CALVIN'S PERSONAL CHARACTER.
Calvin was of middle, or rather small stature (like David and Paul), of feeble health, courteous, kind, grave and dignified in deportment. He had a meagre and emaciated frame, a thin, pale, finely chiseled face, a well-formed mouth, a long, pointed beard, black hair, a prominent nose, a lofty forehead, and flaming eyes. He was modest, plain, and scrupulously neat in dress, orderly and methodical in all his habits, temperate and even abstemious, allowing himself scarcely nourishment and sleep enough for vigorous work. His physical tent barely covered the mighty spirit within. Conscience and logic, a commanding mind and will, shone through the thin veil of mortality. [826]
How different Luther and Zwingli, with their strong animal foundation, and their abundance of flesh and blood! Calvin seemed to be all bone and nerve. Beza says he looked in death almost the same as alive in sleep. [827]
His intellectual endowments were of the highest order and thoroughly disciplined. He had more constructive, systematizing, and organizing genius than any other Reformer, and was better adapted to found a solid, compact, and permanent school of theology. He was not a speculative or intuitive philosopher, but a consummate logician and dialectician. Luther and Zwingli cut the stones from the quarry; Calvin gave them shape and polish, and erected a magnificent cathedral of ideas with the skill of a master architect. His precocity and consistency were marvelous. He did not grow before the public, like Luther and Melanchthon, and pass through contradictions and retractations, but when a mere youth of twenty-six he appeared fully armed, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, and never changed his views on doctrine or discipline. He had an extraordinary and well-stored memory, a profound, acute, and penetrating intellect, a clear, sound, and almost unerring judgment, a perfect mastery over the Latin and French tongues. His Latin is as easy and elegant, and certainly as nervous and forcible, as Cicero's, yet free from the pedantic and affected purism of a Bembo and Castalio. [828] He is one of the fathers of modern French, as Luther is the father of modern German. His eloquence is logic set on fire by intense conviction. His Preface to the 'Institutes,' addressed to the King of France, is reckoned as one of the three immortal prefaces in literature (to which only that of President De Thou to his French History and that of Casaubon to Polybius can be compared); and his 'Institutes' themselves, as has been well said, are 'in truth a continuous oration, in which the stream of discussion rolls onward with an impetuous current, yet always keeps within its defined channel.' [829]
He surpassed all other Reformers (except Beza) in classical culture and social refinement. He was a patrician by education and taste, and felt more at ease among scholars and men of high rank than among the common people. Yet he was quite free from aristocratic pride, despised all ostentation and display, and esteemed every man according to his real worth.
History furnishes, perhaps, no example of a man who with so little personal popularity had such influence upon the people, and who with such natural timidity and bashfulness combined such strength and control over his age and future generations. Constitutionally a retiring scholar and a man of thought, he became providentially a mighty man of action and an organizer of churches.
His moral and religious character is impressed with a certain majesty which keeps the admirer at a respectful distance. [830] He has often been compared to an old Roman Censor or Stoic; but he resembles much more a Hebrew Prophet. Severe against others, he was far more severe against himself, and was always guided by a sense of duty. Fear of God, purity of motive, spotless integrity, single devotion to truth and duty, unswerving fidelity, sincere humility are the prominent traits of his character. Soaring high above the earth, he was absorbed in God--who alone is great--and looked down upon man as a fleeting shadow. The glory of the Lord and the reformation of the Church constituted the single passion of his life. His appropriate symbol was a hand offering the sacrifice of a bleeding heart to God. [831]
It must be admitted that this kind of greatness, while it commands our admiration and respect, does not of itself secure our affection and love. There is a censoriousness and austerity about Calvin and his creed which repelled many good men, even among his contemporaries. [832] He looked more to the holiness than to the love of God. His piety bears more the stamp of the Old Testament than that of the New. He represents the majesty and severity of the law rather than the sweetness and loveliness of the gospel, the obedience of a servant of Jehovah rather than the joyfulness of a child of our heavenly Father.
Yet even this must be qualified. He sympathized with the spirit of David and Paul as much as with the spirit of Moses and Elijah, and had the strongest sense of the freedom of the gospel salvation. Moreover, behind his cold marble frame there was beating a noble, loving, and faithful heart, which attracted and retained to the last the friendship of such eminent servants of God as Farel, Viret, Beza, Bucer, Bullinger, Knox, and Melanchthon. 'He obtained,' says Guizot, 'the devoted affection of the best men and the esteem of all, without ever seeking to please them.' [833] John Knox, his senior in years, sat at his feet as a humble pupil, and esteemed him the greatest man after the Apostles. Farel, in his old age, hastened on foot from Neufchatel to Geneva to take leave of his sick friend, and desired to die in his place. Beza, who lived sixteen years on terms of personal intimacy with him, revered and loved him as a father. And even Melanchthon wished to repose and to die on his bosom. His familiar correspondence shows him in the most favorable light, and is a sufficient refutation of all the calumnies and slanders of his enemies.
He lacked the good-nature, the genial humor, the German Gemüthlichkeit, the overflowing humanity of Luther, who for this reason will always be more popular with the masses; but he surpassed him in culture, refinement, consistency, and moral self-control. Both were equally unselfish and unworldly. Both were headstrong and will-strong; but Calvin was more open to argument and less obstinate. Both had, like St. Paul, a fiery and violent temper, which was the propelling force in their hard work, and in fierce battles with the pope and the devil. Hegel says somewhere that 'nothing great can be done without passion.' [834] It is only men of intense convictions and fearless courage that make deep and lasting impressions upon others. But temper is a force of nature, which must be controlled by reason and regulated by justice and charity. Luther came down like a thunder-storm upon his opponents, and used the crushing sledge-hammer indiscriminately against Eck, Cochlæus, Henry VIII., Erasmus, the Sacramentarians, and Zwinglians; while Calvin wielded the sharp sword of irony, wit, scorn, and contempt in defense of truth, but never from personal hatred and revenge. 'Even a dog barks,' he says, 'when his master is attacked; how could I be silent when the honor of my Lord is assailed?' [835] He confessed, however, in a letter to Bucer, and on his death-bed, that he found it difficult to tame 'the wild beast' of his wrath, and humbly asked forgiveness for his weakness. He had no children to write to, and to play with around the Christmas-tree, like Luther, but he appears to better advantage in his relations with men and women. He treated them, even the much younger Beza, as equals, overlooked minor differences, and in correcting their faults expected the same manly frankness from them in return; while Luther, growing more irritable and overbearing with advancing years, made even Melanchthon tremble and fear. But we should charitably remember that the faults of these truly great and good men were only the long shadows of their extraordinary virtues. [836]
It may be found strange that Calvin never alludes to the paradise of nature by which he was surrounded on the lovely shores of Lake Leman, in sight of the lofty Alps that pierce the skies in silent adoration of their Maker. But we look in vain for descriptions of natural scenery in the whole literature of the sixteenth century; and the proper appreciation of the beauties of Switzerland, as well as of other countries, is of more recent date. Calvin had no special organ nor time for the enjoyment of the beautiful either in nature or in art, but he appreciated poetry and music. [837] He insisted on the introduction of congregational singing in Geneva, and wrote himself a few poetic versions of the Psalms, and a hymn of praise to Christ, which are worthy of Clement Marot and reveal an unexpected vein of poetic fervor and tenderness. [838] The following specimen must suffice:
'I greet thee, who my sure Redeemer art,
My only trust, and Saviour of my heart!
Who so much toil and woe
And pain didst undergo,
For my poor, worthless sake:
We pray thee, from our hearts,
All idle griefs and smarts
And foolish cares to take.
'Thou art the true and perfect gentleness,
No harshness hast thou, and no bitterness:
Make us to taste and prove,
Make us adore and love,
The sweet grace found in thee;
With longing to abide
Ever at thy dear side,
In thy sweet unity.
'Poor, banished exiles, wretched sons of Eve,
Full of all sorrows, unto thee we grieve;
To thee we bring our sighs,
Our groanings, and our cries:
Thy pity, Lord, we crave;
We take the sinner's place,
And pray thee, of thy grace,
To pardon and to save.'