theologians rather than a question of the vindication of eternal truths. The doctrinal duel between the two scholars took on a very technical character. Calvin pushed Servetus hard in his attack. He made him avow his pantheistic belief to its last logical positionthat the very floor and benches of the court house were of the "substance of God." "Then," triumphantly exclaimed his antagonist, "the Devil is God in substance also;" to which, unfortunately for himself, Servetus replied with a mocking query: "Do you doubt it?" This question proved his ruin, in the end. The dispute proceeded for a long time. The judges, very fairly, decreed that the presentation of the charges against Servetus, and his replies thereto, should be made in the Latin tongue-a fact that gives overwhelming testimony to the importance of that language as a strictly scientific medium. Fiery words passed between the two hot-tempered champions. Servetus called his accuser liar, cheat, fool, scoundrel; and compared him to Simon Magus, one of confused mind who barked like a dog, hoping thus to overwhelm the judges. Several times, owing to the fierce opposition of Berthelier, the case seemed to be on the point of going against Calvin; but after much wavering the scale turned in his favor. A verdict of guilty and a sentence of death by burning were the final outcome. Calvin interposed with a request for a less cruel form of execution, but the court paid no heed to it. Perhaps they did not regard it as put seriously. The victim died courageously, forgiving his enemies and imploring Jesus to have mercy on his soul. A monument to his memory was erected on the spot where he perished, three years ago. It is a monument to Calvin's disgrace no less than to the fortitude of the sufferer. In "The Prince" Machiavelli vindicates the right of the ruler to place himself even above "the law," should he deem the emergency calls for such a stretch of extreme power. This bold doctrine was adopted and acted on by Calvin, as ruler of Geneva, at times—notably in this case of Servetus. He went outside his own bailiwick to get him into his clutches. His "law" was freedom of conscience while he was struggling with Francis in earlier years; this principle was cast to the winds when his own time came to wield the wand of power. Out of his own mouth he stands condemned. The red stain of cruel, premeditated murder is on his tombstone, to remain there while the world endures. Philadelphia, Pa. JOHN J. O'SHEA. SOME CANADIAN PROBLEMS. "The Loyalty of French Canada," The Quarterly Review, October, 1896. T NO THE question, Are Canadians loyal to England? the answer must be Yes, for the time being. That is to say that, since self-interest is the ultimate motive of all loyalty, it is to the interest of Canadians, French as well as English, to be loyal to a power which, in a very real sense, even if unconsciously, holds the balance between them. It is this interest which the problems herein to be discussed most nearly affect. The main problem, while it may be stated in three words-the Race Issue-goes back to the very beginnings of Canadian history, and has its roots in the age-long struggle between English Puritan and French Catholic for the mastery of the American continent. It is a problem which was complicated rather than simplified by the apparent victory of the one side and the apparent defeat of the other. It is the merest truism to say that the one aim of the French Canadian from 1760 to the present day has been to regain the supremacy which he seemed to lose when New France became a British colony. That, in a word, is the real significance of the race issue in Canada. All other problems are of minor importance. In order, however, for the English reader to understand the real bearing of this problem on Canadian loyalty, it is necessary that he should bear in mind that which was just now said as to its origin and its long continuance. Further, that he should recognize clearly that the conquest of Quebec in 1760 was the beginning of American independence. It was the fear of French aggression more than all other motives combined which kept the American colonies loyal to England. Once that fear was removed by the conquest of New France, the colonists had leisure to discover their intolerable grievances, which assumed an entirely new aspect. The victory, as already stated, was more apparent than real. The conquered population largely outnumbered those of the victors, who took up their residence in Canada; the Treaty of Paris and the Quebec Act of 1774, followed by similar imperial legislation, left the French Canadians, for all practical purposes, better off than they had ever been before. This, then, may be taken as the beginning of the race issue in Canada as a British colony, the various phases of which in the past there is, of course, no necessity to follow out here in historical detail. We may note, though, in passing that discontent on both sides showed itself from the outset, culminating in the rebellion of 1837. The legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada was and could only be a temporary expedient at the very best, but it taught the two races. some measure of mutual respect at least, if it did not tend to engender mutual affection. At Confederation, in 1867, the population of Quebec if it did not outnumber, certainly equaled that of the other three original provinces. Moreover, the number of members in the Federal House of Commons assigned to Quebec, namely, sixty-five, was not only made a permanent provision, but was also fixed as the basis of representation for the Dominion as a whole, whatever its subsequent growth or population might be. It is here that we encounter the first of the minor problems arising out of the race issue, the status, namely, of Quebec in the Federal House of Commons. The inclusion of Manitoba, in 1870, did not materially affect the advantage derived from the command of a potential majority on all racial questions, but the gradual growth of population in Ontario and the west has slowly but surely shifted the balance of power, and what is known in political parlance as “a solid Quebec" has become more than ever vitally necessary, not for the preservation of a predominance to which the French of Canada hold themselves entitled, but also, as it seems to them, of their liberties and privileges, if not of their very existence as a race, certainly of their due place in the political life of the Dominion. Prior, however, to 1890, the vote of Quebec was, generally speaking, fairly evenly divided between the two great political parties. The Manitoba school law of that year, by depriving the French minority of privleges which they had enjoyed for twenty years, roused the French of Quebec, in some measure at least, to a sense of possible danger. The election of 1896 turned frankly on a nationalist issue and was decided mainly by the personality of a great French Canadian statesman-Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The wholly natural desire to see one of their own race Premier of the Dominion outweighed with the French of Quebec all other considerations, all claims of party loyalty. Sir Wilfrid's victory, his place at the head of affairs, typified the supremacy at which they had always aimed. The two elections which have since taken place have more than confirmed the verdict of the first, and a "solid Quebec" of some fifty-odd votes is an accomplished political fact. Such an obvious advance towards French domination could not, of course, be without a corresponding effect on the other elements of the population, on the Protestants of Ontario most of all. But it is one of the most curious minor problems connected with this primary one that the English-speaking Catholics of the Dominion, Irish chiefly, should side, not with those of their own faith, but with those of their own speech; that language, not religion, should constitute the line of cleavage. To what extent this is carried will be shown at the end of this article, when certain local symptoms, as they may be called, come to be discussed. For the moment we must concern ourselves with the actual possibilities of French supremacy. The Manitoba school act of 1890, already referred to, showed the French of that province to be in a hopeless minority even then, which twenty years of immigration, largely American, has only tended to render more hopeless. The fact is all the more remarkable when it is compared with another, namely, that there are some two million French Canadians in the New England factory towns. Without entering into all the causes which led to so vast a migration southeastward rather than northwestward, to the factory rather than to the farm, and which are discussed in the article on "French Canadian Migration," I may be permitted to allude briefly to the most important, which I take to be: First, the unsuitability of Northern Quebec for small farmer colonization; secondly, over-population in the inhabited and easily habitable districts of the province; thirdly, the modern trend of rural population citywards. Farming in Quebec labors under many disadvantages, climatic and other, whereas the factories seem to offer a comparatively easy means of making money. But whatever the causes, the stream of migration set in the direction indicated, and the French in Manitoba and the Northwest remained and must continue to remain an insignificant minority in the midst of population alien in speech and for the most part in faith. The result, so far as a possible French domination is concerned, seems to the dispassionate observer sufficiently obvious. Twentyfive years ago a new Quebec, with a population of over a million in the Northwest, was a political possibility; had it become a fact, the fate of Ontario, if not of Canada, in such an event is not difficult to |