Note 225 — CCXXXVIII.—To Viret.[225]

A peculiar interest attaches to this and the following letter, written under a load of great domestic affliction. Early in April 1549, Calvin lost the worthy partner of his life, Idelette de Bure, whose frail and delicate health gave way under the pressure of a protracted illness, and whose last hours are known to us by the touching picture given of them by the Reformer. The consolations of friendship, and the consideration of the important duties he had to discharge, supported Calvin in this affliction, and the self-control which he manifested during the first days of his bereavement, excited the admiration of his friends. Viret wrote him on this occasion as follows: "Wonderfully and incredibly have I been refreshed, not by empty rumours alone, but especially by numerous messengers who have informed me how you, with a heart so broken and lacerated, have attended to all your duties even better than hitherto ... and that, above all, at a time when grief so fresh, and on that account all the more severe, might have prostrated your mind. Go on then as you have begun ... and I pray God most earnestly that you may be enabled to do so, and that you may receive daily greater comfort and be strengthened more and more."—Letter of 10th April 1549. Calv. Opera, tom. ix. p. 53