He took up his abode at Paris with Etienne de la Forge, a wealthy merchant, and an ardent partisan of the Reformation, 'whose memory,' says Calvin, 'ought to be venerated by the faithful as that of a martyred saint of Christ.' He was, in fact, burnt at the stake a few years later. At his house the faithful reformers, who were already fiercely persecuted, were in the habit of meeting in secret. Calvin frequently addressed these meetings; he spoke with a confidence which carried conviction to his hearers, and almost always ended his discourses with the words: 'If God be for us, who can be against us?' His indefatigable activity and already wide-spread influence soon attracted the attention of enemies as well as friends. 'In the midst of his books and studies, he was,' says Etienne Pasquier, 'of such a restless nature, that he must still be doing the very utmost to promote the advancement of his sect. Our prisons were sometimes crowded with poor misguided men, whom he exhorted, consoled, and strengthened unceasingly by his letters; he never failed to find messengers to whom the prison doors were open in spite of all the efforts of the jailers to keep them out. This was his method of proceeding at first, and it was by such means that little by little he won over part of our France.' {161} Nevertheless, Calvin still remembered that not long previously he had himself been a Catholic, and at this time he showed a consideration for the institutions and members of his ancient Church, and a moderation both of judgment and language, which gave way, only too soon, to violence and invective. On the 29th of June, 1531, he wrote from Paris to Francis Daniel, one of his fellow-students at Orleans, as follows:-- 'I went to the monastery on Sunday to see the nuns, and, according to your wish, to fix the day on which your sister should take the vows. They informed me that, at a meeting held by the sisters, in accordance with a solemn custom, she and some of her companions had been already authorized to take the vows. I sounded your sister's heart, that I might learn if she accepted this yoke meekly, and if her neck had not been broken rather than bent to it. I exhorted her to confide freely in me all that was passing in her soul. I have never seen any one more ready and resolute, and it would be impossible to accomplish her desire too soon. Every time that she heard her vow spoken of one would have said that she was playing with dolls. It was no part of my mission to try and turn her aside from this feeling, but I urged her in a few words not to go beyond her strength, not to expect anything rashly from herself, but to place her whole trust in God, in whom we live and move and have our being.' {162}