Only let us trust in him, and he will care for us!' Thus the hunted Calvin found himself at Angoulême, under God's hand, like a young storm-driven bird that has taken refuge in the nest under the wing of its mother. [Sidenote: CALVIN'S LABOURS.] The young canon took the liveliest interest in the fate of his guest, and hoped to see the hospitality he showed him bear precious fruits for learning and the Gospel. Calvin, too humble to believe that Du Tillet's cares had any reference to himself, ascribed them solely to his friend's zeal for knowledge and the cause of Christ; it seemed to him that he could never repay such kindness but by constant labour, and that was all he ever had to give. 'My protector's kindness,' he said, 'is sufficient to stimulate the indolence of the laziest of men.[23] Cheer up, then! let me make an effort, let me struggle earnestly. No more carelessness!'[24] Then he shut himself up in Du Tillet's library, gathered round him the books he wanted, and said: 'I must give all my attention to study; this thought is constantly pulling me by the ear.' If he took a moment's leisure, he felt 'his ear pulled,' that is to say, his conscience was troubled; he hurried to his books, and set to work with so much zeal, 'that he passed whole nights without sleeping and days without eating.'[25] This was his _indolence_! A great idea was at that time growing in his heart. Parliament accused and even burnt his brethren for pretended heresies. 'Must I be silent,' he said, 'and thus give unbelievers an opportunity of condemning a doctrine they do not know? Why should not the Reformed have a confession to lay before their adversaries?'[26] As he examined Du Tillet's library, he came upon certain books which seemed to him to bear particularly on the existing state of suffering among evangelical christians. He saw that apologies had formerly been presented to the Emperor Adrian by Quadratus and Aristides, to Antoninus by Justin Martyr, and to Marcus Aurelius by Athenagoras. Ought not the friends of the Reformation to present a similar defence to Francis I.? If Calvin's mouth is shut, he will take up the pen. God was then setting him apart for one of the great works of the age. He did not indeed compose his _Christian Institutes_ at this time, even under the elementary form of the first edition, but he meditated it; he searched the Scriptures; he drew out the sketch, and perhaps wrote some passages of that work, the finest produced by the Reformation. And hence one of the enemies of the Reform, casting a severe look on the learned library of the Du Tillets, was led to exclaim: 'This is the forge where the new _Vulcan_ prepared the bolts that he was afterwards to scatter on every side.... That is the factory where he began to make the nets that he afterwards fixed up to catch the simple, and from which a man must be very clever to get out. It was there that he wove the web of his _Institutes_, which we may