All these characteristic traits appealed to them. His passion for equality, as strong as the Apostle Paul's, compelled him to take his followers into his confidence, to make them apprehend what he knew to the innermost thoughts of his heart. It forced him to exhibit the reasons for his faith to all who cared to know them, to arrange them in a logical order which would appeal to their understanding, and his passion of conviction assured him and them that what he taught was the very truth of God. Then he was a very great writer,[187] one of the founders of modern French prose, the most exquisite literary medium that exists, a man made to arrest the attention of the people. He wrote all his important works in French for his countrymen, as well as in Latin for the learned world. His language and style were fresh, clear, and simple; without affected elegance or pedantic display of erudition; full of vigour and verve; here, caustic wit which attracted; there, eloquence which spoke to the hearts of his readers because it throbbed with burning passion and strong emotion. It is unlikely that all his disciples in France appreciated his doctrinal system in its details. The _Christian Institution_ appealed to them as the strongest protest yet made against the abuses and scandals of the Roman Church, as containing a code of duties owed to God and man, as exhibiting an ideal of life pure and lofty, as promising everlasting blessedness for the called and chosen and faithful. "It satisfied at one and the same time the intellects which demanded logical proof and the souls which had need of enthusiasm."