firm persistence to have enabled him to carry out in any great and enduring shape the impulse which he himself communicated. It was necessary that some master-mind should arise within the sphere of the Gallic reform movement, in order to consolidate it into a distinctive spiritual power, and to impart to it a lasting social result.

Such a master-mind was Calvin, who represents most strikingly the converging influences of the Swiss and the French Reformations. Both may be fairly regarded as summed up in him, in so far as they enunciated principles and entered as a controlling influence into the history of the world. In this sense he is the most comprehensive representative of each and of both together, although he must yield the palm of priority and of active heroism in the one case to Zwingle, and in the other case to Farel. Into their labours he entered in a somewhat similar way as Melancthon entered into the labours of Luther; and so far he takes his place. beside Melancthon in the second class of reformers. His theological and didactic qualities and personal sympathies, moreover, ally him with the friend and supporter of Luther, rather than with Luther himself. But there are other and most important respects in which, as we shall see, he occupies a position not only above Melancthon, but above Luther-a position singular in moral grandeur, and in the vigorous and widelyextending influence which spread around from it.

The life of Calvin, in contrast with that of the German reformer, presents but few dramatic aspects. In merely biographic interest it is not nearly so rich, al

though there is a great consistency and purpose in its several parts, which invest it with a powerful charm to some minds.* It may be conveniently divided for our purpose into three periods of unequal duration: First, From his birth in 1509 to his completion of the Institutes in their first known shape in 1536. This, like the corresponding period in Luther's life, may be called the period of his education. Second, From his first appearance in Geneva in the same year, 1536, on through the incidents of his expulsion and residence at Strasburg to September 1541, when he re-entered and finally settled in Geneva. Third, From this latter date to his death in 1564. We can only insert in each of these epochs, as we rapidly glance through them, such facts as are absolutely necessary to start before us some picture of the man, and to enable us to comprehend the meaning of the great aims for which he lived, and towards which he wrought.

Calvin was born at Noyon in Picardy on the 10th of July 1509 he was thus twenty-six years the junior of Luther. His father, Gerard Cauvin or Calvin, was

* Calvin has been hitherto unfortunate in biographers,-there not being a single life of him with which we are acquainted at once adequate in its comprehension of the man and his work, fair and critical in its estimate, and interesting in its composition. The work of Dyer, published in this country some years ago, is sufficiently readable and well composed, but without the pretension of grasping the whole subject, and judging it from any comprehensive point of view. The work of Henry, in three massive German volumes, and translated, without the appendices, into two large English octavos by Dr Stebbing, is, either in German or in English, a somewhat unreadable book, with certain glimpses of critical insight here and there, but without coherence or biographical finish. It is, however, the most adequate, as a whole, being animated by a higher, although scarcely a more impartial, spirit than

Procureur-Fiscal of the district of Noyon, and Secretary of the Diocese. He was a man of ability, distinguished by success in his profession, and the favour and friendship of the influential families in his neighbourhood.* His mother, Jane Lefranc, was a native of Cambray, and is reported to have been beautiful, and of a strongly religious spirit. Calvin was one of six children, four sons and two daughters. One of his sisters, Mary, followed his faith and fortunes, and is occasionally mentioned in his letters. Of his brothers, the eldest was an ecclesiastic, the fourth died young, and the third, also bred an ecclesiastic, ultimately joined the reformer in Geneva. The position of the father is the natural explanation of so many of his sons entering into the Church. While our reformer was still only twelve years of age, his father procured for him a chaplaincy in the cathedral church of Noyon, as a means of support during his education; a practice not uncommon in the Gallican, as in all the other churches of the time.

Of Calvin's youth and earlier education we have but few particulars. We get no hearty glimpses of his home and school-days, as in the case of Luther. We that of Dyer, and embodying, as it does, the main contents of the reformer's correspondence,-which happily remain to the student, the most instructive and complete sources of his history. Two volumes of Bonnet's complete edition of the correspondence, containing the French letters, have already appeared. Two volumes, containing a selection both from the French and Latin letters translated into English, have been published by Mr Constable of Edinburgh. Besides a full edition of the Letters, Bonnet has promised Une etude sur Calvin, formant une histoire du Reformateur d'après les documents originaux et authentiques, which, it is to be hoped, may at length form an adequate historical portrait of the reformer.

* "Erat is Gerardus," says Beza, "non pauci judicii et consilii homo, ideoque nobilibus ejus plerisque carus."-Calv. Vita, Hanoviæ, 1597.

only know that, in contrast with the rough and picturesque boyhood of the German, he was nurtured tenderly, and even in an aristocratic atmosphere. The noble family of Mommor, in the neighbourhood, to some extent adopted the boy, and his studies were pursued in conjunction with those of the young members of this family. Beza narrates his precocity of mental power, and the grave severity of his manners, even at this early age. His companions, it is said, surnamed him the "Accusative."* Having received the rudiments of his education in his native town, he went in his fourteenth year to Paris, still in the company of the children of the Mommor family. There he was entered as a pupil in the College de la Marche, under the regency of Mathurin Cordier-a name still familiar to boys entering upon their Latin studies, under its classical form of Corderius. It was under this distinguished master that Calvin laid the foundation of his own wonderful mastery of the Latin language. From the College de la Marche he passed to the College Montagu, where he was initiated into the scholastic philosophy under the guidance of a learned Spaniard. In his eighteenth year he was appointed to the living of Marteville, and this, too, while he had only as yet received the tonsure, and was not admitted to holy orders.+

About this time his professional views underwent a change. The law appeared to his father somewhat as

* This is mentioned by d'Aubigné, vol. iii. p. 631, upon the evidence of Levasseur, a canon of Noyon.

+ He never seems to have been ordained in the Romish Church, notwithstanding the several ecclesiastical positions he held.-BEZA, Calv. Vita.

to Luther's, to offer a more tempting worldly prospect than the church;* and he resolved accordingly to turn the studies of his son in the direction of the former profession. He sent him with this view to the university of Orleans, then adorned by Pierre de l'Etoile, one of the most famous jurists of his day, and afterwards President of the Parliament of Paris. In taking this step, however, Calvin did not resign his church living; and it appears to have been after this time that, by the kind patronage of a member of the same family who had hitherto so befriended him, he effected the exchange of the living of Marteville for that of Pont l'Evêque, where he is said occasionally to have preached. It is a singular enough picture of the times which is presented to us by this conduct both of Calvin and his father. His justification in the case, if any such be needed considering his youth, is the prevalence of the practice in an age in which the ecclesiastical office had become too frequently a mere material convenience, or transmitted guild.

Of his life at Orleans we know something more than of his previous life at Noyon or Paris, although it is still only very vague glimpses we get. Beza has told us, on the authority of some of Calvin's fellow-students, that his life was here marked by a rigorous temperance and devotion to study; that, after supping moderately, he would spend half the night in study, and devote the morning to meditation on what he had acquired, thus laying the foundation of his solid learning, but at the same time, of his future ill-health. His talents were already so generally recognised, that, in the absence of

* BEZA.