There came a moment when Calvin, desirous of possessing God alone, renounced the world, which, from that time, has never ceased to hate him: 'I have not sued thee by my love, O Christ,' he said; 'thou hast loved me of thy free will. Thou hast shone into my soul, and then everything that dazzled my eyes by a false splendour immediately disappeared, or at least I take no count of it. As those who travel by sea, when they find their ship in danger, throw everything overboard, in order that, having lightened the vessel, they may arrive safely in port; in like manner I prefer being stripped of all that I have, rather than be deprived of thee. I would rather live poor and miserable than be drowned with my riches. Having cast my goods into the waves, I begin to have hope of escape since the vessel is lightened.... I come to thee naked and empty.... And what I find in thee is not a trifling vulgar gain: I find everything there.'[41] Thus lifting up his hands to God, Calvin offered the sacrifice of a heart burning with love. He made this grand thought the charter of his nobility, his blazon, and engraving this design on his seal, a hand presenting a heart in sacrifice, he wrote round it: _Cor meum velut mactatum Domino in sacrificium offero_—'O Lord, I offer unto thee as a sacrifice my heart immolated to thee.' Such was his device—such was his life. The eyes of many began already to be turned upon him with admiration. The surprising clearness of his mind, the powerful convictions of his heart, the energy of his regenerated will, the strength of his reasoning, the luminous flashes of his genius, and the severe beauties of his eloquence—all betokened in him one of the great men of the age. 'A wonderful mind!' says Florimond de Rémond, one of his chief adversaries, 'a mind keen and subtle to the highest degree, prompt and sudden in its imaginations! What a praiseworthy man he would have been, if, sifting away the vices (heresy), the virtues alone could have been retained!'[42] There was doubtless something wanting in Calvin: he may not have had that smiling imagination which, at the age he had now reached, generally gilds life with the most brilliant colours; the world appeared to him one wide shipwreck. But, possessing the glance of the eagle, he discovered a deliverance in the future, and his powerful hand, strengthened by God, was about to prepare the great transformations of the Church and of the world.