More has probably been made of the letter to Farel, by the enemies of Calvin, than is altogether fair. Grotius, who was the first to notice it, says: ‘It shows that Antichrist had not appeared by Tiber only, but by Lake Leman also.’ When Calvin wrote to Farel, however, he did not contemplate the likelihood of Servetus ever falling into his hands. Neither, indeed, though grievously offending, had the Spaniard yet shown himself utterly incorrigible, a lost creature, fore-ordained of God, as it seemed, to perdition. At the time Calvin wrote the letter of February, 1546, to Farel His murder yet was but fantastical, It was at a later period, when the guilt as he held it of the man he persistently regarded as the enemy of God and all religion as well as of himself, was full-blown, and the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ appeared in print, that the threat of bygone years took the shape of present stern resolve. Had we but Calvin’s letter to Villeneuve, ‘written more sharply than was his wont,’ we should, beyond question, find matter little calculated to flatter the somewhat presumptuous self-confident man, and may be fully as certain that the terms in which any future missive was couched, were not more soothing or conciliatory. But Servetus had come to look on himself as commissioned in some sort by God to proclaim a purer form of Christianity to the world; and any assumption of superiority on the part of Calvin, was met by a four-fold show of independence from himself. Yet does Servetus, once embarked in the correspondence, satisfy us that he had fallen under the spell of the great Reformer; fascinated as it seems by him and, far from being repelled by either his coldness or his harshness, finding it impossible to forbear making ever new attempts upon his patience for recognition, were it even of a little complimentary kind. The ‘great volume full of ravings,’ spoken of in the letter to Farel, must have been a MS. copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ already written, but not perhaps finally revised. Upon this work it does not appear that Calvin ever condescended to offer any strictures; although it was doubtless accompanied by a letter--not printed among the thirty--requesting an opinion on its merits. But even as he never had anything of the kind, neither, although repeatedly asked for, both directly and through others, as we learn, could Servetus ever get back his manuscript. Whether retained in mere contempt, or as evidence against the writer, with occasion presenting, as has been surmised, we do not know; but certain it is that Calvin remained persistently deaf to all the writer’s entreaties to have his work returned to him. If not purposely retained in view of the contingency hinted at, it was eventually used in such wise; for it was among the Documents furnished by Calvin through Trie to the authorities of Vienne with the immediate effect of bringing about the arrest of its writer and imperilling his life.