Calvin repaired to Berne, and then to Strasbourg, where he wee appointed professor of divinity and minister of a French church, into which he introduced his own form of church government and discipline. In his absence great efforts were made to get the Genevese to return to the communion of the Church of Rome, particularly by Cardinal Sadolet, who wrote to them earnestly to that effect; but Calvin, ever alive to the maintenance of the principles of the Reformation, disap pointed all the expectations of his enemies, and confirmed the Genevese in the new faith, addressing to them two powerful and affectionate litters, and replying to that written by Sadolet. While at Strasbourg also Calvin published a treatise on the Lord's Supper, in which he combated the opinions both of the Roman Catholics and Lutherans, and at the same time explained his own views of that ordinance. Here too he published his ' Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.' Calvin got acquainted with Castello during his residence at Strasbourg, and procured for him the situation of a regent at Geneva; and it was during his stay in this city that by the advice of his friend Bucer he married Menet, the widow of an Anabaptist preacher just deceased.
In November of the same year he and Farel were solicited by the Council of Geneva to return to their former charge in that city ; in May 1541 their banishment was revoked ; and in September following Calvin was received into the city amidst the congratulations of his flock, Farel remaining at Neufehltel, where be was loved and respected. Calvin did not trifle in the peculiarly favourable circumstances in which he was now placed. He immediately laid before the council his scheme of church government, and after it was adopted and published by authority, which was on the 20th of November 1541, he was unhesi tating in its enforcement. His promptitude and firmness were now conspicuous; he was the ruling spirit in Geneva ; and the church which he had established there be wished to make the mother and seminary of all the reformed churches. His personal labours were unceasing : he preached every day for two weeks of each month; be gave three lessons in divinity every week ; he assisted at all the deliberations of the consistory and company of pastors ; he defended the principles of the reformation against all who attacked them ; ho explained those principles both in writing and discourse; and main tained a correspondence with every part of Europe. Geneva however was the common centre of all his exertions, and its prosperity peculiarly interested him, though less for its own sake than to make it a fountain for the supply of the world. He established an academy there, the
high character of which was long maintained ; be made the city a literary mart, and encouraged the French refugees and others who sought his advice to apply themselves to the occupation of a printer or librarian ; and having finished the ecclesiastical regimen, he directed his attention to the improvement of the municipal goiernment of the place. That Calvin should, in the circumstances in which he was now placed, show marks of intolerance towards others is not surprising; and to seek a palliation of his guilt we need not go back to the time when he belonged to the Church of Rome, nor yet to the notions of civil and religious liberty prevalent in his age. We have only to reflect on the constitution of the human mind, and the constant care necessary to prevent power in any hands from degenerating into tyranny. His conduct towards Servetue [Seaverus] has been justly condemned, and has drawn down upon him the epithet of a most cruel and atrocious monster; yet the punishment of Servetus was approved of by men of undoubted worth, and even by the mild Melancthon. In 1554, the year following Servetus's death, Calvin published a work in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity against the errors of Servetus, and to prove the right of the civil magistrate to punish heresy ; Beza the same year published a work on the like subject, in reply to the treatise of Castalio.
Of all tho testimonies to the merits of Calvin at this time, the most unsuspected is that of the canons of Noyon, who in 1556 publicly returned thanks to God on occasion of his recovery from an illness which it was thought would prove mortal. The state of Calvin's health prevented him going in 1561 to the famous Conference of Poisey; an assembly which in his view promised to be of so much consequence, and which was indeed remarkable in this respect, that from that time the followers of Calvin became known as a distinct sect, bearing the name of their leader. Amidst all his !sufferings however, neither his public functions nor his literary labours ceased : he continued to edify the church of Geneva by his sermons and his intercourse among the people, and to instruct Europe by his works; and to the last he maintained the same firmness of character which had distinguished him through life. On his death-bed he took God to witness that be bad preached the gospel purely, and exhorted all about him to walk worthy of the divine goodness : his delicate frame gradually became quite emaciated, and on the 27th of May 1564 he died without a struggle, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.