There is extant a letter written by Calvin to his friend and brother-minister, William Farel (dated the 26th), which announces that the fatal sentence had been passed, and would be executed on the morrow. It is only remarkable for the cold conciseness and heartless indifference of its expressions. Not a single word indicates any feeling of compassion or repugnance. And as the work of persecution was carried on without mercy, and completed without pity, so likewise was it recollected without remorse; and the Protestant Republican Minister of Christ continued for some years afterwards to insult with abusive epithets the memory of his victim. Soon after the death of Servetus, Calvin published a vindication of his proceedings, in which he defended, without any compromise, the principle on which he had acted. It is entitled, “A Faithful Exposition and short Refutation of the Errors of Servetus, wherein it is shown that heretics should be restrained by the power of the sword.” His friend and biographer Beza also put forth a work “On the propriety of punishing Heretics by the Civil authority.” Thus Calvin not only indulged his own malevolent humour, but also sought to establish among the avowed principles of his own Church the duty of exterminating all who might happen to differ from it. He lived eleven years longer; and expired at Geneva on the 27th of May, 1564; having maintained his authority to the end of his life, without acquiring any of the affection of those about him. Neither of these circumstances need surprise us, for it was his character to awe, to command, and to repel. Fearless, inflexible, morose, and imperious; he neither courted any one, nor yielded to any one, nor conciliated any one. Yet he was sensible of, and seemingly contrite for, his defects of temper; for he writes to Bucer: “I have not had harder contests with my vices, which are great and many, than with my impatience. I have not yet been able to subdue that savage brute.” His talents were extremely powerful, both for literature and for business. His profound and various learning acquired for him the general respect which it deserved. He was active and indefatigable; he slept little, and was remarkable for his abstemious habits. With a heart inflated and embittered with spiritual pride, he affected a perfect simplicity of manner; and professed, and may indeed have felt, a consummate contempt for the ordinary objects of human ambition. Besides this, he was far removed from the besetting vice of common minds, by which even noble qualities are so frequently degraded—avarice. He neither loved money for itself, nor grasped at it for its uses; and at his death, the whole amount of his property, including his library, did not exceed, at the lowest statement, one hundred and twenty-five crowns, at the highest, three hundred.