SKETCH OF MICHAEL SERVE TUS. 97 



to bring religion back to more winning simplicity and purity. Hav- 

 ing made a MS. copy of it, he sent it to Calvin, requesting an opinion 

 on its merits. It was on its reception that, writing to his friend Farel, 

 Calvin made use of the following language : " Servetus wrote to me 

 lately, and besides his letter sent me a great volume full of his ravings, 

 telling me with audacious arrogance that I should there find things 

 stupendous and unheard of until now. He offers to come hither if I 

 approve ; but I will not pledge my faith to him : for, did he come, if I 

 have any authority here, I should never suffer him to go away alive." 

 "We see already by what feeling Calvin was animated : he hates the 

 man who did not acknowledge his superiority, as he was accustomed to 

 see others do, and who dared to criticise his opinions. Not only did 

 he not even condescend to offer any strictures upon Servetus's work, 

 but he never sent back the MS., although repeatedly asked for it. 



Servetus, who had kept another copy for himself, determined to 

 have the book printed anonymously. Arrangements were made with 

 Balthasar Arnoullet, printer at Vienne, and, as secrecy was of capi- 

 tal importance, a small house away from the known printing-establish- 

 ment was taken; type, cases, and a press, were there set up, and in a 

 period of between three and four months an edition of 1,000 copies 

 was successfully worked off. The whole impression was then made 

 up into bales of 100 copies each, and confided to friends at Lyons, 

 Frankfort, etc., for safe-keeping, until the moment of putting them in 

 the market abroad had come. 



The book on " The Restoration of Christianity " comprises a series 

 of disquisitions on the speculative and practical principles of Chris- 

 tianity as apprehended by the author ; thirty of the letters he had 

 written to Calvin ; and other writings of minor importance. It is in 

 this book that Servetus shows himself the most far-sighted physiologist 

 of his age, by anticipating the discovery of the circulation of the blood. 



Through Frelon a copy of the book, " hot from the press," was 

 especially addressed to " Monsieur Johann Calvin, minister of Geneva." 

 We leave for the reader to imagine what additional anger must now 

 have entered the Reformer's heart, when, besides the offensive and, as 

 he regarded it, heretical matter of the book, he found the letters 

 written to him made public, himself publicly schooled, his most 

 cherished doctrines proclaimed derogatory to God, and some of them 

 as barring the gates of heaven ! What the reader, perhaps, could not 

 imagine is, that the "high-minded" man who had emphatically de- 

 nounced the " right of the sword " in dealing with heresy, was now 

 ready to become instrumental in having it applied to Servetus. He 

 became the denunciator of Servetus to the Catholic authorities of 

 Vienne ; he betrayed friendship and trust by furnishing them with 



Of the thousand copies printed, two only are now known to survive : one amon<r the treas- 

 ures of the National Library of Paris, the other among these of the Imperial Library 

 of Vienna. 



VOL. XII. 7 



