The student of Montaigu, uneasy and troubled after his controversies with his young relative, shut himself up in his little room and examined himself; he asked himself what he was, and where he was going.... ‘O Lord,’ he said, ‘thou knowest that I profess the christian faith such as I learnt it in my youth.[572] ... And yet there is something wanting.... I have been taught to worship thee as my only God; but I am ignorant of the true worship I ought to give.[573] ... I have been taught that thy Son has ransomed me by his death; ... but I have never felt in my heart the virtue of this redemption.[574] I have been taught that some day there will be a resurrection; but I dread it, as the most terrible of days.[575] ... Where shall I find the light that I need?... Alas! thy Word, which should enlighten thy people like a lamp, has been taken from us.[576] ... Men talk in its place of a hidden knowledge, and of a small number of initiates whose oracles we must receive.... O God, illumine me with thy light!’
The superiors of Montaigu College began to feel some uneasiness about their student. The Spanish professor, inclined, like his countrymen, to the spirit of intolerance, saw with horror the young man, whose devotion had charmed him at first, discontented with the traditional religion, and ready perhaps to forsake it. Could the best of their pupils fall into heresy?... The tutors entered into conversation with Calvin, and, as yet full of affection for the young man, sought to strengthen him in the Roman faith. ‘The highest wisdom of christians,’ they said, ‘is to submit blindly to the Church,[577] and their highest dignity is the righteousness of their works.’[578]—‘Alas!’ replied Calvin, who was conscious of the guilt within him, ‘I am a miserable sinner!’—‘That is true,’ answered the professors, ‘but there is a means of obtaining mercy: it is by satisfying the justice of God.[579] ... Confess your sins to a priest, and ask humbly for absolution.... Blot out the memory of your offences by your good works, and, if anything should still be wanting, supply it by the addition of solemn sacrifices and purifications.’
When he heard these words, Calvin reflected that he who listens to a priest listens to Christ himself. Being subdued, he went to church, entered the confessional, fell on his knees, and confessed his sins to God’s minister, asking for absolution and humbly accepting every penance imposed upon him. And immediately, with all the energy of his character, he endeavoured to acquire the merits demanded by his confessor. ‘O God!’ he said, ‘I desire by my good works to blot out the remembrance of my trespasses.[580] He performed the ‘satisfactions’ prescribed by the priest; he even went beyond the task imposed upon him, and hoped that after so much labour he would be saved.... But, alas! his peace was not of long duration. A few days, a few hours perhaps, had not passed, when, having given way to a movement of impatience or anger, his heart was again troubled: he thought he saw God’s eye piercing to the depths of his soul and discovering its impurities. ‘O God!’ he exclaimed in alarm, ‘thy glance freezes me with terror.’[581] ... He hurried again to the confessional.—‘God is a strict judge,’ the priest told him, ‘who severely punishes iniquity. Address your prayers to the saints first.’[582] And Calvin, who, in after years, branded as blasphemers those who invented ‘false intercessors,’ invoked the saints and prayed them by their intercession to appease a God who appeared to him so inexorable.
Having thus found a few moments of relief, he applied again to his studies; he was absorbed in his books; he grew pale over Scotus and Thomas Aquinas; but in the midst of his labours a sudden trouble took possession of his mind, and pushing away from him the volumes that lay before him, he exclaimed: ‘Alas! my conscience is still very far from true tranquillity.’[583] His heart was troubled, his imagination excited, he saw nothing but abysses on every side, and with a cry of alarm he said: ‘Every time that I descend into the depths of my heart; every time, O God, that I lift up my soul to thy throne, extreme terror comes over me.[584] ... I see that no purification, no satisfaction can heal my disease.[585] My conscience is pierced with sharp stings.’[586]
Thus step by step did Calvin descend to the lowest depths of despair; and quite heartbroken, and looking like one dead, he resolved to take no further pains about his salvation. He lived more with his fellow-pupils, he even shared in their amusements; he visited his friends in the city, sought such conversation as would divert his thoughts, and desired, with the Athenians of old, either to tell or to hear some new thing. Will the work of God, begun in his heart, remain unperfected?
This year an event took place which could not fail to stir the depths of Calvin’s soul.
CHAPTER VIII.
CALVIN’S CONVERSION AND CHANGE OF CALLING.
(1527.)
‘
The kingdom of Christ is strengthened and established more by the blood of martyrs than by force of arms,’ said the doctor of Noyon one day.[587] At this period he had occasion to experience the truth of the statement.
One day in the year 1527, a man thirty-six years old, of good family—he was related to M. de Lude—of ecclesiastical rank, prothonotary, and holding several benefices, Nicholas Doullon by name, having been accused of heresy, stood in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame, while an immense crowd of citizens, priests, and common people were looking on. The executioner had gone in the morning to the prison, stripped the prothonotary of his official robes, and having passed a rope round his neck and put a taper in his hand, had conducted him in this guise to the front of the church of the Virgin. The poor fellow had seen better days: he had often gone to the palaces of the Louvre, St. Germain, and Fontainebleau, and mingled with the nobles, in the presence of the king, his mother, and his sister; he had also been one of the officers of Clement VII. The good folks of Paris, whom this execution had drawn together, said to one another as they witnessed the sad spectacle: ‘He frequented the king’s court, and has lived at Rome in the pope’s service.’[588]