Note 313 — CCLXX.—To Haller.[313]

See the notice, p. 249.

In a reaction, perhaps exaggerated, against the practices of the Romish Church, the magistrates of Geneva were led to adopt a measure which made a great noise among the Swiss Protestants. While Berne and Zurich celebrated the four great feasts of the year, according to the ancient Catholic custom, the Genevese abolished the weekday feasts, and kept nothing but the Sabbath. This measure, in which Calvin had no hand whatever, and of which he, in some degree, even disapproved, was made nevertheless the subject of very violent personal declamations against him. Some even accused him of wishing to abolish the Sabbath. In letters to his friends, Haller, Bullinger, and some others, he thought it his duty to represent the true character of the reform effected at Geneva, and his real relation to it. He had little difficulty in obtaining the approbation of Bullinger, who replied to him in these words: "You have just given the answer which I expected, my dear brother. For I know that in matters of that sort, where duty is but little heeded, and much ill-will is engendered, you have never been morose. I am anxious, indeed, in such matters, to see that liberty preserved, which I perceive to have flourished in the churches from the very days of the apostles." ...—Calvini Opera, tom. ix. p. 63.