HKB
need only name "L'Histoire de Calvin," by M. Audin, in itself entirely devoid of truthfulness, and the fruitful source of calumnious and lying pamphlets against the memory of the Reformer.
The Correspondence of Calvin will, we believe, throw a fresh light upon those grave questions which Modern Science, worthy of the name, now proposes to herself with a desire for impartial justice which does her honour. It is by this sentiment that we may venture to say we have been animated, in the course of the long researches which have enabled us to offer this collection to the public. Guided solely by the love of truth, and shrinking from no revelation that was guarantied by authentic documents, we have rejected no sources of information, nor omitted any evidence. Our ambition has been to make Calvin live again in his letters--to shew him as he was, with his austere and inflexible convictions, which yet were far from intolerant, in the intercourse of friendship and the freedom of the domestic circle--with that stern self-sacrifice of his life to duty which alone explains its power and excuses its errors--with the failings which were the heritage of his times and those which were peculiar to himself. History, interrogated in original documents, is not a panegyric; it throws no veil over the shortcomings of its heroes, but it remembers that they are men, and draws lessons alike from their infirmities and from their greatness.
We cannot close this Preface without offering the tribute of our sincere gratitude to those friends in England and on the Continent whose kind encouragement has favoured the publication. And we would address our first acknowledgments to the Librarians of the Continental Libraries, who eagerly placed at our disposal the whole MS. collections committed to their charge. We have pleasure in paying the same tribute to one of the most distinguished citizens of Geneva, Colonel Henri Tronchin, who so liberally opened to us the precious documents that have been transmitted to him through a series of illustrious ancestors; and we regard it as a peculiar privilege to record our obligations, while at Geneva, to the encouraging kindness of two men eminent in her sacred literature, M. le Pasteur Gaussen, and to the learned historian of the Reformation, M. le Docteur Merle d'Aubigné, whose patronage, which was given as a matter of course to the publication of Calvin's Correspondence, has been the means of attracting to us valuable sympathies in the United States, in England, and in that noble country of Scotland, where the name of Calvin, gloriously associated with that of Knox, receives an honourable tribute in the labours of a Society devoted to the translation of his writings. It is with heartfelt satisfaction that we inscribe on the first page of the collection, and recall in one grateful thought, the names of the three generous patrons of the undertaking, Mr. Douglas of Cavers, Mr. Henderson of Park, and Mr. James Lenox of New York.