will be concerning a Native Franchise. For the third time we would observe that the recognition of the Native as an undeveloped minor helps us to arrive at what seems to be indisputably the true conclusion. The most ardent advocate of a widely extended suffrage draws the line at universal adult suffrage. He would be one of the first to admit that the inconsequence of a child's mind would make his vote a danger to the State. It would lead him, for instance, to advocate the sequestration for the use of the Nation of confectionery and jam factories, of strawberry farms and toy shops, instead of mines, railways, and acres. 'There would be no more liquor laws if the Natives had the franchise!' said an Africander discussing the question. 'Now the Americans in the past used the drink as a way of ridding themselves of the native difficulty. They supplied their Red Indians with all the drink they wanted and they committed race suicide, so that difficulty was got out of the way! This action mercifully has not commended itself to our honest Colonials as one to be copied by them. A Native franchise, which, as the South African Native Affairs Commission state in their report of 1903-5, permits it being used in a spirit of rivalry with, and antagonism to, the European electorate, which makes the organized Native vote the arbiter in any acute electoral struggle between political parties . . . is an unwise and dangerous thing.'

The qualifications which ought to gain the franchise for the Native must be those of genuine civilization, i.e. the average level of civilization of the white man.' And the Native can only reach this level by the slow, gradual ascent of progress, following the lines which it took our forefathers many centuries to tread before the majority of them were considered educated enough to be granted Parliamentary

votes.

But while the premature gift of the franchise to the child race of Kaffirs should be in kindness denied them, there should be an adequate provision made for them to express their opinions at Native Councils or Pitsos; and special provision should be made for safeguarding their interests in the South African Union Parliament. The schedule of the VOL. LXVIII.-NO. CXXXVI. T

Draft Constitution assures to the three Native Protectorates of Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland the possession of their land, and makes its alienation unlawful. It also prohibits the sale of liquor within those territories. But there are a large number of other points for which it is vital to the prosperity and happiness of the Natives that their interests should be specially overwatched by the Government. The illicit liquor trade, the condition of their locations, the harshness of the many varying pass regulations, the imprisonment of witnesses before and during trials, the legal recognition of Native laws and customs of marriage and inheritance in certain States and the refusal to recognize them in others, the barriers to their learning skilled trades-these and other laws and regulations urgently call for revision or reform, while a uniform system of control that shall inflict no hardship upon any peaceable Native subjects is greatly needed through the whole country.

If the foundations of a United South Africa are to be securely laid, if the partnership of European and Native, of brain and muscle, is to be a reality, there must be no longer any ground for suspicion that the senior partner treats the working partner unjustly, that he aims at getting the utmost possible out of his labour, while paying him the least possible in return. He must do in truth what the Welsh miner said in sarcasm-he must treat the Native as his brother.

If he does this, if he insists on his dark-skinned brother being treated with justice, impartiality, wisdom, and kindness, then the Kaffirs in the Protectorates who are now watching the progress of the Closer Union Movement with tremulous anxiety will rejoice in its accomplishment as gladly as the Africander. They will shout their words of thanksgiving over it: The cattle! The cattle! The cattle!' and they will claim with proud satisfaction their share of the home-made loaf. May that bread prove to be a life-giving sustenance to every son and daughter of

South Africa!

ART. II.-JOHN CALVIN: AN HISTORICAL

ESTIMATE.

1. Joannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia. Ediderunt G. BAUMER, E. CUNITZ, E. REUSSs. Tomi LIX. (Braunschweig: Schwetschke. 1863-1900.)

2. Life of Calvin. By T. H. DYER. (London: John Murray. 1850.)

3. Johann Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf. Von F. W. KAMPSCHULTE. Two volumes. (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot. 1869-1899.)

4. Histoire du Peuple de Genève. Par AMÉDÉE ROGET. Sept tomes. (Genève : Jullien.

1870-1883).

5. Servetus and Calvin. By R. WILLIS. (London: H. S. King. 1877.)

6. La Théocratie à Genève au Temps de Calvin. Par E. CHOISY. (Genève : Eggimann. 1897.)

7. John Calvin. By WILLISTON WALKER. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

1906.)

8. Jean Calvin: les Hommes et les Choses de son Temps. Par E. DOUMERGUE. Tomes I-III. (Lausanne : Bridel. 1899-1905.)

And many other works.

To explain and apologize for the faults of a great man, while admitting their reality, is a service to be rendered by the biographer not only to the subject of his work but to mankind at large. To deny the existence of those faults is often to do a grave disservice to both. A false or glozing statement which can be disproved; an intentional omission where an adversary can fill the hiatus; a captious argument in the face of plain facts: these things when detected are deemed to militate against the character not so much of the biographer as of him whom he defends. And perhaps no man's memory has suffered more from want of candour on the part of zealous admirers than that of the great Reformer the fourth centenary of whose birth falls in the present year of grace. Down to sixty years ago there were but two opinions regarding John Calvin: one that of the Ultra

montanes as represented in the outrageous Vie de Calvin by Audin, who depicts a cold villain; the other that of Protestant Europe, which sought and found, as it believed, a blameless saint. This legendary figure was first dealt with in England by Dyer, who founded his work on an enthusiastic Leben Calvins by one Paul Henry, a Protestant pastor, but used the documents supplied him by the latter to arrive at a calmer estimate of the Reformer's failings as well as his virtues. There followed the essay of Mark Pattison in the same sense, perhaps in parts a little exaggerated. And recently there has appeared the work of Professor Williston Walker, on the whole the most judicial which has yet been published, following closely on the lines of C. A. Cornelius' Historische Arbeiten.

It was hoped that in the monumental work of M. Doumergue would be found the final word not only on the facts of Calvin's life but on the enigmas of his character. This hope has scarcely been fulfilled. Sumptuous in form and brilliant in style, crowded and at times overladen with details bearing more on the times than on the history of the Reformer, and based on the newest documental discoveries, the book is fatally lacking in impartiality. Acute enough in his judgement of fables which can be swept aside without affecting the character of his hero, M. Doumergue refuses to recognize plain facts when dealing with the labours of his predecessors, especially those of the Old Catholic Kampschulte, certainly (with Roget and Cornelius) the fairest critic of Genevan history who has yet appeared, and acknowledged as such by both parties. Should M. Doumergue's work ever include the affair of Servetus, it is to be hoped that we may not find in him another defender of a lost cause.

Born at Noyon in Picardy on July 10, 1509, and sprung 1 Hamburg. 1835-44. Three vols.

2 Pattison, Collected Essays, ii. 1–41. 'The murder of the heroic Servetus' (p. 6) is surely not a very sane description; nor is it possible to agree with the statement that Calvin neglected dogma (p. 23), while the assertion that he (p. 6) 'overthrew the liberties of the State which so generously sheltered him' seems at variance with that on p. 22, 'the discipline did not create freedom; it organized and affirmed it.'

from that race of plebeian officials which afterwards gained recognition as the nobility of the robe,' and which gave to France some of her brightest geniuses, young John Calvin started with many advantages in life besides his own great talents. His father held ecclesiastical as well as civil office, and his constant relations with the great episcopal family of Hangest de Montmor1 enabled him to have his son educated, though at his own expense, with the sons of that house. At the age of twelve the lad was invested with the revenues of a chapel in the cathedral of Noyon and subsequently, though he was never in holy orders, with the living of Martinville, which he exchanged for that of Pont l'Évêque.

Not for the first or the last time did the Church cherish in her bosom a future foe. With the young Montmors Calvin was sent to the University of Paris, first to the Collège de la Marche and then to that nursery of great saints and great sinners, the Montaigu '3-infamous for its vermin, its riots, its debaucheries; famous for its pupils-Erasmus, Rabelais, Calvin, Xavier, Loyola; the last of whom entered it even as Calvin departed for Orleans. Thither he went to study law at the desire, as he says, of his father; possibly at his own also, for he had ever a juristic mind. Attracted by the fame of the great lawyer Alciati, he left Orleans for Bourges, but here he studied Greek also and that under the guidance of Melchior Wolmar, a German from whom it is suggested that he imbibed Protestant ideas. The question of his

Beza's presentation of this family as 'the Mommorii' led McCrie, (Early Years of Calvin, p. 5) to imagine that these were a different family from the Hangests. The Count-bishop of Noyon was ex officio one of the twelve peers of France.

2 To speak of this as a 'bursary' (C. H. Irwin, John Calvin: the Man and his Work, p. 9) is not candid. It was a mere ecclesiastical abuse, for which the best excuse was the prevalence of such, and it resulted in the usual complaints of scandalous neglect and non-residence. Cf. Doumergue, Jean Calvin, i. 39, n. 2.

Doumergue, op. cit. i. 51-52, 69-73, has collected atrocious particulars. The students of the Montaigu were not riotous through overfeeding. No meat and no wine were allowed, except for 'theologians and priests,' who had for dinner a pint of wine among three, and a whole herring or two eggs; the students had half a herring or one egg apiece. 'La délicatesse, c'était la mort,' says Doumergue truly.