=HE TEACHES IN PRIVATE FAMILIES.=
His admirers returned to him. Several citizens of Orleans opened their houses to him, saying: 'Come and teach openly the salvation of man.' Calvin shrank back. 'Let no one disturb my repose,' he said; 'leave me in peace.' His repose, that is to say his studies, were his only thought. But these souls, thirsting for truth, did not yield so easily. 'A repose of darkness!' replied the most ardent; 'an ignoble peace![53] Come and preach!' Calvin remembered the saying of St. Chrysostom: 'Though a thousand persons should call you, think of your own weakness, and obey only under constraint.'[54] 'Well, then, we constrain you,' answered his friends. 'O God! what desirest thou of me?' Calvin would exclaim at such moments. 'Why dost thou pursue me? Why dost thou turn and disturb me, and never leave me at rest? Why, despite my disposition, dost thou lead me to the light and bring me into play?'[55] Calvin gave way, however, and understood that it was his duty to publish the Gospel. He went to the houses of his friends. A few men, women, and young people gathered round him, and he began to explain the Scriptures. It was quite a new order of teaching: there were none of those distinctions and deductions of scholastic science, at that time so familiar to the preachers. The language of the young man possessed an admirable simplicity, a piercing vitality, and a holy majesty which captivated the heart. 'He teaches the truth,' said his hearers as they withdrew, 'not in affected language, but with such depth, solidity, and weight, that every one who hears him is struck with admiration.' These are the words of a contemporary of Calvin, who lived on the spot, and in the very circle in which the Reformer then moved. 'While at Orleans,' adds this friend, Theodore Beza, 'Calvin, chosen from that time to be an instrument of election in the Lord's work, wonderfully advanced the kingdom of God in many families.'[56]
It was at Orleans, therefore, that Calvin began his evangelist work and manifested himself to the world as a christian. Calvin's activity in this city is a proof that he was then converted to the Gospel, and that he had been so for some time; for his was not one of those expansive natures which immediately display externally what is within them. This first ministry of the reformer negatives the hypotheses which place Calvin's conversion at Orleans, or at Bourges somewhat later, or, even later still, during his second residence at Paris.
Thus the young doctor, growing in knowledge and acting in love, refuted the objections of the gainsayers, and led to Christ the humble souls who thirsted for salvation. A domestic event suddenly withdrew him from this pious activity.
[30] Calvin, Préface aux Psaumes.
[31] ('The touch-stone of a standing or of a falling Church.') 'Wolmarus lutheranum virus Calvino instillabat.'—Flor. Rémond, Hist. de l'Hérésie, liv. vii. ch. ix.
[32] Calvin, Institution, liv. iii. ch. ii. 17-19.
[33] 'Sancti Spiritus dono repleberis, qui scripturarum omnium profunditatem ac veram dignitatem te docebit.'—Mansi, Gesta Synodi Aurelianensis, xix. p. 376.
[34] 'Deinde cœlesti cibo pastus, interna satietate recreatus.'—Ibid.
[35] Calvin, Préface des Commentaires sur les Psaumes.