Calvin's Last hours

John Calvin died aged 55 in 1564. His health had been ruined for most of his life by the harshnes of early college life and the intensity of his studies. He laboured on regardless, and achieved far more than any healthy man does today on behalf of God's Kingdom. During his last hours, he said goodbye to the Pastors of Geneva, and amongst some of his last words to them were these:

…When I first came to this church, there was, as it were, nothing. There was preaching and that was all. They sought out idols and burnt them, but there was no reformation. Everything was in confusion. There was good old Master Guillaume [Farel] and blind Coraud, who was not born blind, but became blind at Basle.
There was also Master Antoine Saunier and that fine preacher Froment who used to leave his shop and go into the pulpit and then go back to his shop, where he continued chatting and thus preached a double sermon.
My life here has been spent in strange conflicts. In the evening at my own front door I have been greeted with derision by fifty or sixty blunderbuss shots. Can you imagine how that would astonish a poor, timid, scholar, such as I am, and always have been, I readily confess. Then after I was thrown out of the town, I went to Strasbourg, where having stayed some time, I was recalled. But I did not have any less difficulty than previously when I wished to take over my responsibility. They set the dogs at my tail crying, "Knave! Knave!" and they took me by the legs and by the gown. I went to the council of the two hundred when they were fighting and I held back the others who wanted to be there but who were not built for that sort of work… And when I went in, they said to me, "Sir, withdraw, it is not you that we are aiming at." I said to them, "I shall not do so. Come now, evil-doers, kill me and my blood will rise against you, these very benches will require it of you." Thus I have been in the midst of many a struggle, and you shall undergo others which shall be no less, but even greater. For you are a perverse and unhappy nation, and although there are people of goodwill among you, the nation is perverse and evil. You will have much to do when God has taken me. For although I am nothing, I know that I have prevented three thousand tummults which might have taken place in Geneva. But take courage and strengthen yourselves, for God will use this church and will maintain it; I assure you, that God will keep it.
I have had much infirmity with which you have had to bear, and even the total of all I have done has been worth nothing. Evil men will take this word up, but I will say that all I have done has been worth nothing, and that I am a miserable creature. But I can say, that I desired your good, that my vices have always displeased me and the root of the fear of God was in my heart…
As to my doctrine I have taught faithfully and God has granted me the grace of being able to write, which I have done as faithfully as I have been able, and I Have not corrupted one single passage of Scripture nor twisted it, as far as I know, and when I might well have brought in subtle meanings, if I had studied subtlety, I have trampled the whole underfoot, and I have always studied to be simple. I have written nothing out of hatred against anyone but I have always set before me faithfully what I consdered was for the glory of God…
On my return from Strasbourg I drew up the Catechism in haste, for I would never have wished to accept the ministry unless they had sworn to be faithful on these two matters, to wit, to keep the Catechism and discipline; and as I wrote it they came and got the pieces of paper as broad as your hand and took them to the printing press. Although Master Pierre Viret was in the town, do you think that I ever showed him anything of it? I never had the leisure to; I had sometimes thought that I might set my hand to the task if I had the leisure.
As to the Sunday prayers, I took the Strasbourg form, and borrowed the greater part of it. Of the others I could not take them from there, for not a word of them existed, but I took them all from the Scripture.
I was constrained to draw up the form of the baptismal service when I was at Strasbourg and when they brought me Anabaptist children from five or ten leagues around to baptize them. It was a rough service that I drew up but I advise you not to change it.

A few days later his old friend and fellow warrior, Farel, came from Neuchatel to see him. Calvin breathed his last on May 27, 1564, at the setting of the sun. He was buried very simply in the cemetry of Plainpalais. No stone marks his grave. Thus died without glory, the man who throughout his life that to God Alone belongs all the glory.

From Jean Cadier's biography of Calvin, "The Man God Mastered."