§ 81. Calvin's Arrival and Settlement at Creneva.
Calvin arrived at Geneva in the later part of July, 1536,i two months after the Reformation had been publicly introduced (May 21).
He intended to stop only a night, as he says, but Providence had decreed otherwise. It was the decisive hour of his life which turned the quiet scholar into an active reformer.
1 Not in August (as stated by Beza, Annal. 126, 203, and most biographers). He went to Basel for two weeks (August 4-19), and returned to Geneva, according to promise, about the middle of August, for settlement. See his letter to Daniel, Oct. 13, 1536, in Herminjard, IV. 87 ; comp. 77 note ; also Rilliet and Roget. 347
848 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
His presence was made known to Farel through the imprudent zeal of Du Tillet, who had come from Basel via Neuchatel, and remained in Geneva for more than a year. Farel instinctively felt that the providential man had come who was to complete and to save the Reformation of Geneva. He at once called on Calvin and held him fast, as by divine command. Calvin protested, pleading his youth, his inexperience, his need of further study, his natural timidity and bashfulness, which unfitted him for public action. But all in vain. Farel, "who burned of a marvellous zeal to advance the Gospel," threatened him with the curse of Almighty God if he preferred his studies to the work of the Lord, and liis own interest to the cause of Christ. Calvin was terrified and shaken by these words of the fearless evangelist, and felt "as if God from on hisfh had stretched out his hand." He submitted, and accepted the call to the ministry, as teacher and pastor of the evangelical Church of Geneva.^
It was an act of obedience, a sacrifice of his desires to a sense of duty, of his will to the will of God.
Farel gave the Reformation to Geneva, and gave Calvin to Geneva — two gifts by which he crowned his own work and immortalized his name, as one of the greatest benefactors of that city and of Reformed Christendom.
Calvin was foreordained for Geneva, and Geneva for Calvin. Both have made "• tlieir calling and election sure."
He found in the city on Lake Leman " a tottering republic,
1 Beza (Vita, XXI. 125) : "At eqo tibi. inqnit [Farel Ins'], st)iclia iua prcBtexenti denuncio omnipotentis Dei nomine futurum ut, nisi in opus istud Domini nobisctim incumbas, tibi non tam Christum qvam te ipsum quce.renii Dominus maledicat. Hac terribih denunciatione territvs, Calvinus sese presbyter ii et magistratus voluntati permisit, quorum snffi-acfiis, accedente plebis consensu, delectus non concionator tantum (Jioc autem primum recnsarat) , sed etinm sacrarum literarum doctor, quod unum admittebot, est designatus anno Domini MDXXXVI. mense Augusta." With this should be compared Calvin's own account in the Preface to his commentary on the Psalms, and Ann. Calv. 20.3 sq. Merle d'Aubignc, at the close of vol. V. 534-550, gives a dramatic description of Calvin's first arrival and interview with Farel at Geneva, with some embellishments of his imagination.
§ 82. FIRST LABORS AND TRIALS. 349
a wavering faith, a nascent Church." He left it a Gibraltar of Protestantism, a school of nations and churches. ^
The city had then only about twelve thousand inhabitants, but by her situation on the borders of France and Switzerland, her recent deliverance from political and ecclesiastical despotism, and her raw experiments in republican self-government, she offered rare advantages for the solution of the great social and religious problems which agitated Europe.
Calvin's first labors in that city were an apparent failure. The Genevese were not ready yet and expelled him, but after a few years they recalled him. They might have expelled him again and forever : for he was poor, feeble, and unprotected. But they gradually yielded to the moulding force of his genius and character. Those who call him " the pope of Geneva " involuntarily pay him the highest compliment. His success was achieved by moral and spiritual means, and stands almost alone in history.