At the end of Calvin’s Preface to the Institutes there was the date ‘23 August 1535’ and at the end of the volume the date of its publica­tion ‘March 1536’. It was probably in February 1536 – before the first edition of his Institutes appeared – that Calvin left Basel for Italy in the company of his friend, Louis du Tillet. ‘Italy must be visited’ – so said du Tillet; but the visit turned out to be a brief one. Calvin said that he entered Italy only to leave it. The travellers journeyed under assumed names. Ferrara was their destination. It lies in the Po valley, not far from Venice. The Duchess of Ferrara, a daughter of Louis XII of France, had an open ear for the gospel. Calvin, Beza tells us, ‘confirmed her in her zeal for true religion’. She held him in the highest esteem, and a correspondence was kept up between them. While he was spared, she had a counsellor firm, fearless, and wise.

We are not to think of him as preaching openly in Ferrara, but rather discreetly witnessing amid a circle of friends. It was necessary to pro­ceed warily, as the Duke did not share the views of his wife. Indeed, the Duchess was to suffer for her faith and for her friendship with the ‘heretics’. Calvin spent at most only a few months in Ferrara. His de­parture was, no doubt, hastened by an event which took place on Good Friday, 14 April 1536. A young singer by the name Jehannet, who was employed in the service of the Duchess, ostentatiously walked out of the church service in protest against the adoration of the cross. He was seized and under torture admitted not only that he was a ‘heretic’, but that most of those at the court were likewise. Within a short time many of them sought safer quarters elsewhere – among them Calvin.

We find the Reformer again at Paris on 2 June 1536. Apparently he took advantage of the brief respite granted to the French Protestants at that time by the recently-issued Edict of Lyon. Not long after, though, he was on the move again, leaving Paris with the intention of settling in the Protestant city of Strasbourg, ‘safe from the storms and the prelate’s rage’. He probably made a short stay at Lyon en route. Due to circum­stances beyond his control he was forced to take a detour, which was to include a brief stop-over in the city of Geneva in August 1536. Here his plans were to be completely altered. Calvin had resolved to continue in ‘privacy and obscurity’. But he says, ‘William Farel detained me at Geneva, not so much by counsel and exhortation, as by a dreadful im­precation.’

A few years earlier, in the autumn of 1531, Farel had come to Geneva, and by his exertions and those of Peter Viret popery had been driven from the city. Farel and Viret were remarkable men –full of zeal and energy. Farel had on occasion been beaten by the Romanists till he was a mass of wounds and blood. Viret bore a wound on his shoulder received from the sword of a priest in an ambush. Having failed to kill him with the sword, his enemies sought to poison him and almost suc­ceeded – leaving his health permanently undermined.

It was only a few brief months before Calvin’s arrival that the Ref­ormation had been officially accepted in Geneva – on 25 May 1536. As Calvin was later to record, ‘Matters were not yet brought to a settled state, and the city was divided into unholy and dangerous factions.’ Again many years later he could say, ‘When I came to this church, it had practically nothing. There was preaching and that was all. The idols were sought out and burned, and there was no other reformation. All was in confusion.’ The work was too much for Farel, even with all his tremendous energy. To his great credit he recognized the need for someone with the ability to teach and to bring order to the church, and his quick eye evidently detected such gifts in the twenty-seven-year-old Calvin.

Just one night in Geneva, then on to Strasbourg – that was Calvin’s intention. But his old friend du Tillet, who was now living in Geneva (and who later apostatized and returned to the Roman Church!), dis­covered his friend’s presence in the city and made it known to the other brethren. There then followed the famous scene often depicted. Farel hastened to the inn where Calvin was staying and set before the visitor the pressing spiritual needs of Geneva and begged him to stay. Calvin replied that his heart was set on devoting himself to his private studies. The more Farel urged, the more Calvin was dismayed at the prospect so suddenly opening up before him. Then the older man, ‘quivering with a holy passion’, started up and cried with his voice of thunder: ‘I declare this to you in the name of God Almighty. You give your studies as an excuse, but if you refuse to devote yourself here with us to this work of the Lord, God will curse you, for you seek your own interests rather than Christ’s.’ Calvin confesses that he was so ‘stricken with terror’ by this frightful imprecation that he desisted from his onward journey.

It was as if God had stretched forth his hand from on high to stop him. Calvin had been forced to make the detour to Geneva because of troop movements which effectively barred the direct road to Strasbourg. Moreover, Farel had been absent from Geneva for over a month, and the city council had to write to him on 10 July to urge him to return, as certain matters required his presence. If Farel had delayed his return to Geneva by just a few days, Calvin would have been on his way and gone for good. But the arrangements of Providence are exact! ‘A man’s heart plans his way: but the LORD directs his steps’ (Prov. 16:9).

Calvin heard the divine call, bowed his head and obeyed. First of all, he went to Basel to put his affairs in order. On his return to Geneva, he fell ill with a heavy cold which lingered on through the autumn – illness was destined to seize upon a frame already weakened by the rigours of study and would make his life of unremitting toil an outstanding example of patient endurance. At the beginning of September 1536, he lectured in St Peter’s on the Epistles of St Paul. His addresses were received with great ‘commendation and profit’. On 5 September Farel set forth before the council the need for this ministry of Calvin and the councilors’ duty of making provision for its support. The council were clearly not as enamoured with the new preacher as was Farel – they did not even enter his name in the records, but rather disparagingly referred to him as ‘that Frenchman’. It was nearly five months before Calvin received any remuneration for his services in the city. His coming was a great event in the purposes of God; but it passed almost without notice by men!