A FACTOE IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION 427 



ritual aud practice ; and, by establishing ruling elders 

 in each church and an elective synod, he secured to his 

 polity a representative character, which combined au- 

 thority with popular rights. Both Luther and Calvin Religion of a 



Free State 



insisted that, for each one, there is and can be no other 

 priest than himself; and, as a consequence, both agreed 

 in the parity of the clergy. Both were of one mind that, 

 should pious laymen choose one of their number to be 

 their minister, ' the man so chosen would be as truly a 

 priest as if all the bishops in the world had consecrated 

 him.' " 



This clearly shows how the Protestantism that had 

 become distinctive in America was the direct result of Popular 

 the teaching and polity of the French reformer, theolo- °^*''^'^" ^ 

 gian and statesman who has been one of the foremost aud 

 most potent agencies in human civilization. It was be- 

 cause Richelieu, the keen statesman of France, saw that 

 the Huguenot faith was in its very nature opposed to 

 royal absolutism, and that the divine right of kings could 

 not exist if the people came to hold the divine sovereignty 

 taught by Calvin, that he was willing to go to all lengths 

 to crush it out of France. Thus directly and indirectly 

 the French have contributed to America the principles 

 of religious aud civil liberty upon which all our institu- 

 tions are founded. Of far deeper influence than that 

 which came through immigration has been the influence 

 of that reform in religion which began in France before 

 the day of Luther, and which had its supreme leader 

 in John Calvin, w^ho found opportunity to do through 

 the Swiss Republic what he could not do in Rome-bound 

 France, his native land. 



