ains its intelligent consciousness after its
separation from the body--passing by questions of philosophical
speculation, as tending on such a subject only to minister to an idle
curiosity. At Poitiers Calvin gathered round him a company of cultured
and gentle men whom in private intercourse he influenced considerably.
Here too in a grotto near the town he for the first time celebrated the
communion in the Evangelical Church of France, using a piece of the rock
as a table.

The year 1534 was thus decisive for Calvin. From this time forward his
influence became supreme, and all who had accepted the reformed
doctrines in France turned to him for counsel and instruction, attracted
not only by his power as a teacher, but still more, perhaps because they
saw in him so full a development of the Christian life according to the
evangelical model. Renan, no prejudiced judge, pronounces him "the most
Christian man of his time," and attributes to this his success as a
reformer. Certain it is that already he had become conspicuous as a
prophet of the new religion; his life was in danger, and he was obliged
to seek safety in flight. In company with his friend Louis du Tillet,
whom he had again gone to Angouleme to visit, he set out for Basel. On
their way they were robbed by one of their servants, and it was only by
borrowing ten crowns from their other servant that they were enabled to
get to Strassburg, and thence to Basel. Here Calvin was welcomed by the
band of scholars and theologians who had conspired to make that city the
Athens of Switzerland, and especially by Oswald Myconius, the chief
pastor, Pierre Viret and Heinrich Bullinger. Under the aupices and
guidance of Sebastian Munster, Calvin now gave himself to the study of
Hebrew.

Francis I., desirous to continue the suppression of the Protestants but
anxious, because of his strife with Charles V., not to break with the
Protestant princes of Germany, instructed his ambassador to assure these
princes that it was only against Anabaptists, and other parties who
called in question all civil magistracy, that his severities were
exercised. Calvin, indignant at the calumny which was thus cast upon the
reformed party in France, hastily prepared for the press his _Institutes
of the Christian Religion_, which he published "first that I might
vindicate from unjust affront my brethren whose death was precious in
the sight of the Lord, and, next, that some sorrow and anxiety should
mo