Wolmar seems to have been to Calvin what Staupitz was to Luther; both these doctors felt the need of minds of a strong temper for the great things that were about to take place in the world. One day, therefore, the professor invited the student to take a walk with him, and the two friends, leaving behind them that old city, burnt down by Cæsar and Chilperic, rebuilt by Charlemagne, and enlarged by Philip Augustus, drew near the banks of the Auron, at its confluence with the Yèvre, and strolled here and there among the fertile plains of Berry.[78] At last Wolmar said to Calvin, 'What do you propose doing, my friend? Shall the Institutes, the Novels, the Pandects absorb your life? Is not theology the queen of all sciences, and does not God call you to explain his Holy Scriptures?'[79] What new ideas then started up before Calvin! At Paris he had renounced the priesthood, and at Bourges Wolmar urged him to the ministry.... What should he do? This was quite another calling. In the theocratic and legal Church, the priest is the means by which man is restored to communion with God. The special priesthood, with which he is invested, is the condition on which depends the virtue of the sacraments and of all the means of grace. Possessed of a magical power, he works the greatest of miracles at the altar, and whoever does not partake in the ministrations of this priesthood can have no share in redemption. The Reformation of the sixteenth century, by setting aside the formal and theocratic Church of Rome, which was shaped in the image of the Jewish theocracy, and by substituting for it the Evangelical Church, conformably to the principles of Christ and his apostles, transformed the ministry also. The service of the Word became its centre—the means by which, with the aid of the Holy Ghost, all its functions were discharged. This evangelical ministry was to work its miracles also; but whilst those of the legal ministry proceed from a mysterious virtue in the priesthood, and are accomplished upon earthly elements, those of the evangelical ministry are wrought freely by the divine Word, and by a heartfelt faith in the great love of God, which that ministry proclaims,—strange spiritual miracles, effected within the soul, transforming the man and not the bread, and making him a new creature, destined to dwell eternally with God. [Sidenote: CALVIN HESITATES.]