At this very time, from 1534 to 1536, whilst Charles was leading a licentious life and dying miserably at Noyon, John left his native land in order that he might openly profess and promulgate his austere faith. At Basle he published the first edition of his 'Institutes of the Christian Religion,' the most solid body of doctrine which the reformed Church possesses. After having wandered for some months in Italy to make proselytes, he established himself at Geneva, in order to organize both the reformed Church and reformed society, and to carry on that fierce struggle with libertines and sceptics in which his life was so rapidly consumed. The family of the Calvins presents a true picture of the period; in the sixteenth century the same thing was going on everywhere, unbelievers and fervent Christians, libertines and men of the most austere lives, were springing up and living side by side. Two contrary winds were blowing over Europe at that period, one carrying with it scepticism and licentiousness, while the other breathed only Christian faith and the severest morality. One of these arose chiefly from the revival of the ancient literature and philosophy of Greece and Rome; the other sprang from the struggles made in the Church itself and in its Councils to arrive at a reform which was at the same time greatly desired and fiercely opposed. These two impulses and these two paths give a special character to the whole of the sixteenth century. It was at the same time the fascinated worshipper of pagan antiquity and the fervent apostle of Christian reform; it was full of impulse and of doubt, of unbridled licence and of rigorous puritanism, fruitful alike in learned sceptics and pious reformers, bold in making use of the fact of liberty without admitting it in principle; it was, in short, the age which produced Erasmus and Luther in Germany, and Montaigne and Calvin in France. {155}