140 STATESMEN AND SAGES JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564) JOHN CALVIN was born at Noyon, in Picardy, on J July 10, 1509. His father, Gerard Caulvin or Cauvin, was procureur-fiscal of the district of Noy- on, and secretary of the diocese. He was one of six children four sons and two daughters. All the three sons who survived were ecclesiastics ; and the reformer himself, while still only twelve years of age, was appointed to a chaplaincy in the cathedral church of Noyon. Calvin was educated in circum- stances of ease and even affluence. The noble fam- ily of De Mortmar, in the neighborhood, invited him to share in the studies of their children ; he was in some measure adopted by them ; and when the family went to Paris, in his fourteenth year, he accompanied them. He was entered as a pupil in the College de la Marche, under the regency of Mathurin Cordier, better remem- bered, perhaps, by his Latin name of Corderius. It was under this distinguished master that Calvin laid the foundation of his own wonderful mastery of the Latin language. During this early period he was so distinguished by the great activity of his mental powers and the grave severity of his manners that his com- panions, it is said, surnamed him " The Accusative." For a while his attention was directed to the study of law, and his father sent him to the university of Orleans, then adorned by Pierre de 1'Etoile, one of the most famous jurists of his day. At Orleans he continued the same life of rigorous temperance and earnest studiousness for which he was already noted. It was while a law-student in Orleans that he became acquainted with the Scriptures, and received his first impulse to the theological studies which have made his name so distinguished. A relative of his own, Pierre Robert Olivetan, was there en- gaged in a translation of the Scriptures ; and this had the effect of drawing Cal- vin's attention, and awakening within him the religious instinct which was soon to prove the master-principle of his life. The seeds of the new faith were now beyond doubt sown in his heart, and from this time, although he still continued for a while longer to pursue his legal studies, his main interests appear to have been religious and theological. From Orleans he went to Bourges, where he ac- quired the knowledge of Greek, under the tuition of a learned German, Melchior Wolmar. He began here to preach the reformed doctrines, and passed over into the ranks of Protestantism, under the slow but sure growth of his new convic- tions rather than under the agitation of any violent feeling. Here, as everywhere, his life presents a marked contrast to that of Luther.
