DEATH OF OLIVÉTAN.
Just at the time when Calvin was gaining new friends at Strasburg, he lost some of his oldest and most beloved ones. We have seen his grief on hearing of the death of Courault. At the beginning of January 1539, he received a letter from Francesca Bucyronia, wife of the physician Sinapi, tutor to the children of the Duchess of Ferrara, informing him that his cousin Olivétan, one of the first evangelists of Geneva, and translator of the French version of the Bible, had just died in that town. Calvin’s pain at this news was increased by the report that his friend, while at Rome, had taken poison, and that of this he died. This was a conjecture at that period commonly put forward to account for unexpected deaths. There is little probability of its truth. Calvin does not speak of it. He contents himself with calling Olivétan our friend, and adds that the natural sorrow which he feels must be his apology to his correspondents for his short and disjointed letters.[760] Few men have had so many friends as Calvin. His was no ordinary friendship; it was always felt to be deep and unchangeable.
But Calvin’s thought was at this time occupied with affection of another kind. He believed that those who have received a new life from Christ are called to love all those who have received the same grace; ‘to love them with that simple affection, that natural proneness, with which relations love each other.’ It was, however, no exclusive love that he required. ‘In bidding us begin by loving the faithful, the Lord leads us on, by a kind of apprenticeship, to the loving of all men without exception.’[761] But union and agreement between the children of God was the great need of his heart. When writing to Bullinger (March 12, 1539) he said—‘Satan, who plots the ruin of the kingdom of Christ, sows discord between us. Let us all then have a cordial agreement with one another, and may it be the same with all the Churches. I clasp you in my arms, wishing you all good.’[762]
With this cordial charity Calvin maintained an indomitable courage. Capito was given to looking at the dark sides of things: black thoughts often hovered around him and took possession of his imagination. In vain his faith strove to lighten the darkness; mournful forebodings overwhelmed him, and a dull distress was often read in his countenance. One day he protested before God and men that the Church was lost unless prompt aid should arrive. Afterwards, when he found that the state of things did not improve, he prayed God that he might die.[763] It was not so with Calvin. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘the Lord will bless us although everything should be against us. Let us therefore try all remedies; and if we do not find any to be efficacious, let us nevertheless persevere as long as we have any breath of life.’[764] It is this unconquerable steadfastness which made Calvin the great reformer.
DESPOTISM AT GENEVA.
The faith of Calvin was not to deceive him. But few voices had been raised in his favor at Geneva in the general council of May 26, 1538. The minority which adhered to the Reformation had at first shrunk away into retirement and silence. The most active men, who are not always the wisest, alone had spoken. But gradually the more competent influential men appeared, recognized and united with each other, and took combined action. The government party made little account of them; and as Master Guillaume, as they called Farel, was in the popular judgment the chief of the Evangelicals, they used to call these, with a shrug of the shoulders, the Guillemins, nor had they a suspicion that these people would ever recover themselves. The council, which was little disposed to respect individual freedom, less so perhaps than Calvin and Farel, ordered all heads of families to attend sermon on the Sunday. This order was especially aimed at the friends of the reformers and their refusal to hear the ministers who had taken the place of the latter, and who, to make themselves agreeable to the magistrate, openly censured their predecessors.
Farel and Calvin had established in Geneva not only the Church but also the school; and some of their best friends, Saunier and Mathurin Cordier were among the most eminent masters. This institution naturally remained faithful to its founders, and the conduct of the government towards it showed that they looked on it as decidedly opposed to their views and opinions. The council did not intend to allow its subordinates to show themselves hostile to its scheme for the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. However, while they shrank perhaps from disorganizing the school, they resolved, sparing at the outset the leading men, to give them a lesson by energetically prosecuting one or two of their under-masters.
Eynard and Gaspard were consequently cited, September 10, before the council, which made complaint of their publicly censuring the preachers, and inquired of them where they had received the supper at Easter and Whitsuntide. They replied that they had not joined in the communion anywhere, because St. Paul enjoined that every man should examine himself, and that they had not felt in the right frame of mind. They had no doubt been unwilling to receive the bread and the wine, which are the communion of the body and the blood of the Saviour, from the hands of pastors whom they judged unworthy. The council ordered them to leave the town in three days. After having thus inflicted disciplinary penalties on the humble under-masters, they awaited Christmas.
Matters were by that time far worse. Many foreigners, chiefly refugees, did not take the supper. They were condemned to leave the town, ten days only being allowed to them to set their affairs in order. The councillors and other Genevese who had been guilty of the same offence were obliged to apologize and to promise ‘to live from this time forth according to the way of the town.’ These things did not pass without lively altercations; and in consequence of a dispute which took place in the street on the night of December 30, 1538, one man was killed and many were wounded.[765] The most enraged of the refractory party, thinking to justify their conduct in attacking the settled ministers, called them infidels, corrupters of Scripture, and papists, who tried to deceive the people. The pastors, who were certainly not possessed of ability enough to fill the place of the eminent doctors banished by the council, but who endeavored for the most part to do as much good as their moral and intellectual qualities permitted, were greatly annoyed, complained to the council, and desired to withdraw and make room for others better qualified than themselves. ‘These reproaches,’ they said, ‘we find it very hard to bear.’ The council assured them that it meant to keep them, and to reconcile them with their accusers.