Calvin certainly was not narrow-minded; and while he was before all a member of the kingdom of God, he did not think it his duty to take no interest in the concerns of nations and of kings. He never forgot his persecuted fellow-religionists; and if for their deliverance it was needful to appeal to the powerful, to the princes, of the earth he did so. Is he to be accused of having therein played the part of a politician? Would it not have been a sad blemish on so fair a life to have forgotten his countrymen who were cast into prisons or bound on the galleys? But Calvin, having gained the rock on which the tempest could not harm him, did not cease to direct his attention to such of his brethren as were still pelted by the storm and well-nigh swallowed up in the abyss. He prayed; he cried aloud; he called upon those in power to stay the sword which was unsheathed against the righteous; he was able likewise, in grave emergencies, from the pulpit to invite to prayer and humiliation, to recall to mind the martyrs of old time, to declare that persecutors will have to render an account, to show that faith in the living God is an impregnable fortress; to urge those who, having come from a distance, had taken refuge at Geneva, to behave themselves holily, and to entreat all Christians, especially the weak, to make no blameworthy concessions, but to continue steadfast in the purity of the faith. What is there in all this incompatible with the evangelical ministry? What is there in all this that is not even obligatory and that could not fail to be approved of God? No, Calvin was neither a Dracon nor a Lycurgus; neither a political orator nor a statesman. His pulpit was no tribune for harangues; his work was not that of a secret chief of Protestantism. He was before all things an evangelist, a minister of the living God. Far from addressing himself to the people in general, he laid hold of the individual, and on him he made a deeper and more lasting impression than modern preachers have done with their vague discourses. Footnote 164: ‘Alternis hebdomadibus totis concionabator.’—Beza, _Vita Calvini_, p. 8. Calvin’s letter to Myconius, Geneva, March 14, 1542. Calv. _Opp._ xi. p. 337. _Ordonnances_, edit. of 1561. Bèze-Colladon, _Vie française de Calvin_, pp. 55, 56. Footnote 165: ‘Multos ex Gallia et Italia.’—Beza, _Vita Calvini_, p. 9. Footnote 166: _Ordonnances._—Calvin, _Opp._ x. p. 17. Footnote 167: Sayous, _Études sur les écrivains de la réformation_, i. p. 173. Footnote 168: The title-page of the volume on Deuteronomy states—‘Taken down faithfully and _verbatim_, as M. Jean Calvin publicly preached them.’ Footnote 169: Kampschulte, _Joh. Calvin_, i. p. 406. Footnote 170: _Vingt-deux Sermons de M. Jean Calvin sur le Psaume_ cxix. Geneva: by François Estienne, for Estienne Anastase, 1562, p. 38. Footnote 171: _Vingt-deux Sermons_, &c—Second Sermon, pp. 26, 27. Footnote 172: