In the midst of all this agitation the Reformation was advancing quietly but surely. While the Queen of Navarre boldly professed her living piety in the palace, and preachers proclaimed it from their pulpits to the believing crowd, evangelical men, still in obscurity, were modestly propagating around them a purer and a mightier faith. At this period Calvin spent four years in Paris (1529-1533), where he at first engaged in literature. It might have been thought that he would appear in the world as a man of letters, and not as a reformer. But he soon placed profane studies in the second rank, and devoted himself to the service of God, as we have seen. He would have desired not to enter forthwith upon a career of evangelical activity. 'During this time,' he said, 'my sole object was to live privately, without being known.' He felt the necessity of a time of silence and christian meditation. He would have liked to imitate Paul, who, after his conversion and his first preaching at Damascus, passed several quiet years in Arabia and Cilicia;[338] but he had to combat error around him, and he soon took a step in advance. While Courault and Roussel were preaching in the churches to large audiences and dealing tenderly with the papacy, Calvin, displaying great activity,[339] visited the different quarters of Paris where secret assemblies were held, and there proclaimed a more scriptural, a more complete, and a bolder doctrine. In his discourses he made frequent allusions to the dangers to which those were exposed who desired to live piously; and he taught them at the same time 'what magnanimity believers ought to possess when adversity draws them on to despair.'—'When things do not go as we wish,' he said, 'sadness comes over the mind and makes us forget all our confidence. But the paternal love of God is the foundation of an invincible strength which overcomes every trial. The divine favour is a shelter against all storms, from whatever quarter they may come.' And he usually ended his discourses, we are told, with these words: '_If God be for us, who can be against us?_'[340] Mere preaching did not satisfy Calvin: he entered into communication with all who desired a purer religion,[341] made them frequent visits, and conversed seriously with them. He avoided no one, and cultivated the friendship of those whom he had formerly known. He advanced step by step, but he was always busy, and the doctrine of the Gospel made some progress every day. All persons rendered the strongest testimony to his piety.[342] The friends of the Word of God gathered round him, and among them were many burgesses and common people, but there were nobles and college professors also.