Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/298

314 went, one day, to his church. He spoke merely about grace in Christ. His discourse and his noble, dignified exterior affected me. I desired to hear him again, and see more of him. A day was fixed for this purpose, and M. Mallan sent me, as the “theme and preparation,” a little treatise entitled, “Le Libre Arbitre d'un Mort.” By this, I found that neither I nor any human being had the slightest free-will. I was as dead as a stock, a corpse, but that I must be full of rejoicing at the same time, that without any merit of my own, I had been received into eternal bliss, whilst my brother, without any fault of his, had been thrust down into eternal perdition. After I had read this work, I declined the meeting with him.

I can, for many good reasons, excuse a person who holds narrow views on certain subjects, but I cannot forgive any one who rejoices in a doctrine which makes God the most unjust of fathers, and mankind as his blind, heartless instruments.

People here are coming, gradually, to perceive the one-sided doctrine of predestination is based upon such a view of the divine character. Mallan's church is now attended by but few; its condition is become dilapidated, and he, himself, is like Marius in the ruins of Carthage.

One topic, and one protest, occupies the whole of Protestant Geneva, at the present time, and that is against Catholicism and its encroachments. More and more Catholics are continually flying hither from Savoy, and are now building themselves here, a magnificent cathedral. The Catholic bishop attracts an ever-increasing audience to his sermons. All this is a