Calvin commenced his work as Reader in the Holy Scriptures at Geneva, or, as he styles himself, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Genevese Church. His lectures were delivered not in any house or in any academic hall, but in the cathedral itself, a circumstance which invested his teaching with an importance of which Calvin had certainly not dreamed. The doors were opened for this novel service in the afternoon, and the Genevese, who felt the need of substantial teaching, crowded to hear the young doctor. He expounded several books of the New Testament, particularly the Epistles. One characteristic of his manner of teaching at Geneva from the first was the combination of simplicity and solidity. A new light was then rising. It was not, to be sure, the sun in its brightness. The timidity and the shyness which Calvin attributes to himself may well have shown themselves in his first attempts. The _Commentaries_ on the New Testament, which he published at a later period, have a completeness which his earliest expositions could not attain. But they are a sufficiently faithful representation of the kind of teaching which he adopted at St. Peter’s church. It was not grammatical and etymological explanation of the text; nor was it, on the other hand, a pathetic discourse. Calvin set forth in clear light everything in the Scriptures which characterizes the Christian doctrine and life. He first meditated on his subject, then delivered his lectures extempore; and the animated and powerful individuality of the master imparted to them an influence which carried away and multiplied his hearers. It was not in his nature to do a merely intellectual task. He consoled, he exhorted, he censured. But his chief aim was to illustrate the labor of love which Jesus Christ had accomplished, and to make known its necessity and grandeur. Two points in the Christian doctrine especially struck him, the one dark and mournful, the other bright like sunshine. ‘Our souls,’ said he, ‘are an abyss of iniquity, so that we are compelled to have recourse to the fountain of all good, which is Jesus Christ.’[378] [Sidenote: CHURCH DISCIPLINE.]