Servetus himself could at this time have had as little idea, as Frelon, of the deadly hate with which Calvin was animated towards him. They had corresponded and differed, had quarrelled and called each other opprobrious names; but controversialists did so habitually, when they got heated; and the epithets then so freely bandied about were scarcely seriously meant, and hardly ever seriously taken: they were but the seasoning to the matter, nothing more. Servetus was in truth far too vain, and at the same time too much under the spell of Calvin, to leave him of all men else in ignorance of the important work of which he had just been happily delivered. With the earliest opportunity therefore that occurred, and before the book had been seen by another, as we believe, he sent a copy to Calvin, meaning it doubtless as a compliment--a return perhaps for the copy of the ‘Institutiones Religionis Christianæ’ we credit him with having received from its author. It is not difficult to imagine the alarm that must at once have taken possession of Calvin’s mind when he saw the errors, the heresies, the blasphemies, as he regarded them, which in bygone years he had vainly sought to combat, now confided to the printed page and ready to be thrown broadcast on the world. And more than this: if his ire had been already roused by the strictly confidential correspondence to the extent of leading him to threaten the life of the writer, did occasion offer, what additional anger must now have entered into his heart, when, besides the offensive heretical matter of the book, he found himself taken to task, publicly schooled, declared to be in error, and his most cherished doctrines not only controverted, but proclaimed derogatory to God, and some of them even as barring the gates of heaven against all who adopted them! What, too, on second thoughts, may have been his exultation when, in perusing the book, he found his enemy committing himself so egregiously in abusing the Papacy, and supplying evidence that would convict him at once of blasphemy against God and the Church, and, in sending him to the stake--as he foresaw it must in a Roman Catholic country--would rid the world at once of an agent of Satan, and a personal enemy! CHAPTER XIX. CALVIN DENOUNCES SERVETUS THROUGH WILLIAM TRIE TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES OF LYONS.