This English edition of the epistolary writings of Calvin, complete in four volumes, contains six hundred sixty-eight letters, last discourses, and an appendix of eighteen additional letters. The letters here are selected from the Paris edition, which embraces the originals of all that are extant, and represent our most complete English edition of Calvin's letters. The industry of Calvin and the reach of his power, as disclosed in these products of his pen, are well sketched in a few lines of the preface. Invested, in virtue of his surpassing genius, with an almost universal apostolate, he wielded an influence as varied and as plastic as his activity. He exhorts with the same authority the humble ministers of the Gospel and the powerful monarchs of England, Sweden, and Poland. He holds communion with Luther and Melanchthon, animates Knox, encourages Coligny, Conde, Jeanne d'Albret, and the Duchess of Ferrara; while in his familiar letters to Farel, Viret, and Theodore Beza, he pours out the overflowings of a heart filled with the deepest and most acute sensibility.