He arrived at Strasburg in the early part of September 1538, and preached with his accustomed success before the assembled French refugees. The magistrates immediately authorized him to organize a religious congregation of his countrymen, he received the right of citizenship, was appointed professor of theology, and commenced a life of study and religious instruction, the only life that was in harmony, so he said, 'with my timid, weak, and even pusillanimous nature.' Wearied and disgusted with his first combat, he was far from foreseeing the destiny for which he was reserved, as the heroic champion of the reformed faith. {233} No sooner was he settled at Strasburg than he was unexpectedly called upon to take up arms in defence of Geneva, the city which had just banished him. In April 1539, Cardinal Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, one of the most learned, most highly esteemed, and moderate of the prelates at the court of Rome, wrote a long letter to the Genevese, with the object of inducing them to return to the bosom of the Church of Rome. The banishment of Calvin had probably inspired him with some hope of the possibility of such an event. The letter was singularly prudent and temperate, free from all personal attack and special controversy: its sole aim was to urge the following argument, that eternal salvation being the first and chief interest of the human soul, there was more certainty of obtaining it by faith and humble submission to the Catholic church, than by accepting the audacious and vagrant doctrines of the innovators. The cardinal made numerous appeals to the authority of St. Paul, the favourite apostle of the reformers; and he ended his letter with an eloquent description of the different positions in which two Christians would find themselves at the Day of Judgment, in presence of the Supreme Judge, one of whom had humbly obeyed the teaching and authority of the Church, whilst the other had set up his own intellect and his own will as the law of his faith and life. Without a single reproach or threat, and in a tone of confident though sorrowful affection, the cardinal recalled the children who had gone astray, warned them of their great danger, and entreated them to return to the home of their fathers. {234}