Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/792

716 for a very few months; for, in 1534, we find him first at Noyon, his native place, and soon after again in Paris. Here he was compelled to remain concealed, in consequence of the measures which the enemies of the Information were still pursuing against its adherents. At the risk of his life, however, he came forth to meet one whom he was after wards 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. Servetus having expressed a desire to have a con ference with Calvin, it was arranged that they should meet and discuss their conflicting opinions ; but though Calvin waited for him long at the time and place appointed, Servetus failed to make his appearance, &quot; being,&quot; says Beza, &quot; unable to endure the sight of Calvin,&quot; but more probably deterred by the danger to which both were exposed from the hostility of the ruling powers. Calvin s design in acceding to this colloquy seems to have been a kindly one towards Servetus. &quot; Not without danger to my life,&quot; he himself says, &quot; I offered to deliver him from his errors.&quot; Nor was Servetus the onlyerrorist 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 imbibed, 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 Psycliopannyctiia. 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. On his way thither he stopped for some time at Poitiers. Here many gathered round him desirous of instruction from him ; and in a grotto near the town he celebrated for the first time the communion in the Evangelical Church of France, using a piece of the rock as a table. From this time forward his influence became supreme, and all who had imbibed or become tinged with the Reformed doc trines in France turned to him for counsel and instruction, attracted not only by his power as a teacher, but still more, perhaps, because they saw in him so full a development of the Christian life according to the evangelical model. M. Renan, no prejudiced judge, pronounces him &quot;the most Christian man of his time,&quot; and attributes to this his success as a reformer. Certain it is that already he had drawn upon him the notice of those who were seeking to extinguish in blood the light which had been kindled, and which he was so prompt to hold up to view ; so that he was obliged to seek safety in flight. In company with his friend Louis du Tillet, whom he had again gone to Angou- leme to visit, he set out for Basel. On their way they were robbed by one of their servants, who so entirely stripped them of their property, that it was only by borrow ing ten crowns from their other servant that they were enabled to get to Strasburg, and thence to Basel. Here Calvin was welcomed by the band of scholars and theologians who had conspired to make that city the Athens of Switzer land, and especially by the learned Simon Grynseus, and by Wolfgang Capito, the leader of the Reformation at Basel. Under the auspices and guidance of ths 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. This work Calvin says he wrote in Latin that it might find access to the learned in all lands. Soon after it appeared he set about translating it into French, as he himself attests in a letter dated October 1536. This sets at rest a question, at one time much agitated, whether the book appeared first in French or in Latin. The earliest French edition known is that of 1540, and this was after the work had been much enlarged, and several Latin editions had appeared. In its first form the work consisted of only six chapters, and was intended merely as a brief manual of Christian doctrine. It appeared anonymously, the author having, as he himself says, nothing in view beyond furnishing a statement of the faith of the persecuted Protestants, whom he saw cruelly cut to pieces by impious and perfidious court parasites. In this work, though produced when the author was only twenty- five years of age, we find a complete outline of that theo logical 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 poiut 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 Basel, and to devote himself to study. But being unable, in con sequence of the disturbed state of the country, to reach Basel 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 &quot; formidable obtestation &quot; of Farel. 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 more time for personal improvement, whicr. could not be obtained were he engaged in ministerial work. To the ardent Farel this seemed a mere pretext for indolence. &quot; I tell you,&quot; he continued, &quot; 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.&quot; Startled by this denun ciation, and feeling as if God had laid his hand on him to detain him, Calvin consented to remain at Geneva, where 