He was indefatigable in labour. When the day was ended, and his companions indulged in dissipation or in sleep, Calvin, restricting himself to a slight repast for fear of oppressing his head, withdrew to his room and sat down to study the Scriptures. At midnight he extinguished his lamp,[43] and early in the morning, when he awoke and before he left his bed, he 'ruminated,' says Beza, on what he had read and learnt the night before.[44] 'We were his friends, we shared his room with him,' said Theodore Beza's informants. 'We only tell you what we have seen.'—'Alas!' adds the reformer, 'these long vigils, which so wonderfully developed his faculties and enriched his memory, weakened his health, and laid the foundation of those sufferings and frequent illnesses which shortened his days.'[45] [Sidenote: CALVIN SOUGHT AS A TEACHER.] His taste for Holy Scripture did not divert Calvin from the study of law. He was unwilling that the labours of his profession should suffer in any degree from the labours of piety. He made such remarkable progress in jurisprudence that he was soon looked upon, by both students and professors, as a master and not as a scholar.[46] One day, Pierre de l'Etoile begged him to give a lesson in his place; and the young man of nineteen or twenty discharged his duty with so much skill and clearness, that he was considered as destined to become the greatest jurist in France. The professors often employed him as their substitute.[47] To knowledge he joined communion. While still continuing to follow the lessons of Etoile, Calvin 'sought the company of the faithful servants of God,' as he tells us. All the children of God (he thought) should be united together by a bond of brotherly union. He mixed also with everybody, even with the gainsayers, and if they attacked the great doctrines of Gospel truth, he defended them. But he did not put himself forward. He could discern when, how far, and to whom it was expedient to speak, and never exposed the doctrine of Christ to the jeers of the unbeliever by imprudence or by the fears of the flesh. When he opened his mouth, every one of his words struck home. 'Nobody can withstand him,' they said, 'when he has the Bible in his hand.' Students who felt a difficulty in believing, townspeople who could not understand, went and begged him to teach them.[48] He was abashed. 'I am but a poor recruit,' he said, 'and you address me as if I were a general.'[49] As these requests were constantly renewed, Calvin tried to find some hiding-place where he could read, meditate, and pray, secure from interruption.[50] At one time it was the room of a friend, a nook in the university library, or some shady retreat on the banks of the river. But he was hardly absorbed in meditation or in the study of Scripture, before he found himself surrounded by persons eager to hear him, and who refused to withdraw. 'Alas!' he exclaimed, 'all my hiding-places are turned into public schools.'[51]