and courage, energetic, and of passionate intensity of character; Melancthon was gentle, open to many influences, easily moved and intimidated either by friends or enemies, and inclined to make concessions in order to avoid a contest. Although Calvin was impressed by these characteristics, which were unfavourable to the common cause, yet he was no less alive to Melancthon's rare and attractive merits; he remained faithful to his master, but the pupil soon became an independent and candid critic, and during the whole of their friendship he made it a duty to warn Melancthon, and put him on his guard against his weakness: 'You complain,' he wrote, 'of Luther's violence and blind intolerance; but must not this defect increase and grow from day to day, if every one trembles before him and gives way to him in everything? {245} I gladly acknowledge that by your gentle and conciliatory manner you have kept many from quarrelling, or made peace between them. I approve of this moderation and prudence; but is it a reason for shrinking in terror from every contested question as from an abyss, for fear of opposing and offending some one? Do you not thus leave in uncertainty and perplexity a large number of friends who look to you and rely upon you as the man in whom they put their trust? Truly, as I have already told you more than once, it is not to our honour that we refuse to sign with our ink the doctrines which so many saints are sealing with their blood. You know why I address you with such earnestness: I would rather die with you a hundred times over than see you outlive your divine and native nobility. I am not afraid of that, but I am afraid that you will give our enemies a pretext that they have long desired for injuring you in one manner or another. Forgive these bitter complaints, which can do no good. May God guard thee, excellent man, whom I carry always in my heart! May the Lord still guide thee by his Holy Spirit, and sustain thee by his strength!' {246} It is possible that Calvin sometimes felt a secret pleasure in thus assuming towards Melancthon the attitude and language of an independent and severe judge; the noblest of human beings do not entirely escape from the small and ignoble defects of human nature, but, in spite of this, their nobility and rectitude are, on the whole, the true motives of their conduct. It was love of truth, sincere friendship for Melancthon, and zeal for their common cause, much more than a secret pleasure in the gratification of his own self-esteem, which led Calvin during the whole of their intercourse to address Melancthon in frank and dignified language. This was the tone of the last words--words imbued with the deepest tenderness--which he wrote concerning his friend when in 1560, having himself only a few more years to live, he heard of his death.