THE REFORMATION 297 arranged the fate of men even before their birth; he has predestined some to be saved, others to be damned, and It does not depend on the man through his acts to change the decrees of God. God could justly con- demn all men, for all are corrupt through sin; but he has elected some, through His grace, and rejected others through His justice, God acts thus "for His glory," and we have only to venerate His will. One thing only is important, therefore: that is, grace; he who has received that is sure of salvation. The Cal- vinists preserve only two sacraments, baptism and communion; furthermore the communion is for them nothing but a ceremony of commemoration, where the bread and the wine are only symbols of the body and blood of Christ The Calvinist worship admits of no observances (neither the sign of the cross, nor fasting, nor absti- nence, nor confession), of no ornaments, of no sym- bolical ceremony, of nothing which speaks to the eye. It takes place in a bare edifice, and consists exclusively in the reading of the Bible, in sermons, prayers, and in hymns sung by the believers; some churches will not even have an organ to accompany the singing. lathe organization of the churches Calvinism has preserved nothing of the hierarchy, not even the power of the bishops. The churches have been constituted in the form that Calvin imagined to have been that of the primitive church. Each parish (whether it has one or several pastors) forms an independent church, it has a council (a consistory),1 composed of the pastor 1 The word consistory has lost its primitive sense in the re- formed church of France and designates today what was ion»«rly called the conference of the church.