Calvin's Love of his friends surpassed all else On Earth

I won't reiterate what I have alluded to in past blog posts, suffice to say when my suffering inceases,  I feel my losses very deeply, particuarly one loss. And John Calvin at the loss of a friend, was no different.  I find comfort from that. Because even though John Calvin and  I share much as far as providences that are alike in some ways,  Calvin was never as alone as I. And if he felt his losses  so deeply, when I am totally alone, then I don't think its unnatural that I feel my losses so deeply, particuarly the one loss,  upon times of increased illness or when the dark clouds come.

He was not the emotionless stoic that he is often portrayed:

It is more than clear that he experienced deep emotions. After the death of his colleague, Courault, he wrote that he was a wreck and that in his grief he hardly knew the time of day. Throughout the day he would think back to it and could hardly do his work, and these torments during the daylight hours, were followed by the horrors of the night…He reguarly wrote of his tears and pain. Sometimes he claimed to have no idea what to do, and wanted to die. When he heard that Bucer had passed away, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of lonliness and wished that all his friends would outlive him so that he at any rate could die in joy. [Herman-Selderhuis]

He was to write to his friend, Laurent de Normandie: "There are different kinds of internal bonds that tie people together, but no blood relationship nor any other type can surpass our love."

John Calvin was not the stoic, icy intellectual he is often portrayed as being. No Calvinist should be,  so it would be a bit rife if the man whose name bears the Calvinists name was so himself.  Again it is a myth, a fable, fiction, made up by enemies of the truth, enemies of Calvin and allies of the devil.  But I take comfort to see how Calvin grieved, because quite often  I feel a failure because of the depths of greif I can feel myself. Yet when sick unto death, totally alone to boot,  given a great man like Calvin's grief, I don't think it should be so suprising for a  Christian nowhere near Calvin's calibre to feel it so deeply.

John Calvin--A Pilgrim's Life by Herman J. Selderhuis