During the August of 1536, amongst the crowds of exiles who were daily arriving at the gates of Geneva, one presented himself, a Frenchman, a native of Picardy, young, being only in his twenty-eighth year, of slender figure, and pale face; he had come to rest for the night and depart on the morrow. This man was John Calvin. But though young, and of a modest bearing, he was not without celebrity, both as a scholar and a divine, nor untried as a friend of the Reformation. He was on his way from Rome, with the intention of fixing his permanent residence at Basle or Strasburg; but the war, which was then raging between France and the Empire, compelled him to take a circuitous route by Geneva. But the energetic Farel thought that the author of the Christian Institutes was just the man for Geneva, and urged him to remain. The God of all goodness, he thought, had sent him at that critical moment.
Calvin replied that his education was yet incomplete; that he required still further instruction and application before he should be qualified for so difficult a position as the state of Geneva presented, and begged to be allowed to proceed to Basle or Strasburg. On this, Farel raised his voice as with the authority of a direct messenger from God, and said, "But I declare to you on the part of God, that if you refuse to labor here along with us at the Lord's work, His curse will be upon you; since, under the pretense of your studies, it is yourself that you are seeking, rather than Him." Calvin had hitherto thought that his proper sphere was his library, and the main instrument of work his pen; but feeling overwhelmed by so authoritative a declaration of the will of God, proceeding from so illustrious an apostle of the Reformation, he did not dare to decline the yoke of the ministry evidently imposed on him by the Lord. He gave his hand to Farel, and his heart to the work of the Lord in Geneva. "He was immediately appointed professor of theology, and soon afterward minister of one of the principal parishes. This double occupation afforded space enough for the display of his great qualities, and opened the path to that singular influence, which he afterward acquired, both in church and state." Here he labored for twenty-eight years-with the exception of a brief banishment-and became the great leader in the cause of Protestantism, and the most illustrious chief of the Reformation.