THALER OF 1564.
(Laus et gloria soli Deo optimo maximo.) (Moneta nova Civitatis San Gallensis, 1564.)
Calvin was a prodigious worker, a profound theologian, an accomplished linguist, a statesman and organizer of consummate skill, and a most excellent correspondent. Twenty-four printing-presses were kept at work day and night multiplying his writings in different languages. No fewer than 2,025 sermons of his have been collected, and 4,721 letters. For the French language Calvin did much what Luther did for the German. His frame, at all times weak, became still more enfeebled by continued illness, and it seemed impossible that he should be physically fit to labour as he did, but his religious enthusiasm was able to triumph over bodily ailments. Bright, sparkling eyes lit up his pale and emaciated features. Averse to earthly pleasures, careless of popular applause, of strong and unbending will—though not devoid of deep feeling—he commanded men's awe rather than their affection. His near personal friends were devotedly attached to him, and on the death of his wife, who sank when bereaved of her children, his tenderness breaks forth in letters to his friends. "If I did not make a strong effort to moderate my grief," he writes to Viret, "I should succumb." He died in May, 1564, and even in his last moments had words of censure for those who had come to take leave of him. His death is registered in these curious terms: "Aujourd'hui spectable Jean Calvin s'en est allé à Dieu, sain et entier, grâce à Dieu, de sens et entendement." Beza was elected his successor; and, less severe and more conciliating than his friend and predecessor, he exerted great influence, both at Geneva and in the reformed countries generally. Beza's death occurred in 1603.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] The Bern, that is, the Zwinglian, ritual preserved several things which the French reformers rejected, amongst others, the four high fête days, the baptismal font, and the use of unleavened bread in the Communion.
[56] Amieaux was led in his shirt through the city, with a lighted torch in his hand, and was required to confess his fault in three different public squares.
[57] These "Lovers of Freedom" were stigmatized by the opposite party as "men of loose morals," but of such there were not a few amongst the Calvinists themselves.
[58] The Swiss churches under the ægis of Bullinger acquiesced, not so much from a spirit of intolerance, as from a fear that the influence of Servetus might undermine French Protestantism. Rome envied Calvin the honour of having condemned Servetus to the flames.
[59] Amongst the English we find the names of Spencer, Coxe, Chambers, Bishop Hooper, and the Bishops of Exeter, Norwich, Durham, and Salisbury.
