John, was born at Noyon, in Picardy, on the 10th of July 1509. His father, Gerard Calvin or Cauvin, was a notary-apostolic and procurator-fiscal for the lordship of Noyon, besides holding certain offices in connection with that diocese. The name of his mother was Jeanne Lefranc; she was the daughter of an innkeeper at Cambrai, who afterwards came to reside at Noyon. Gerard Cauvin is described as a man of considerable sagacity and prudence, and on this account held in esteem by the leading men of the district. His wife added to considerable personal attractions the graces of a vivid and earnest piety. Their family consisted of four sons, of whom John was the second, and two daughters.

Of Calvin's early years only a few notices remain. His father destined him from the first for theological studies, being moved to this by the evidences afforded in his boyhood of a religious tendency, and perhaps also by a shrewd apprehension of the kind of pursuits in which he was most fitted to excel. The esteem in which the father was held opened for the boy a place in the household of the noble family of De Montmor, where he received his elementary education along with the children of the house, though at his father's expense. In his thirteenth year his father, whose circumstances were not affluent, procured for him from the bishop a benefice in the Chapelle de Notre Dame de la Gesine. In this office he was installed on the 29th of May 1521, and the income thence derived, enabled him to accompany the young De Montmors to Paris, and to prosecute his studies there. His first school was the Collège de la Marche, at that time under the regency of Maturin Cordier, a man of excellent character, of sound learning, and high repute as a teacher. From this institution he removed to the Collège Montaigne, where he had for instructor a Spaniard, who is described as a man of learning, and to whom Calvin was indebted for the culture of his already acute intellect, by the study of dialectics and the scholastic philosophy. Whilst at school the future reformer distinguished himself by his superior abilities, and his indefatigable assiduity. He speedily outstripped all his competitors in grammatical studies, and by his skill and acumen... Calvin, as a student of philosophy, gave fruitful promise of that consummate excellence as a reasoner, in the department of speculative truth, which he afterwards displayed.

In his nineteenth year he, through the influence of his father, obtained the living of Marteville, to which he was presented on the 27th of March 1527. After holding this preferment for nearly two years, he exchanged it in July 1529 for the cure of Pont-l'Évêque, a village near to Noyon, and the place to which his father originally belonged. He appears to have been not a little elated by his early promotion, and although not ordained, he preached several sermons to the people. But though the career of ecclesiastical preferment was thus early opened to him, Calvin was destined not to become a priest of the Church of Rome. A change came over the mind both of his father and himself respecting his future career. Gerard Calvin, looking at things only from a worldly point of view, began to suspect that he had not chosen the most lucrative profession for his son, and that the law offered to a youth of his talents and industry a more promising sphere. His son, on the other hand, had come under an influence of a very different kind, but which, with still more decisive impulse, inclined him to relinquish the ecclesiastical life. Through the counsels of his relation, Pierre Robert Olivetan, the first translator of the Bible into French, he had been led for the first time to study the sacred volume, and to test his religious opinions and practices by its dictates. The result was that, though not yet detached from the faith of the Roman church, he was very willing to relinquish all thoughts of becoming a priest in that communion. He accordingly readily complied with his father's suggestion, and having resigned his benefice, removed from Paris to Orleans, in order to study law under Pierre de l'Etoile, a distinguished jurist, and at that time professor there. On this new pursuit Calvin entered with characteristic ardour, and such was his progress in legal knowledge, that he frequently occupied the chair of the professor, while his general reputation for ability and scholarship stood so high, that on leaving Orleans, he received the grade of doctor without payment of the usual fees, as a compliment to his merits. Other studies, however, besides those of law had occupied him whilst in this city. God, who had destined him for a very different career, was in his providence preparing him for the work he had to do. His mind, at first hardened by the influence of early superstition, was, he himself tells us, brought by a sudden conversion into a state of docility. An ardent desire to attain proficiency in sound knowledge took possession of him, and though this did not lead him to renounce other studies, it rendered him frigid in the pursuit of them. At all times, indeed, a diligent student, he seems at this time to have been impelled by his zeal beyond those bounds which a wise regard to health would impose. It was his wont, after a frugal supper, to labour till midnight, and in the morning when he awoke, he would, before he arose, recite and digest what he had read the previous day, so as to make it thoroughly his own. "By these protracted vigils," says Beza, "he secured indeed a solid erudition, and an excellent memory; but it is probable he at the same time sowed the seeds of that disease which occasioned him various illnesses in after life, and at last brought upon him premature death."

From Orleans Calvin went to Bourges to prosecute his studies under a learned Italian of the name of Alciati, whom Francis I. had invited into France, and settled as a professor of law in that university. Here he became acquainted with Melchior Volmar, a German, then professor of Greek at Bourges, and a man of sound erudition as well as exemplary character. By him Calvin was taught Greek, and introduced to the study of the New Testament in its original language, a service which he gratefully acknowledges in one of his printed works. The conversation of Volmar also seems to have been of use to him in deepening his religious convictions, and confirming him in his attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation. These were now beginning to be widely diffused through France. Twelve years had elapsed since Luther had published his theses against Indulgences; twelve years of intense excitement and anxious discussion, not in Germany only, but in almost all the adjacent kingdoms. In France there had not been as yet any overt revolt against the Church of Rome, but multitudes were lending a friendly ear to the reformed doctrines, and a few were in secret rejoicing in having heartily embraced them. To such Calvin united himself whilst at Orleans, and after his removal to Bourges he became a teacher, both in private conference with inquirers and by discourses in more public assemblies. "Before a year had elapsed," says he, speaking of his conversion, "all who were desirous of a purer doctrine were in the habit of coming to me, though a novice and a tyro, for the purpose of learning." And Beza tells us, that he not only fortified the few believers who were in the town, but preached often in some of the neighbouring mansions and hamlets, whereby he wonderfully advanced the kingdom of God in many families, among which he specifies that of the lord of Lignières, who with his lady heard with approval the new doctrines. In engaging in such efforts, Calvin appears to have yielded to a constraining sense of duty rather than to have followed the bias of his own inclinations. "By nature," says he, "somewhat clownish (subrusticus), I always preferred the shade and ease, and would have sought some hiding place; but this was not permitted, for all my retreats became like public schools." Nor did he infuse any of the enthusiasm which usually marks the young reformer into his addresses. "He taught the truth," says Beza, "not with affected eloquence; but with such depth of knowledge, and so much solid gravity of style, that there was not a man who could hear him without being ravished with admiration."

His residence at Bourges was cut short by the sudden death of his father, which occasioned his return to his native place. Immediately after his father's decease, he seems to have paid a hasty visit to Paris, and then to have returned to Noyon, where he resided for a couple of years or so. At the close of this period he appears to have taken up his abode permanently in the capital. Here he associated with the friends of evangelical truth, and frequented their assemblies, where he frequently preached. To the great joy of all such, he at length relinquished his legal pursuits, and devoted himself afresh to theology. He now gave himself up wholly to the work of the Lord, preaching with great energy, and using all the means in his power to win converts to the truth, as well as to confirm those by whom it had been already embraced. By this time the Reformation had attracted so many adherents in France, that the upholders of the established system became infuriated, and attempted to stay its further progress by the most cruel persecutions. In the hope of working upon the better feelings of those in power, and especially of the king, who was known to be favourable to literature, Calvin published an edition of Seneca's book De Clementia, accompanied by a commentary, in which he not only illustrates his author, but gives utterance to sentiments evidently intended to bear upon the conduct of the king in suffering his subjects to be tortured and burned for their religious opinions. This book he published at his own cost, and dedicated to Claude Hanguet, abbot of St Eloi, a member

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1 Calv., Prof. ad Comment. in Psalmos. 2 Prof. ad Psalmos. 3 Jo. Calvinii Vita, sub init. 4 Epist. Did., Comment. in Ep. II. ad Corinthios prof. 5 Prof. ad Psalmos. 6 Hist. Eccles. ubi sup. 7 Prof. ad Psalmos. 8 Hist. Eccles. t. I., p. 6, 7. Lille, 1841. of the De Montmor family, with whom Calvin had been brought up. The commentary displays extensive acquaintance with ancient literature, though the author has fallen into the ridiculous mistake of running the two Senecas, father and son, into one, and making the philosopher die 115 years old.

This work was published in April 1532. Calvin was now in his 24th year, and was already recognised as at the head of the Reformation movement in France. An occasion soon occurred which brought him into open collision with the dominant party. Nicholas Cop, the newly elected regent of the Sorbonne, had to deliver an oration according to custom in the Church of the Maturins, on the feast of All Saints. Being intimate with Calvin, he pronounced an oration which the latter had prepared for him, "of a totally different sort," says Beza, "from what was customary." It was in fact a defence of the reformed opinions, especially of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This was more than the Sorbonnists could bear, and Cop being summoned to appear before the parliament, found it necessary to make his escape from Paris to Basle. An attempt was at the same time made to seize Calvin, but being forewarned of the design by his friends, he also made his escape. His lodgings, however, were searched, and his books and papers seized, to the imminent peril of some of his friends, whose letters were found in his repositories. He himself took refuge at the court of the queen of Navarre, the only sister of Francis I, who then favoured the reformed party, and through whose intercession the storm which had broken out against them at this time was quieted. Calvin after this retired to Saintonge, where, at the request of a friend, he prepared some short discourses, which were circulated in the surrounding parishes, and read in public to the people. He subsequently removed to Nérac, the residence of the queen of Navarre, where he became acquainted with the venerable Jacques Lefèvre d'Estaples, a scholar and man of science, whom the queen had rescued from the fury of the Sorbonnists, and engaged as tutor to her children. By him Calvin was warmly received, and his future eminence as a reformer of the church predicted.

It is believed that it was whilst resident at Saintonge that Calvin prepared the first sketch of his *Institutio Christianae Religionis*. But his residence in that retirement continued only for a very few months, for in 1534 we find him again in Paris. Here he was compelled to remain concealed, in consequence of the measures which the enemies of the gospel were still pursuing against its adherents. At the risk of his life, however, he came forth to meet one whom he was afterwards to encounter under very different circumstances, the Spanish physician, Servede or Servetus, who was even then engaged in propagating his heretical notions concerning the Trinity. Him Calvin challenged to a conference; but though the challenge was accepted, and time and place agreed on, Servetus failed to meet his opponent. Calvin's design in proposing this colloquy seems to have been a kindly one towards Servetus. "Not without danger to my life," he himself says, "I offered to deliver him from his errors; and it would not have been my fault, had he manifested repentance, if all pious men had not given him their hands."

Nor was Servetus the only errorist whom Calvin endeavoured at this time to confute. The Anabaptists of Germany had spread into France, and were disseminating many wild and fanatical opinions among those who had seceded from the Church of Rome. Among other notions which they had imbued, was that of a sleep of the soul after death. To Calvin this notion appeared so pernicious, that he composed and published a treatise in refutation of it, under the title of *Psychopannychia*. In this work he chiefly dwells upon the evidence from Scripture in favour of the belief that the soul retains its intelligent consciousness after its separation from the body; passing by questions of philosophical speculation, as tending on such a subject only to minister to an idle curiosity.

The *Psychopannychia* was published in 1534 at Orleans, whither Calvin had been constrained, in consequence of the violence of the persecution at Paris, to retreat. He soon after found it necessary to leave France entirely, and with this view set out with his friend Louis Fillet for Basle. On their way they were robbed by one of their servants, who so entirely stripped them of their property, that it was only by borrowing ten crowns from their other servant that they were enabled to get to Strasbourg, and thence to Basle. Here Calvin was welcomed by the band of scholars and theologians who had conspired to make that city the Athens of Switzerland, and especially by the learned Simon Grynaeus, and by Wolfgang Capito, the leader of the Reformation at Basle. Under the auspices and guidance of the latter, Calvin applied himself to the study of Hebrew.

Francis I, desirous to continue the persecution of the Protestants, but anxious at the same time not to break with the Protestant princes of Germany, resorted to the unworthy expedient of instructing his ambassador to assure the latter that it was only against the Anabaptists, and other parties who called in question all civil magistracy, that his severities were exercised. Calvin, indignant at the calumny which was thus cast upon the reformed party in France, hastily prepared for the press his Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he published as a confession of the reformed faith, and dedicated to the king. Of this edition, which appeared in 1535, no copy is known to be extant. It is described by the author as a mere outline of what afterwards appeared under the same title, and he says he published it anonymously, having in view nothing beyond furnishing a statement of the faith of the persecuted Protestants, whom he saw cruelly cut to pieces by impious and perfidious court parasites. It is supposed to have been written in French. In the year following the work was republished in an enlarged form in Latin, and with the author's name. In this work, though produced when the author was only twenty-five years of age, we find a full development of that theological system which has since borne his name. In none of the later editions, nor in any of his later works, do we find reason to believe that he ever changed his views on any essential point from what they were at the period of its first publication. Such an instance of maturity of mind and of opinion at so early an age, would be remarkable under any circumstances; but in Calvin's case it is rendered peculiarly so, by the shortness of the time which had elapsed since he gave himself to theological studies. It may be doubted also if the history of literature presents us with another instance of a book written at so early an age, which has exercised such a prodigious influence upon the opinions and practices both of contemporaries and of posterity.

After a short visit to the court of the Duchess of Ferrara, which at that time afforded an asylum to several learned and pious fugitives from persecution, Calvin returned to France to arrange his affairs before finally taking farewell of his native country. His intention was to settle at Basle, and to devote himself to study. But being unable, in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, to reach Basle by the ordinary route, he had to take the route through Geneva. Whilst in this city his further progress was arrested, and his resolution to pursue the quiet path of studious research was dispelled, by what he calls the "formidable ob-

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1 Hist. Eccles. vol. i. p. 9. 2 Calvinii Refus. Errorum Servet Opp., t. viii. p. 511.; Ed. Amstel. 3 Prof. ad Psalmos. 4 This edition forms a small 8vo of 514 pages, and 6 pages of index. It appeared at Basle from the press of Thomas Piatter and Balthasar Lasius in March 1536. After many struggles and no small suffering, this energetic spirit had succeeded in planting the evangelical standard at Geneva; and anxious to secure the aid of such a man as Calvin, he entreated him on his arrival to relinquish his design of going farther, and to devote himself to the work in that city. Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his need of securing some more time for personal improvement than could be obtained were he engaged in ministerial work. To the ardent Farel this seemed a mere pretext for indolence. "I tell you," he continued, "in answer to this pretence of your studies, in the name of Almighty God, that if you will not devote yourself with us to this work of the Lord, the Lord will curse you as one seeking not Christ so much as himself." Startled by this denunciation, and feeling as if God had laid his hand on him to detain him, Calvin consented to remain at Geneva, where he was immediately appointed teacher of theology. He was also elected preacher by the magistrates with the consent of the people, but this office he would not accept until it had been repeatedly pressed upon him. His services seem to have been rendered for some time gratuitously, for in February 1537 there is an entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted to him, "since he has as yet hardly received anything."

Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus providentially arrested at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief interval, was spent. The post to which he was thus called was not an easy one. Though the people of Geneva had cast off the yoke of Rome, they were still "but very imperfectly enlightened in divine knowledge; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of the papacy." This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical teachers, whom the excitement attendant upon the Reformation had called forth, and who hung mischievously upon the rear of the reforming body. To obviate the evils thence resulting, Calvin, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of Christian doctrine, and prepared an elementary catechism to accompany it. These citizens were summoned, in parties of ten each, to profess and swear to as the confession of their faith—a process which, though not in accordance with modern notions of the best way of establishing men in the faith, was gone through, Calvin tells us, "with much satisfaction." As the people took this oath in the capacity of citizens, we may see here the basis laid for that theocratic system which subsequently became peculiarly characteristic of the Genevan polity. Of the troubles which arose from fanatical teachers, the chief proceeded from the efforts of the Anabaptists; but these Calvin and his colleagues so effectually silenced by means of a public disputation held on the 18th of March 1537, that they never afterwards appeared at Geneva. In the course of this year also, the peace of Calvin and his friends was much disturbed, and their work interrupted, by a turbulent and unprincipled preacher named Peter Caroli, who, after many changes of religious profession (with none of which, however, had he associated anything of true religion, or even much of ordinary morality), had assumed the character of a stickler for orthodoxy. In this character he accused the Geneva divines of Sabellianism and Arianism, because they would not enforce the Athanasian creed, and had not used the words Trinity and Person in the confession they had drawn up. In a synod held at Berne the matter was fully discussed, when a verdict was given in favour of the Geneva divines, and Caroli deposed from his office and banished. Thus ended an affair which seems to have occasioned Calvin much more uneasiness than the character of his assailant, and the manifest falseness of the charge brought against him, would seem to justify. Two brief tracts, intended to expose the evils and warn against the seductions of Popery, one entitled De Fugienda Idolatria, the other De Papistici Sacerdotis, must be added to the labours of Calvin this year.

Hardly was the affair of Caroli settled, when new and severer trials came upon the Genevan Reformers. The severe simplicity of the ritual which Farel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed; the strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the laws of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the dress and mode of living of the citizens; and their determination in spiritual matters not to submit to the least dictation from the civil power, led to such violent dissensions that Calvin and his colleagues refused to administer the sacrament to the people. For this they were banished from the city. They went first to Berne, and soon after to Zurich, where a synod of the Swiss pastors had been convened. Before this assembly they pleaded their cause and stated what were the points on which they were prepared to insist as needful for the proper discipline of the church. They declared that they would yield in the matter of ceremonies so far as to employ unleavened bread in the eucharist, to use fonts in baptism, and to allow festival days, provided the people might pursue their ordinary avocations after public service. These Calvin regarded as matters of indifference, provided the magistrates did not make them of importance, by seeking to enforce them; and he was the more willing to concede them, because he hoped thereby to meet the wishes of the Bernese brethren, whose ritual was less simple than that established by Farel at Geneva. But he and his colleagues insisted, on the other hand, that for the proper maintenance of discipline, there should be a division of parishes—that excommunications should be permitted, and should be under the power of elders chosen by the council, in conjunction with the clergy—that order should be observed in the admission of preachers—and that only the clergy should officiate in ordination by the laying on of hands. It was proposed also, as conducive to the welfare of the church, that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper should be administered more frequently, at least once every month, and that congregational singing of psalms should be practised in the churches. On these terms the synod interceded with the Genevese to restore their pastors; but through the opposition of the Bernese this was frustrated, and a second edict of banishment was the only response.

Calvin and Farel betook themselves, under these circumstances, to Basle, where they soon after separated, Farel to go to Neuchatel, and Calvin to Strasbourg. At the latter place Calvin resided till the autumn of 1541, occupying himself partly in literary exertions, partly as a preacher in the French church, and partly as a lecturer on theology. In 1539 he attended the convention at Frankfort as the companion of Bucer, and in the following year he appeared at that at Hagenau and Worms, as the delegate from the city of Strasbourg. He was present also at the diet at Ratisbon, where he became personally acquainted with Melanchthon, and formed with him a friendship which lasted through life. It is to this period of his life that we owe the completed form of his Institutio, his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, and his tract on the Lord's Supper. Notwithstanding his manifold engagements, he found time to attend to the tenderer affections; for it was during his residence at Strasbourg that he married Idelette de Bures, the widow of a person named Störder, whom he had converted from Anabaptism.

During his absence, disorder and irreligion had prevailed in Geneva. An attempt was made by Sadolef, Bishop of Carpentras, to take advantage of this so as to restore the papal supremacy in that district; but this design Calvin, watchful over the interests of his ungrate- ful flock; though exiled from them, completely frustrated by writing such a reply to the letter which the bishop had addressed to the Genevese, as constrained him to desist from all further efforts. He seems also to have kept up his connection with Geneva by addressing letters of counsel and comfort to the faithful there who continued to regard him with affection. It was whilst he was still at Strasbourg that there appeared at Geneva a translation of the Bible into French, bearing Calvin's name, but in reality only revised and corrected by him from the version of Olivetan. Meanwhile providence was opening the way for his return to the post whence he had been driven in that city. In the summer of 1541, the decree of his banishment was reversed, and in the following September he yielded to the earnest entreaties of his now penitent flock, and returned to Geneva, where he was received with the utmost enthusiasm.

He entered upon his work with a firm determination to carry out those reforms which he had originally purposed, and to set up in all its integrity that form of church policy which he had carefully matured during his residence at Strasbourg. He now became the sole directive spirit in the church at Geneva. Farel was retained by Neuchatelois, and Viret soon after Calvin's return removed to Lausanne. His duties were thus rendered exceedingly onerous, and his labour became excessive. Besides preaching every day in each alternate week, he taught theology three days in the week, attended weekly meetings of his consistory, read the Scriptures once a-week in the congregation, carried on an extensive correspondence on a multiplicity of subjects, prepared commentaries on the books of Scripture, and was engaged repeatedly in controversy with the opponents of his opinions. "I have not time," he writes to a friend, "to look out of my house at the blessed sun, and if things continue thus, I shall forget what sort of appearance it has. When I have settled my usual business, I have so many letters to write, so many questions to answer, that many a night is spent without any offering of sleep being brought to nature." We cannot in this sketch follow him through all the details of his brief but busy life after he returned to Geneva; we can only afford to notice slightly the leading events.

Of the controversies in which Calvin embarked, one of the most important was that in which he defended his doctrine concerning predestination and election. His first antagonist on this head was Pighius, a Romanist, who, resuming the controversy between Erasmus and Luther on the Freedom of the Will, violently attacked Calvin for the views he had expressed on that subject. Calvin replied to him in a work published in 1543, in which he defends his own opinions at length, as well by general reasonings as by an appeal to both Scripture and the Fathers, especially Augustine. So potent were his reasonings in the esteem of his opponent, that the latter, though owing nothing to the gentleness or courtesy of Calvin, was led to embrace his views. A still more vexatious and protracted controversy on the same subject arose in 1551, in which Calvin was called to defend his views against Bolsec, a Protestant physician, resident at Geneva, and in which ultimately several others, including Castellio, Fabri, and even Bullinger and Melanchthon, took part against him, and only Beza appeared as a zealous coadjutor. But the most memorable of all the controversies in which Calvin was engaged, was that into which he was brought in 1553, with his old antagonist Servetus. After many wanderings, and after having been condemned to death for heresy at Lyons, from which he was fortunate enough to make his escape, this restless adventurer arrived in June 1553 at Geneva. He appears to have remained in quiet here for a month, and was about to leave it for Zurich when he was arrested and conveyed to prison on the charge of blasphemy. He had long been looked upon with dislike by the Reformers, not only as a teacher of doctrines repugnant to all their convictions of truth, but as a mischievous disturber of the peace of the churches and an enemy of the good. At Geneva Calvin appeared as his accuser, and the conflict was conducted between the two with much ability on both sides, and at the same time with much rancour and scurrility, especially on the part of Servetus. After a protracted trial, the accused was condemned to be burnt to death. For so severe a sentence Calvin does not seem to have been prepared. He had engaged in the prosecution at first in the earnest hope that Servetus might be led to see the error of his opinions, and recant at least some of his blasphemous speeches; and though, on finding that all his efforts at confutation were not only thrown away upon the accused, but tended to make him only the more furious and blasphemous, he—in accordance with the common belief of the age, and with the approval of all his contemporaries among the Reformers—gave his suffrage for his being punished with death, he yet wished that what was horrible in the punishment might be spared, and made efforts to induce the senate to inflict a milder death than that by fire. These, however, proved in vain, and Servetus was accordingly burned at Champel near Geneva, on the 27th of October 1553. Farel attended him in his last hours and accompanied him to the place of execution. He had an interview also with Calvin on the morning of the fatal day, when he asked his forgiveness, but refused to retract any of his expressions. Calvin has been much censured, not to say vituperated, for his share in this unhappy transaction; but he was not more to blame than were the rest of the Reformers, all of whom approved of the prosecution, and concurred in the equity of the sentence as far as Calvin did; and, in judging of them in this matter, we must bear in mind that the unanimous opinion of their age pronounced death to be the proper penalty of blasphemy—the offence for which Servetus was condemned. According to modern opinions such a sentence was too severe; but when it is remembered that only a few years have passed since, in the most enlightened countries of Christendom, it was deemed proper to inflict capital punishment for such offences as forgery or robbery to a small amount, it will not perhaps appear so surprising that pious and earnest men, three centuries ago, should have thought it right to deal in the same way with an offence greatly more wicked in itself, and more injurious to society, than any act of dishonesty however great.

The heresy of Servetus was not extirpated by his death, but as it was his gross and insulting blasphemies, and not his heretical opinions, for which he had been doomed to suffer the last penalty of the law, none of his followers were visited with severer penalties than that of banishment from Geneva. The trials of several of these, with the conferences and controversies connected with them, occupied much of Calvin's time for several years. He was also involved in a protracted and somewhat vexing dispute with the Lutherans respecting the Lord's Supper, which ended in the separation of the evangelical party into the two great sections of Lutherans and Reformed; the former of whom hold that in the eucharist the body and blood of Christ are substantially present, and so are actually partaken of by the communicants, whilst the latter maintain that there is only a virtual presence of the body and blood of Christ, and consequently only a spiritual participation thereof through faith. In connection with these controversies on points of faith, Calvin was for many years greatly disquieted and sometimes even endangered by the opposition offered by the libertine party in Geneva to the ecclesiastical discipline which he had established there. His system of church polity was essentially theocratic; it assumed that every member of the state was also under the discipline of the church; and he asserted that the right of exercising this discipline was vested exclusively in the consistory or body of preachers and elders. His attempt to carry out these views brought him into collision both with the authorities and with the mob; the Calvin, latter being enraged at the restraints imposed upon the disorderly by the exercise of church discipline, and the former being inclined to retain in their own hands a portion of that power in things spiritual which Calvin was bent on placing exclusively in the hands of the church rulers. His dauntless courage, his perseverance, and his earnestness at length prevailed, and he had the satisfaction, before he died, of seeing his favourite system of polity firmly established, not only at Geneva, but in other parts of Switzerland, and of knowing that it had been adopted substantially by the Reformers in France and Scotland.

Amidst these multitudinous cares and occupations, Calvin found time to commit to writing a number of works besides those provoked by the various controversies in which he was engaged. The most important and numerous of these were of an exegetical character. Including discourses taken down from his lips by faithful auditors, we have from him expository comments or homilies on nearly the whole of the books of Scripture, written partly in Latin and partly in French. In the estimation of many, these constitute the most valuable of his works. His candour and sincerity as an inquirer into the meaning of Scripture—his judiciousness, penetration, and tact in eliciting his author's meaning—his precision, condensation, and concinnity as an expositor—the accuracy of his learning, the closeness of his reasoning, and the elegance of his style, all conspire to confer a high value on his exegetical works, and to make them at once rich sources of biblical knowledge and admirable models of biblical exposition.

Labours so incessant and so exhausting could not but tell on the strongest constitution: how much more on one so fragile as that of Calvin! Amid many sufferings, however, and frequent attacks of sickness, he manfully pursued his course for twenty-eight years; nor was it till his frail body, torn by many and painful diseases—fever, asthma, stone, and gout, the fruits for the most part of his sedentary habits and unpausing activity—had, as it were, fallen to pieces around him, that his indomitable spirit relinquished the conflict. In the early part of the year 1564 his sufferings became so severe that it was manifest his earthly career was rapidly drawing to a close. On the 6th of February of that year he preached his last sermon, having with great difficulty found breath enough to carry him through it. He was several times after this carried to church, but never again was able to take any part in the service. With a noble disinterestedness, he refused to receive his stipend, now that he was no longer able to discharge the duties of his office. In the midst of his sufferings, however, his zeal and energy kept him in continual occupation: when expostulated with for such unseasonable toil, he replied, "Would you that the Lord should find me idle when he comes?" After he had retired from public labours he lingered for some months, enduring the severest agony without a murmur, and cheerfully attending to all the duties of a private kind which his diseases left him strength to discharge. A deep impression seems to have been made on all who visited him on his deathbed; they saw in him the noble spectacle of a great spirit that had done its life-work, calmly and trustfully passing through the gate of suffering into the long-desired and firmly-expected repose of heaven. He quietly expired in the arms of his faithful friend Beza, on the evening of the 27th of May, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

Calvin was of middle stature; his complexion was somewhat pallid and dark; his eyes, to the latest clear and lustrous, bespoke the acumen of his genius. He was sparing in his food and simple in his dress; he took but little sleep, and was capable of extraordinary efforts of intellectual toil. His memory was prodigious, but he used it only as the servant of his higher faculties. As a reasoner he has seldom been equalled, and the soundness and penetration of his judgment were such as to give to his conclusions in practical questions almost the appearance of predictions, and inspire in all his friends the utmost confidence in the wisdom of his counsels. As a theologian, he stands on an eminence which only Augustine has surpassed; whilst in his skill as an expositor of Scripture, and his terse and elegant style, he possessed advantages to which Augustine was a stranger. His private character was in harmony with his public reputation and position. If somewhat severe and irritable, he was at the same time scrupulously just, truthful, and steadfast; he never deserted a friend or took an unfair advantage of an antagonist; and on befitting occasions could be cheerful and even facetious among his intimates. "I have been a witness of him for sixteen years," says Beza, "and I think I am fully entitled to say that in this man there was exhibited to all an example of the life and death of the Christian, such as it will not be easy to depreciate, such as it will be difficult to emulate." (W. L. A.)