Calvin at Geneva was sometimes called the Protestant pope.
During his long residence there he governed the people with a rod of iron.
There were no more festivals, no more theaters, no more dancing, music, and
masquerades. All the citizens had to attend two sermons on Sunday and to yield
at least a lip-assent to the reformer's doctrines. On a few occasions Calvin
proceeded to terrible extremities, as when he caused the Spanish physician,
Michael Servetus, to be burned to death, because of heretical views concerning
the Trinity. Nevertheless, Geneva prospered under Calvin's rule and became a
Christian commonwealth, sober and industrious. The city still reveres the
memory of the man who founded her university and made her, as it were, the sanctuary
of the Reformation.
DIFFUSION OF CALVINISM
Calvin's influence was not confined to Geneva or even to
Switzerland. The men whom he trained and on whom he set the stamp of his stern,
earnest, God-fearing character spread Calvinism over a great part of Europe. In
Holland and Scotland it became the prevailing type of Protestantism, and in
France and England it deeply affected the national life. During the seventeenth
century the Puritans carried Calvinism across the sea to New England, where it
formed the dominant faith in colonial times.
