pastors by the laying on of hands; more frequent celebration of the Holy Supper, according to the practice of the primitive Church.[140] They confessed that perhaps they had been too severe; on this personal matter they were willing to be guided.[141] They listened with humility to the exhortations of some of the members of the Synod, who prayed them to use more gentleness in dealing with an undisciplined people. But on the question of principle and on the rights of the Church set over against the State, they were firm. It was probably the first time that the Erastians of eastern Switzerland had listened to such High Church doctrine; but they accepted it and made it their own for the time being at least. The Synod decided to write to the Council of Geneva and ask them to have patience with their preachers and receive them back again; and they asked the deputies from Bern to charge themselves with the affair, and do their best to see Farel and Calvin reinstated in Geneva. The deputies of Bern accepted the commission, and the Geneva pastors went back to Bern to await the arrival of the Bern deputies from Zurich. They waited, full of anxiety, for nearly fourteen days. Then the Bern Council were ready to fulfil the request of the Synod.[142] Deputies were appointed, and, accompanied by Farel and Calvin, set out for Geneva. The two pastors waited on the frontier at Noyon or at Genthod while the deputies of Bern went on to Geneva. They had an audience of the Council (May 23rd), were told that the Council could not revoke what all three Councils had voted. The Council of the Two Hundred refused to recall the pastors. The Council General (May 26th) by a unanimous vote repeated the sentence of exile, and forbade the three pastors (Farel, Calvin, and Coraut) to set foot on Genevan territory. Driven from Geneva, Calvin would fain have betaken himself to a quiet student life; but he was too well known and too much valued to be left in the obscurity he longed for. Strassburg claimed him to minister to the French refugees who had settled within its protecting walls. He was invited to attend the Protestant conference at Frankfurt; he was present at the union conferences at Hagenau, at Worms, and at Regensburg. There he met the more celebrated German Protestant divines, who welcomed him as they had done no one else from Switzerland. Calvin put himself right with them theologically by signing at once and without solicitation the Augsburg Confession, and aided thereby the feeling of union among all Protestants. He kindled in the breast of Melanchthon one of those romantic friendships which the frail Frenchman, with the pallid face, black hair, and piercing eyes, seemed to evoke so easily. Luther himself appreciated his theology even on his jealously guarded theory of the Sacrament of the Holy Supper.