ABSTRACT
Reconstructing the rigors of pursuing the pastoral profession and the duties required of the city pastors provides a helpful overview of the life of the Genevan clergyman during the eighteenth century. Identifying the group of clergy who departed from the ministry in an exceptional or premature way is customary among Geneva's prosopographies. In total, Stelling-Michaud identified 20 individuals with noteworthy exits from the ministry. Variation is also evident in cases where complaints were effectively addressed for a time within a continuous cycle of reform throughout the century. As Margot Todd's study of the kirk and parish schools in early modern Scotland has shown, historians run the danger of taking 'too seriously clerical jeremiads. A similar outlook of religious progress may also be seen in the sermon delivered by Turrettini for Zurich's jubilee celebration of the Reformation in 1719.
