Maurice Mauris

“ The savages of the present age seem to have been providentially left to confirm the truths which paleontology has endeavored to wrench from the bowels of the earth and the depths of the water; they seem to be left as milestones to indicate the road that mankind has passed over, or rather, as Edmond About says, "They are the stragglers in the army of civilization, by the presence of whom we are informed whence the great body started and whither it went." ”

“ Having by degrees recovered self-possession, he requested to see Calvin. Accompanied by two councilors, Calvin entered the prison and asked what he wanted of him. Servetus had the heroic virtue to ask pardon of him—the man who had brought him to his death! Hard to say: the intolerant despot of Geneva, devoid of all humanity, had not a word of mercy for his victim, when a word of his would have saved him!
An hour before noon of October 27, 1553, Servetus was taken from his jail to receive his sentence from my lords the councilors and justices of Geneva. ”

“ If we consider what a large share of work carpentry has in establishing a colony and making it prosper, and, again, to what fame the colonies founded by the Phœnicians all along the Mediterranean coast arose, their prominence in this art will be still better proved. A carpenter of Samos, by the name of Mandrocles, perhaps the oldest carpenter whose name has found a place in history, built a bridge on the Bosporus, which, in a few days, afforded passage to Darius and his seven hundred thousand men, when on his expedition against the Scythians. ”

“ People acquainted with history will readily understand that a great change must have been operated in carpentry by the civilization of the fourteenth century. In obedience to the laws of evolution and progress that rule the moral as well as the physical world, some provinces of this art were absorbed by superior arts and sciences: some passed under the control of sister arts, others expanded themselves and gained new ground. The carpenter whose bodily strength was overbalanced by the power of his mind was hailed as an engineer or as an architect ”

“ We can imagine man in a savage state. "The penalty of Adam's—the seasons' difference"—was full upon him; at first he crept, like the beasts, within groves and hollow trees, or into dark caves and holes dug in the earth; or else he perched himself, like the birds, in nests built with less skill than those of the swallow or the stork. But necessity is the mother of invention; and the gradual sharpening of his obtuse faculties soon taught man how to procure a better shelter. ”

“ The art of building, which has invariably been the starting-point of civilization and the precursor of every species of knowledge, was thus originated. The art of the carpenter is thus the earliest of arts ”

“ Thus perished a noble man of whom his age was not worthy—the victim of murderous religious bigotry. But the crime that had been committed shocked the humanity of Geneva, even in that dark period, and, before the year was out, Calvin was driven to self-defense, and displayed the remorseless traits of his character by libeling the man whom he had slain. ”

“ We leave for the reader to imagine what additional anger must now have entered the Reformer's heart, when, besides the offensive and, as he regarded it, heretical matter of the book, he found the letters written to him made public, himself publicly schooled, his most cherished doctrines proclaimed derogatory to God, and some of them as barring the gates of heaven! What the reader, perhaps, could not imagine is, that the "high-minded" man who had emphatically denounced the "right of the sword" in dealing with heresy, was now ready to become instrumental in having it applied to Servetus. ”

“ THE publication of an elaborate life of Servetus in English at the present time will be welcome to many readers, who at present know little more of the man than that he was burned at the stake at Geneva, at the instigation of John Calvin, three hundred and twenty-five years ago. The progress of the world from polytheism to monotheism has had many tragic passages, but perhaps the most unique was this roasting alive of the Unitarian Servetus with green wood by a leader of the Protestant Reformation. ”

“ Expressing contempt for any man who by his work contributed, however slightly, to the public welfare, was among the Egyptians, as is known, an infraction of the law, and punishable in consequence. In the case of a young carpenter who had made but a few school implements and had been ill-spoken of, his rights to the public respect were thus solemnly acknowledged by the Magus who sat as judge: "The carpenter who makes school implements accomplishes more toward the improvement of his fellow men than many kings have done." ”

“ Thus it is not surprising that division of labor was applied to carpentry; and bridge-makers, or "pontiffs," as they were called, after the Latin fashion, builders, joiners, ship-builders and military carpenters were recognized as distinct trades, nor could one division intrude upon the duties of the others.
Though the middle ages are generally estimated as an epoch of retrogression in art, carpentry improved. Its military department was naturally perfected by the unrelenting wars. In these an enormous number of workmen found employment. ”

“ IT is characteristic of architecture that the further back we look toward the primitive state of man, the more the use of wood prevails over that of stone, brick, and all other building materials, and the more does the importance of carpentry exceed that of masonry. The condition of this art might well be taken as the basis of division between the various stages of the civilization of a country. During the first stage, wood is everywhere the only material used in construction ”

“ During the reign of Louis XIV., a new building—the theatre—was erected; it was made almost entirely of wood, and though in a wholly different order of ideas, carpenters seemed to be inspired in working out the new construction, according to the lofty conceptions by which church-building had been formerly distinguished. Stage carpenters too, accomplished wonders; the illusion was so complete as to make some one say that "stage-carpenters lived an ideal life." ”

“ It is very cruel that I am neither allowed to speak nor to have my most pressing wants supplied; for the love of God, sirs, in pity or in duty, give orders in my behalf!" This appeal of the prisoner, as far as his needs were concerned, met with an immediate response; but the audience was never granted. The answers of the Swiss churches arrived at last, and as Calvin had been their inspirer, and they had been taken in concert, they unanimously condemned Servetus's theological views. On the 26th of October the council solemnly assembled and condemned Servetus to be burned alive with his books ”

“ During the thirteenth century, masonry and blacksmithing continued to invade the sphere that carpentry had previously appropriated to itself; the reign of carpenters was over, yet the share of work remaining in their hands was sufficient to enable them to keep step with the artistic and industrial movement of the time. Gunpowder being invented, carpentry, for some time, enlarged its province. The first guns were made of wood, strengthened by bands of iron; new engines were also invented ”

“ Servetus has been accused of having provoked the Genevese Reformer by addressing him in a style calculated to wound, if not to insult, him; and the character of the man gives likelihood to the charge. But, had Calvin's letters been preserved, we doubt whether the accusation would hold good; we know for a certainty that the great Reformer applied very freely the lowest epithets to his opponents—"rascal, dog, ass, and swine, being found of constant occurrence among them—had there been any stronger than scoundrel and blasphemer, they would have been hurled at Servetus." ”

“ The trial was now interrupted through differences between Calvin and the city fathers about municipal affairs. On September 15th Servetus wrote to the council a letter, from which we quote the first paragraph:
"My most Honored Lords: I humbly entreat of you to put an end to these great delays, or to exonerate me of the criminal charge. You must see that Calvin is at his wit's end, and knows not what more to say, but for his pleasure would have me rot here in prison. The lice eat me up alive; my breeches are in rags, and I have no change—no doublet, and but a single shirt in tatters. ”

“ The most astonishing progress made by carpentry in ancient times is, in our estimation, that shown by Holland. There man had struggled for ages against the invading waves for the ownership of a land which, in the end, he succeeded in making his own. ”

“ Reliable accounts of travelers bear witness, in fact, to the existence, even at the present day, of certain Asiatic and Polynesian islanders, who still inhabit wood dwellings erected on piles driven into the water, thus perpetuating a custom prevailing in times beyond record. Herodotus has a passage relating to a tribe that dwelt five hundred and twenty years before the Christian era on Lake Prasias, in Thrace, the modern Roumelia, whose modes of life illustrate those of the lake-dwellers. ”

“ Like Cuvier, who, out of an age-eaten bone, was able to rebuild the skeleton of a whole fish, paleontologists of our day have, from the scanty remains found in the lakes of Europe, deduced almost to a certainty the characteristics of the lacustrine dwellings which formed the abode of man during the neolithic period of the Stone age. The interest awakened by such discoveries has been so great as to render it wholly needless for us to give a description of the house, bridge, and boat building of prehistoric man. ”

“ Servetus was in sympathy with the Reformers of the Lutheran Reformation, and, in fact, came into conflict with them, because he did not think they were sufficiently rational and thorough-going, and what he saw of the pomp and tyranny of princes and bishops was not calculated to quiet the spirit of protest that early took a powerful hold upon his mind. At the age of twenty he writes: "For my own part. I neither agree nor disagree in every particular with either Catholics or Reformers. ”

“ History, always ready to register any deed of princes and courtiers, has rarely preserved any record of the martyrs of labor. In documents discovered and examined with much patience and labor by recent historians, mention is, however, made of a carpenter, by the name of Modestus, who in his time exercised great influence upon the course of events. ”

“ Every community was independent, had its peculiar privileges, laws, traditions, and usages. An officer called "Master Carpenter of the King" presided over each one of the French brotherhoods. He was as a brake put to the wheels of the organization by the shy despotism of the monarch. The Church, too, of course, interfered and gave them the character of religious associations. According to the statutes of the Paris brotherhood, carpenters were bound not to work from nine o'clock on Saturday night till Monday morning. ”

“ Every corporation had jurors who were selected among masters having at least ten years' experience, and whose business was to settle, as referees, all questions arising in business transactions. As the choice of materials was of paramount importance for the security of the community at large, it was the jurors' duty to examine all wood before it could be used; the use of wood upon which the jurors had not thought fit to put their seal entailed heavy fines and even the suspension of the transgressor. ”

“ With having, in spite of this, not only persisted in his errors and infected many with them, but with having lately had another book clandestinely printed at Vienne, in Dauphiny, filled with the like heresies and execrable blasphemies against the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, the baptism of infants, and other sacred doctrines, the foundation of the Christian religion. Item. With having in the said book called all who believe in a Trinity, tritheists, and even atheists, and the Trinity itself a demon or monster having three heads. ”

“ After a short stay at Avignon and Orleans, Villeneuve betook himself to Lyons, then a great centre of learning. There he seems to have found ready employment as reader and corrector of the press, first, and afterward as editor in the celebrated printing-establishment of Trechsel Brothers. Among the works he edited for them, the "Geography of Ptolemy," enriched by extensive comments from him, can by no means be overlooked, connected as it is with the charges imputed to its editor, later on, in his trial at Geneva. ”

“ After the sitting of September 1st, in compliance with a wish previously expressed by the court, Calvin, surrounded by a staff of ministers, proceeded to the jail to visit the prisoner. Calvin having then opened upon him with a bigoted lecture, the consequences are easily imagined: the interview' ended as it could only end—with increased irritation on both sides. From this time (and we cannot but excuse the man) , Servetus became more intemperate and aggressive on Calvin; not only indisposed to yield one jot or tittle, but negligent also of opportunities to defend his conclusions. ”