The energetic decisiveness and moral zeal of the future teacher and legislator of Geneva speak in every page of it.

A dispute exists as to whether there was any corresponding edition of the Institutes in 1535. On the one hand, the presumption is strong that there must have been such an edition, and Beza distinctly states that the work first appeared in that year; but, on the other hand, all research has failed to discover any edition before 1536. Dr Henry's conjecture is, that the edition of both the work and preface in the earlier year was in French; but this again is contradicted by certain expressions in a letter of Calvin to Francis Daniel, of date 15th October 1536, which lead us to suppose that he was then busy for the first time with the French version of his work. The dispute is not really important save in a bibliographical point of view. At this period,-whether in 1535 or the beginning of 1536,-Calvin, beyond doubt, completed at Basle the first sketch of his great dogmatic scheme. Now, before he had entered at all upon his special career as a reformer, the great lines of thought were laid down, and the principles, both dogmatical and ecclesiastical, enunciated, which were to guide and stamp all his la bours. He put forth, as it were, the charter of the great movement, to which he was destined to give theological consistency and moral triumph. He showed himself already the master-spirit who was fitted to guide and consolidate the agitated elements of religious thought and life around him.

After this residence at Basle, and completion of the Institutes, Calvin made a short visit to Italy, to Renée,

the Duchess of Ferrara, of which we know very little. He then once more is found at Noyon, settling the paternal estate which had fallen to him on the death of his eldest brother; and finally bidding it adieu in company with his younger brother Anthony and his sister Mary. His intention appears to have been to proceed to Strasburg; but the direct way being rendered dangerous by the armies of Charles V., which had penetrated into France, he sought a circuitous route through Savoy and Geneva.

He arrived at Geneva late in the summer of 1536. He meant merely to sojourn a single night in the city, and then advance on his journey. He had no thoughts of anything but of some quiet refuge in which to pursue his studies. "I was wholly given up to my own intense thoughts and private studies," he afterwards said. But his old friend Tillet, now in Geneva, discovered him, and apprised Farel of his discovery. Situated as Farel then was, almost alone, with the Reformation but partially accomplished, and the elements of disturbance smouldering around him, the advent of Calvin seemed to him an interposition of Divine Providence. He hastened to see him; and set before him his claims for assistance, and the work of God so obviously awaiting him. But Calvin was slow to move. He urged his desire to study, and to serve all churches, rather than to attach himself to any one church in particular. He would fain have yielded to the intellectual bias so strong in him; the still stronger instinct for practical government that lay behind his intellectual devotion, was not yet owned by him. By some strange insight, however, Farel pene

trated to the higher fitness of the young stranger who stood before him, and he ventured, in the spirit of that daring enthusiasm which characterised him, to lay the curse of God upon him and his studies if he refused his aid to the Church in her time of need. This, which seemed to Calvin a divine menace, had the desired effect. "It was," he said, "as if God had seized me by His awful hand from heaven." He abandoned his intention of pursuing his journey, and joined eagerly with Farel in the work of reformation.

In order to understand this work, it is necessary to know something of the previous history of Geneva. Without this knowledge it is impossible to apprehend, and still more impossible to estimate, the part which Calvin now acted. Geneva was nominally a free city of the Empire, but had in reality been governed for some centuries by its own bishop, associated with a committee of lay assessors, and controlled by the general body of the citizens, in whose hands the ultimate. power of taxation, and of election of the magistrates, and regulation of the police, rested. The prince-bishop did not exercise his temporal jurisdiction directly, but through an officer called the Vidomme (vice-dominus), whose rights had in the fifteenth century become hereditary in the dukes of Savoy. These rights appear to have been exercised without any considerable attempt at encroachment till the beginning of the following century, when Charles III. succeeded to the ducal crown (1504). To his ambition the bishop, John, a weak and willing tool of the Savoy family, to which he was nearly allied, ceded everything; and the result was a tyrannical attempt to destroy the liberties of

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the Genevese. The Assembly of the citizens rose in arms; a bitter and sanguinary contest ensued between the Eidgenossen or Patriot party on the one side, and the Mamelukes or monarchical party on the other side. By the help of the free Helvetian states, particularly Berne and Friburg, the Patriots triumphed, the friends of Savoy were banished, the Vidommate abolished, and its powers transferred to a board of magistrates.

The conduct of the bishops in this conflict, not only of John, but of his successor Peter de la Baume, who to his misgovernment added gross personal profligacy, helped greatly, as may be imagined, to shake the old hierarchical authority in Geneva; and when, in 1532, Farel first made his appearance in the city, he found a party not indisposed to join him in his eager and zealous projects of reform. He had a hard fight for it, however, and was at first obliged to yield, and leave the city for a time; and it was not till August 1535 that he and Viret and Froment succeeded in abolishing the mass, and establishing the Protestant faith. During the year's interval he had prosecuted his work without ceasing, amidst many difficulties, and Calvin's arrival found him still struggling with the popish priests in the neighbouring villages, and aiming to lay a broader foundation for the Reformed Church.

Calvin was immediately elected Teacher of Theology. In the following year he assumed the office of Preacher; which at first apparently he had declined, and produced such an impression by his first sermon, that it is said multitudes followed him home to testify their enthusiasm. In conjunction with Farel, he drew up a confession of faith in twenty-one

articles, which was submitted to the Council of Two Hundred, the lowest of the representative governing boards of the city,* and by them ordered to be printed, and proclaimed in the cathedral church of St Peter's, as binding on the whole body of the citizens. One of the articles related to the right of excommunication claimed by the ministers; and this, along with the general conduct of Farel and Calvin, and the severity with which they reproved the vices of all classes of the community, soon awoke a storm of opposition. Calvin, however, was firm; he threatened to leave the city unless the powers which he supposed necessary to his work were yielded to him; and for the present he prevailed.

A marvellous change, in the course of a short time, was wrought upon the outward aspect of Geneva. A gay and pleasure-loving people, devoted to music and dancing, the evening wine-shop, and card-playing, found themselves suddenly arrested in their usual pas times. Not only were the darker vices of debauchery, which greatly prevailed, punished by severe penalties, but the lighter follies and amusements of society were laid under imperious ban; all holidays were abolished except Sunday; the innocent gaieties of weddings, and the fashionable caprices of dress, were made subjects

* Political power rested ultimately, as we have stated in the text, in the whole body of the citizens, who were entitled to meet in general assembly. A representative body of this council, however, composed of sixty members, was constituted in 1457, in order to avoid the turbulence arising out of too frequent meetings of all the burgesses or citizens. In 1526, after the alliance of Friburg and Berne, a more extended representative Council of Two Hundred was appointed, in imitation of the constitution of these cities. There was, besides, an ordinary executive council, who, in conjunction with the four magistrates or syndics of the year, practically administered the government of the city.