I Hate This Period Of History

I thought back then that CALVINISM was a religion based just on me and my brilliance.

The actual followers were a gloomy bunch that had come to the realization of their truth, after reading the works of founder JOHN CALVIN (my first two names are Calvin and John).

He believed that man's fate was 'predestined' and nothing you did, or said, or believed could change any of that. Even the best, generous, and god fearing man could still go to hell if that was his unchangeable destiny.

What a delicious bit of 16th Century ennui right there! Fantastic. I suspect these guys were so gloomy and such buzz kills at parties that everyone around them figured that they just had to go.

The ones in France were called Huguenots and they were particularly irksome to the Catholics in that country as this next part will display.

"Massacre of St. Bartholomew and known mass murder of Huguenots (French Calvinists, Protestants) by Catholics during the religious wars of sixteenth-century France. The events began on August 24, 1572 in Paris, extending over the following months throughout France. The total number of deaths is estimated at 2,000 in Paris, and from 5,000 to 10,000 in France. The religious wars in France ended with the Edict of Nantes, signed by King Henry IV of France on April 13, 1598, by authorizing, with certain limits, freedom of worship to Protestants. François Dubois was a Protestant, a contemporary of the facts, and made the picture as a complaint."

I hated studying this in grade school because, being the only CALVIN anywhere around they all looked to me like I had somehow escaped the purge and that I needed to go. My classmates were never ones to understand the subtleties of world history.