e to accede to the repeated invitations of the
council and people of Geneva, that he should return and resume his
former position.

[Sidenote: His character and natural endowments.]

[Sidenote: He is consulted by Protestants in every quarter of Europe.]

Such was the man who was called to take the reins of the spiritual
direction, not only of a single small city, but of a large body of
earnest thinkers throughout France, and even to distant parts of
Christendom--a man of stern and uncompromising devotion to that system
which he believed to be truth; of slender imagination, but of a memory
prodigious in its grasp, of an understanding wonderfully acute, and of
a power of exposition and expression unsurpassed by that possessed by
any writer among his contemporaries. His constitution, naturally weak,
had been still further enfeebled by excessive application to study. In
his letters there are frequent references to the interruptions
occasioned by violent pains in his head, often compelling him to stop
many times in the writing of a single letter.[421] His strength was
taxed to the utmost by the unremitting toil incident to his multifarious
occupations. The very recital of his labors fills us with amazement. He
preached twice every Sunday, besides frequent sermons on other days. He
lectured three times a week on theology. He made addresses in the
consistory, and delivered a lecture every Friday in the conference on
the Scriptures known as the "Congregation." To these public burdens must
be added others imposed upon him by his wide reputation. From all parts
of the Protestant world, but especially from every spot in France where
the Reformation had gained a foothold, the opinion of Calvin was eagerly
sought on various points of doctrine and ecclesiastical practice. To
Geneva, and especially to Calvin, the obscure and persecuted adherents
of the same faith, not less than the most illustrious of the Protestant
nobility, looked for counsel and direction. Under his guidance that
system was adopted for supplying France with ministers of the Gospel
which led the Venetian ambassador, near the end of the great reformer's
life, to describe Geneva as the mine from which the ore of heresy was
extracted.[422] How faithfully he discharged the trust committed to him
is sufficiently attested by a voluminous correspondence, some portions
of which have escaped the wreck of time; while the steady advance of the
doctrines he advocated is an en