836 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
the last. He seemed to be all bone and nerve. He looked in death, Beza says, like one who was asleep. A commanding intellect and will shone through the frail body. There are several portraits of him ; the best is the oil painting in the University Library of Geneva, which presents him in academic dress and in the attitude of teaching, with the mouth open, one hand laid upon the Bible, the other raised.^
He calls himself timid and pusillanimous by nature ; but his courage rose with danger, and his strength was perfected in weakness. He belonged to that class of persons who dread danger from a distance, but are fearless in its presence. In his conflict with the Libertines he did not yield an inch, and more than once exposed his life. He was plain, orderly, and methodical in his habits and tastes, scrupulously neat in his dress, intemperately temperate, and unreasonably abstemious. For many years he took only one meal a day, and allowed himself too little sleep.
Calvin's intellectual endowments were of the highest order and thoroughly disciplined : a retentive memory, quick perception, acute understanding, penetrating reason, sound judgment, complete command of language. He had the classical culture of the Renaissaifce, without its pedantry and moral Aveakness. He made it tributary to theology and piety. He was not equal to Augustin and Luther as a creative genius and originator of new ideas, but he surpassed them both and all his contemporaries as a scholar, as a polished and eloquent writer, as a systematic and logical thinker, and as an organizer and disciplinarian. His talents, we may say, rose to the
1 It is reproduced on p. 256. Mr. Theophile Dufour, tlie librarian, assured me in 1886 that it is the most autlientic portrait. Professor Diodati, a former librarian, wrote to Dr. Henry (III. P. I. Preface, p. vii) : " Quant an portrait que I'on voit a notre bibliotheque, il a toujours passe pour authentique etjidele. Nos peintres s'accordent a reconnaitre qu'il, est bien de I'epoque de Calvin et qu'il est peint d'une maniere remarquable. On I'a souvent attribue a Holbein ; mais cette opinion n'est pas constate'e. Ce que I'on peut dire c'est qu'on y retrouve sa maniere. En I'e'tudiant attentivement on lui trouve un air de ve'rite frappant."
§ 166. CALVIX'S PERSONAL CHARACTER. 837
full height of genius. His mind was cast in the mould of Paul, not in that of John. He had no mystic vein, and little imagination. He never forgot anything pertaining to his duty; he recognized persons whom he had but once seen many years previously. He spoke very much as he wrote, with clearness, precision, purity, and force, and equally well in Latin and French. He never wrote a dull line. His judgment was always clear and solid, and so exact, that, as Beza remarks, it often appeared like prophecy. His advice was alwa3's sound and useful. His eloquence was logic set on fire. But he lacked the power of illustration, which is often, before a popular audience, more effective in an orator than the closest argument.
His moral and religious character was grounded in the fear of God, which is " the beginning of wisdom." Severe against others, he was most severe against himself. He resembled a Hebrew prophet. He may be called a Christian Elijah. His symbol was a hand offering the sacrifice of a burning heart to God. The Council of Geneva were impressed with "the great majesty " of his character.^ This significant expression accounts for his overawing power over his many enemies in Geneva, who might easily have crushed him at any time. His constant and sole aim was the glory of God, and the reformation of the Church. In his eyes, God alone was great, man but a fleeting shadow. Man, he said, must be nothing, that God in Christ may be everything. He was always guided by a strict sense of duty, even in the punishment of Servetus. In the preface to the last edition of his Institutes (1559), he says : " I have the testimony of my own conscience, of angels, and of God himself, that since I undertook the office of a teacher in the Church, I have had no other object in view than to profit the Church by maintaining the
1 " Dieu lui avait imprim€ un chamctere d'lme si grande majesle." Registres, June 8, 1564. Grenus, Fragments Biographiques.