I do not think that Calvin ever felt any hesitation or regret as to his own conduct during the trial of Servetus. He believed in his right and duty to suppress heresy in this manner, as sincerely as Servetus believed in the truth of his own opinions; and his most intimate friends, instead of trying to soften him, endeavoured to confirm his severity. Farel wrote, on the 8th of September, 1553: 'You desire to mitigate the severity of his sentence, and in so doing you would act the part of a friend towards him who is your greatest enemy. But I beseech you to proceed in such a manner that hereafter no one shall seek to promulgate new doctrines with impunity and throw all into confusion as Servetus has done. It is absurd to conclude that because the Pope accuses faithful believers of the crime of heresy, and infuriated judges condemn these innocent victims to tortures reserved for heretics, that therefore we must never put heretics to death for the sake of ensuring the safety of true believers. For my own part, I have often said that I was ready to suffer death if I taught anything contrary to true doctrine; and I have added that I should deserve the most frightful torments if I turned any away from faith in Christ.' Even the most advanced advocates of liberty did not go so far as to say that honest error could not be crime. {328} Servetus himself, when he was accused of saying that the soul was mortal, exclaimed, 'If ever I said that, and not only said it but published it and infected the whole world, I would condemn myself to death.' Nevertheless, either from instinctive justice or influenced by the caution which their position required, many, even of those reformers who were strongly attached to the Calvinistic doctrines, were averse to the capital punishment of heretics; and would not tolerate the reproduction, in their own church, of the cruelty which they protested against in the Church of Rome. These honest scruples were supported by the authority of some of their most illustrious leaders. At the very commencement of the struggle, Luther had said: 'The burning of heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit.' Calvin himself, not long before the trial of Servetus, reproved a young Italian refugee towards whom he entertained very friendly feelings, for holding opinions which in many respects resembled those of the Spanish physician, but he expressed his disapprobation with almost paternal tenderness. It is not without surprise that I have found among his letters one which, in 1551, he wrote to Lælius Socinus, [Footnote 124] of Siena, uncle of that Faustus Socinus who, at a later period, founded the Socinian heresy. [Footnote 124: Sozzini.]