The same year he was married to a widow, Idelette de Burie, who was a worthy, well-read, high-minded woman, with whom he lived happily for nine years, until her death. She was superior to Luther's wife, Catherine Bora, in culture and dignity, and was a helpmate who never opposed her husband in the slightest matter, always considering his interests. Esteem and friendship seem to have been the basis of this union,--not passionate love, which Calvin did not think much of. When his wife died it seems he mourned for her with decent grief, but did not seek a second marriage, perhaps because he was unable to support a wife on his small stipend as she would wish and expect. He rather courted poverty, and refused reasonable gratuities. His body was attenuated by fasting and study, like that of Saint Bernard. When he was completing his "Institutes," he passed days without eating and nights without sleeping. And as he practised poverty he had a right to inculcate it. He kept no servant, lived in a small tenement, and was always poorly clad. He derived no profit from any of his books, and the only present he ever consented to receive was a silver goblet from the Lord of Varennes. Luther's stipend was four hundred and fifty florins, and he too refused a yearly gift from the booksellers of four hundred dollars, not wishing to receive a gratuity for his writings.
Calvin's salary was only fifty dollars a year, with a house, twelve measures of corn and two pipes of wine; for tea and coffee were then unknown in Europe, and wine seems to have been the usual beverage, after water. He was pre-eminently a conscientious man, not allowing his feelings to sway his judgment. He was sedate and dignified and cheerful; though Bossuet accuses him of a surly disposition,--un genre triste, un esprit chagrin. Though formal and stern, women never shrank from familiar conversation with him on the subject of religion. Though intolerant of error, he cherished no personal animosities. Calvin was more refined than Luther, and never like him gave vent to coarse expressions. He had not Luther's physical strength, nor his versatility of genius; nor as a reformer was he so violent. "Luther aroused; Calvin tranquillized." The one stormed the great citadel of error, the other furnished the weapons for holding it after it was taken. The former was more popular; the latter appealed to a higher intelligence. The Saxon reformer was more eloquent; the Swiss reformer was more dialectical. The one advocated unity; the other theocracy. Luther was broader; Calvin engrafted on his reforms the Old Testament observances. The watchword of the one was Grace;that of the other was Predestination. Luther cut knots; Calvin made systems. Luther destroyed; Calvin legislated. His great principle of government was aristocratic. He wished to see both Church and State governed by a select few of able men. In all his writings we see no trace of popular sovereignty. He interested himself, like Savonarola, in political institutions, but would separate the functions of the magistracy from those of the clergy;and he clung to the notion of a theocratic government, like Jewish legislators and the popes themselves. The idea of a theocracy was the basis of Calvin's system of legislation, as it was that of Leo I. He desired that the temporal power should rule, in the name of God,--should be the arm by which spiritual principles should be enforced. He did not object to the spiritual domination of the popes, so far as it was in accordance with the word of God. He wished to realize the grand idea which the Middle Ages sought for, but sought for in vain,--that the Church must always remain the mother of spiritual principles; but he objected to the exercise of temporal power by churchmen, as well as to the interference of the temporal power in matters purely spiritual,--virtually the doctrine of Anselm and Becket. But, unlike Becket, Calvin would not screen clergymen accused of crime from temporal tribunals; he rather sought the humiliation of the clergy in temporal matters. He also would destroy inequalities of rank, and do away with church dignitaries, like bishops and deans and archdeacons; and he instituted twice as many laymen as clergymen in ecclesiastical assemblies. But he gave to the clergy the exclusive right to excommunicate, and to regulate the administration of the sacraments. He was himself a high-churchman in his spirit, both in reference to the divine institution of the presbyterian form of government and the ascendancy of the Church as a great power in the world.