ded an
asylum to several learned and pious fugitives from persecution, Calvin
returned through Basel to France to arrange his affairs before finally
taking farewell of his native country. His intention was to settle at
Strassburg or Basel, and to devote himself to study. But being unable,
in consequence of the war between Francis I. and Charles V., to reach
Strassburg by the ordinary route, he with his younger brother Antoine
and his half-sister Marie journeyed to Lyons and so to Geneva, making
for Basel. In Geneva his progress was arrested, and his resolution to
pursue the quiet path of studious research was dispelled by what he
calls the "formidable obtestation" of Guillaume Farel.[8] After many
struggles and no small suffering, this energetic spirit had succeeded in
planting the evangelical standard at Geneva; and anxious to secure the
aid of such a man as Calvin, he entreated him on his arrival to
relinquish his design of going farther, and to devote himself to the
work in that city. Calvin at first declined, alleging as an excuse his
need of securing more time for personal improvement, but ultimately,
believing that he was divinely called to this task and that "God had
stretched forth His hand upon me from on high to arrest me," he
consented to remain at Geneva. He hurried to Basel, transacted some
business, and returned to Geneva in August 1536. He at once began to
expound the epistles of St Paul in the church of St Pierre, and after
about a year was also elected preacher by the magistrates with the
consent of the people, an office which he would not accept until it had
been repeatedly pressed upon him. His services seem to have been
rendered for some time gratuitously, for in February 1537 there is an
entry in the city registers to the effect that six crowns had been voted
to him, "since he has as yet hardly received anything."

Calvin was in his twenty-eighth year when he was thus constrained to
settle at Geneva; and in this city the rest of his life, with the
exception of a brief interval, was spent. The post to which he was thus
called was not an easy one. Though the people of Geneva had cast off the
obedience of Rome, it was largely a political revolt against the duke of
Savoy, and they were still (says Beza) "but very imperfectly enlightened
in divine knowledge; they had as yet hardly emerged from the filth of
the papacy."[9] This laid them open to the incursions of those fanatical
teachers, whom the excitem