Chapter 76 of 325

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‘What shall I say of his indefatigable industry, even beyond the power of nature, which being paralleled with our loitering, I fear will exceed all credit, and may be a true object of admiration, how his lean, worn, spent,and weary body could possibly hold out? He read every week in the year three divinity lectures, and every other week over and above; he preached every day, so that (as Erasmus says of Chrysostom) I do not know, whether to admire the indefatigableness of the man more than his hearers. Indeed, some have reckoned up, that his lectures were yearly one hundred and eighty-six; his sermons two hundred and eighty-six, besides. Thursday he sat in the presbytery,’ etc. etc. Clark’s Lives. Calvin’s own account in one of his letters to Farel, says, ‘When the messenger called for my book (the Commentary on the Romans), I had twenty sheets to revise—to preach—to read to the congregation—to write forty-two letters—to attend to some controversies—and to return answers to more than ten persons, who interrupted me in the midst of my labours, for advice.’

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