their books in a pack on their backs, and hawked them in village and town, describing their contents, and making little sermons for the listeners. Among the notices of seizures we find such titles as the following:--_Les Colloques_ of Erasmus, _La Fontaine de Vie_ (a selection of scriptural passages translated into French), the _Livre de vraye et parfaicte oraison_ (a translation of extracts from Luther's writings), the _Cinquante-deux psaumes_, the _Catéchisme de Genève, Prières ecclésiastiques avec la manière d'administrer les sacrements_, an _Alphabet chrétien_ and an _Instruction chrétienne pour les petits enfants_. No edicts against printing books which had not been submitted to the ecclesiastical authorities were able to put an end to this secret colportage. In these several ways the Evangelical faith was spread abroad, and before the death of Francis there was not a district in France with the single exception of Brittany which had not its secret Protestants, while many parts of the country swarmed with them. § 4. _Calvin and his Influence in France._ The Reformation in France had been rapidly changing its character since 1536, the year in which Lefèvre died, and in which Calvin's _Christian Institution_ was published. It was no longer a Christian mysticism supplemented by a careful study of the Scriptures; it had advanced beyond the stage of individual followers of Luther or Zwingli; it had become united, presenting a solid phalanx to its foes; it had rallied round a manifesto which was at once a completed scheme of doctrine, a prescribed mode of worship, and a code of morals; it had found a leader who was both a master and a commander-in-chief. The publication of the _Christian Institution_ had effected this. The young man whom the Town Council of Geneva could speak of as "a certain Frenchman" (_Gallus quidam_) soon took a foremost place among the leaders of the whole Reformation movement, and moulded in his plastic hands the Reformation in France. Calvin's early life and his work in Geneva have already been described; but his special influence on France must not pass unnoticed.[183] He had an extraordinary power over his co-religionists in his native land.[184] He was a Frenchman--one of themselves; no foreigner speaking an unfamiliar tongue; no enemy of the Fatherland to follow whom might seem to be unpatriotic. It is true that his fixed abode lay beyond the confines of France; but distance, which gave him freedom of action, made him the more esteemed. He was the apostle who wrote "to all that be in France, beloved of God, called to be saints."