[257] Endowed, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, with a powerful and impetuous eloquence which charmed multitudes, and which, with the strong faith with which he was animated, could alone explain his splendid success as a missionary, Farel was abler with the tongue than with the pen, and his various writings, called forth by circumstances, are in general defective. We find in them a few ideas, cast forth at hazard, without plan, in strange disorder, and with a superabundance of explanation, in a diffuse and obscure style. It is not uninteresting to know the judgment which Calvin pronounced upon the works of his friend, and to find in this judgment even a new testimony to the brotherly candour which presided at all times over the intercourse of the two Reformers.—See on the writings of Farel, Senebier, Hist. Litt. tom. i. pp. 148, 149; Sayous, Etudes sur les Ecrivains de la Réformation, tom. i., 1st sketch; and Haag, France Protestante, Art. Farel.
[258] See Note 1, p. 223.
[259] The only work of Farel's mentioned at this date by Senebier, is the following: Le Glaice de la Parole Véritable contre le Bouclier de Défense, duquel un Cordelier s'est voulu servir, in 12mo, Geneva, 1550. It is a vehement reply to a Cordelier who had adopted the sentiments of that spiritual mysticism which leads to a denial of all morality. It presents, besides, the ordinary defects of the works of Farel—confusion and prolixity.
[260] Laurent de Normandie, a Picard gentleman, and Procurator-general at Noyon, had retired to Geneva some months previously, at the request of Calvin, his countryman and friend.—Registers of the Council, 2d May 1549. "Laurent de Normandie retires to this place for the sake of religion, and presses the Council to receive him as an inhabitant, which is granted him."
[261] See the preceding letter.
[262] This is the first time the name of Beza is found mentioned in the correspondence of Calvin. Born on the 24th of June 1519, at Vezelay, in Burgundy, he had left Paris after a brilliant and dissipated youth, to retire to Geneva.—Registers of the Council, 3d May 1549. "Eight French gentlemen, among whom is Theodore Beza, arrive here and obtain permission to remain." Beza was a short time afterwards, made Professor of Greek in the Academy of Lausanne, from which place he wrote to Bullinger:—"The Lord has shewn me this, in the first place, for which may I be able to make my boast in him continually,—that I must prefer the cross to my country, and to all changes of fortune. In the next place, I have received the friendship of Calvin, Viret, Musculus, and Haller; kind Heaven, the friendship of such men! When I think that these are my friends, so far from feeling any inconvenience from exile, I may adopt the saying of Themistocles,—'Perieram nisi periissem.'"—MSS. of Archives of Zurich, Gest. vi. p. 139.
[263] "To John Haller, Pastor of the Bernese Church."
John Haller, of the illustrious family of that name, which reflected so much honour on Switzerland, was born at Zurich in 1523, and became a minister at the age of nineteen, as he informs us himself in his Chronicle. He became the colleague of Musculus, at Augsburg, in 1545, was recalled to Zurich three years afterwards, and, yielding to the pressing solicitations of the Seigneury of Berne, undertook the duties of a minister of that church in 1548. His zeal and talents, together with his prudence, which was remarkable in one so very young, raised him to the highest offices; and before he was quite twenty-nine, he was chosen president of the clergy of Berne, an office which he filled for a long period amidst very trying circumstances.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 329, et suiv.
[264] See note 2, p. 224.
[265] The ministers of the Pays de Vaud were accustomed to meet weekly to consult about religious matters, and for mutual exhortation. This custom displeased the Seigneurs of Berne, who abolished it by an edict dated 2d September 1549, under pretext that those assemblies, instead of producing edification, engendered disputes, divisions, and disorders. The College of Lausanne protested in vain, through Viret, against this measure, which obtained the approbation of the leading ministers of Berne, notwithstanding the strong representations addressed by Calvin to Haller and Musculus.—Ruchat, tom. v. p. 382, et suiv.