'We should not think that in Calvin's Geneva the city tried, in a merely negative way, to stop its citizens behaving immorally. It also took strong, positive measures to improve the social, economic, and cultural life of the city. For instance, the authorities created an outstanding system of free, public education; they stimulated business by helping to establish a highly successful cloth and silk industry, which provided much-needed employment; they made the sale of food subject to strict health and hygiene laws; the supplied latrines free of charge for all houses that lacked them (a very real need in most 16th Century European homes); they built a high-quality hospital, and a place of residence for the homeless; they set up an agency to find work for the unemployed, and they organized a noble system of social care for the poor and aged. In these and other ways, the Genevan government carried out a wide-ranging programme of social planning and reform which, alongside the moral and spiritual influence of the Genevan Church, transformed the life of the city. [from 2,000 Years of Christ's Power, by Prof. Nick Needham, vol. 3]
'I could have wished, yea, and cannot cease to wish, that it might please God to guide and conduct yourself to this place [Geneva]; where, I neither fear nor am ashamed to say, is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the apostles. In other places, I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners [i.e. behaviour] and religion to be so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place beside.' [John Knox, welcomed in Geneva as an exile from England during the reign of Bloody Mary]
'I could have wished, yea, and cannot cease to wish, that it might please God to guide and conduct yourself to this place [Geneva]; where, I neither fear nor am ashamed to say, is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of the apostles. In other places, I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners [i.e. behaviour] and religion to be so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place beside.' [John Knox, welcomed in Geneva as an exile from England during the reign of Bloody Mary]
