PREFATORY ADDRESS.
TO
HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY,
THE MOST MIGHTY AND ILLUSTRIOUS MONARCH,
FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH,
HIS SOVEREIGN;[1]
JOHN CALVIN PRAYS PEACE AND SALVATION IN CHRIST.[2]
Sire,— When I first engaged in this work, nothing was farther from my thoughts than to write what should after wards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness. And I toiled at the task chiefly for the sake of my country men the French, multitudes of whom I perceived to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly imbued with even a slender knowledge of him. That this was the object which I had in view is apparent from the work itself, which is written in a simple and elementary form adapted for instruction.
But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had risen to such a height in your realm, that there was no place in it for sound doctrine, I thought it might be of service if I were in the same work both to give instruction to
