Calvin retired in sorrow. Type of protestant decision in the sixteenth century, he always protested freely and boldly against everything that was contrary to the Gospel. He displayed this unshakeable firmness not only in opposition to catholic tendencies, but also against rationalistic ideas. It would not be difficult to find in Zwingle, in Melanchthon, and even in Luther, some sprinkling of neology, of which the slightest traces cannot be found in Calvin. [Sidenote: CALVIN AND LEFÈVRE.] Nérac, as we have said, sheltered another teacher—an old man whom age might have made weaker than Roussel, but who under his white hair and decrepid appearance concealed a living force, to be suddenly revived by contact with the great faith of the young scholar. Calvin asked for Lefèvre's house: everybody knew him: 'He is a little bit of a man, old as Herod, but lively as gunpowder,' they told him.[64] As we have seen, Lefèvre had professed the great doctrine of justification by faith, even before Luther; but after so many years, the aged doctor still indulged in the vain hope of seeing Catholicism reform itself. 'There ought to be only one Church,' he would frequently repeat, and this idea prevented his separation from Rome. Nevertheless, his spiritualist views permitted him to preserve the unity of charity with all who loved Christ. When Calvin was admitted into his presence, he discerned the great man under his puny stature, and was caught by the charm which he exercised over all who came near him. What mildness, what depth, what knowledge, modesty, candour, loftiness, piety, moral grandeur, and holiness, had been said of him![65] It seemed as if all these virtues illuminated the old man with heavenly brightness just as the night of the grave was about to cover him with its darkness. On his side, the young man pleased Lefèvre, who began to tell him how the opposition of the Sorbonne had compelled him to take refuge in the south, 'in order,' as he said, 'to escape the bloody hands of those doctors.'[66]