198 PEOF. F. F. EOGET^ ON FREDERIC GODET, SWISS DIVINE^ 



characteristics of Protestantism in Geneva, Lausanne and 

 Keuchatel are those which have developed in the United 

 Kingdom. I may even say that some of the best expressions of 

 Presbyterian, and even Church of England, doctrine have been 

 formed in Swiss minds. 



The remarkable popularity of Naville, Godet, Vinet, Secretan 

 and Amiel among the English-reading public has been made 

 obvious by the demand for translations of their works, transla- 

 tions which have gone through many editions and are less in 

 request now only in proportion as the newer literature presses 

 them back, and as a younger generation loses sight of them. 

 As for Francois Eoget's book {Be Gonstantin It Gregoire le 

 Grand) on the Establishment of the Christian (Eoman) Church 

 from Gonstantin e to Gregory the Great, it remains the standard 

 work on the secularisation of Christianity. 



Frederic Godet was born in Neuchatel. This should be 

 noted, as his whole life and work bears the imprint of his 

 nativity." The Godets were an ancient, though by no means 

 socially eminent stock. 



Neuchatel was still a Principality in the dependency of the 

 Kings of Prussia at the moment of Frederic Godot's birth, 

 though the Principality owed temporary allegiance to Berthier, 

 one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals : a mere mushroom 

 prince. So the child was born a Prussian Ptoyalist, baptized a 

 Protestant — in the Calvinistic Faith — and educated as a Swiss in 

 a Church which was not quite a State Church, and bore 

 the stamj) of fidelity to the Monarchy of Prussia rather than to 

 the Republicanism of Switzerland. 



This atmosphere was full of contradictions. Yet the 

 community of 100,000 Neuchatelois who had breathed it since 

 1707 had grown into a most harmonious, enliglitened and 

 prosperous commonwealth of simple-minded men, distinguished 

 by public merits and private virtues. 



Yet the ambiguousness of this strange social unit " told " 

 upon Godet and is reflected in every step of his career. But 

 his powerful personality subdued those manifold elements. A 

 minister, he remained faithful to his flock through constitutional 

 changes in the Church ; a professor of divinity, he remained 

 faithful to his students, keeping them anchored to the 

 evangelical conception of the Old and New Testaments, through 

 every change in exegesis ; a tutor to a most eminent scion of 

 the Prussian House, he retained the absolute confidence of 

 his pupil from early years to the hour of death. Entrusted 

 with his tutorial office as a Eoyalist, he none the less accepted 



