These were hard-headed men of affairs - men who would not lightly embark on joyous ventures, or seek for an ideal San Grail; nor were the popes, doomed to the Babylonian captivity for seventy long years at Avignon, able to call down the spark from on high which should consume all earthly ambitions in one great act of sacrifice.
In this frame of mind, on the 24th of June 1872, he addressed the German Leseverein, and referred to the stone that would soon fall from on high and crush the feet of the Colossus.
Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his need of securing more time for personal improvement, but ultimately, believing that he was divinely called to this task and that "God had stretched forth His hand upon me from on high to arrest me," he consented to remain at Geneva.
The whole article is just sneering from on high.
It is quite unnerving to watch fifteen journalists scribbling down your every word as tho it were a pronouncement from on high.
