Shut up with his books in the room he occupied at Catherine Klein's, Calvin thought day and night of these cruel accusations, and his noble soul felt indignant not only that the children of the heavenly Father should be forced to suffer atrocious punishments, but that it was attempted to defame their characters. 'These court practisers,' he said, 'load the holy martyrs after their death with undeserved blame and vile calumnies, and endeavour to hide the disgrace of this shedding of innocent blood under cowardly disguises. They thus put poor believers to death, and no one is able to have compassion on them.'[343] The young doctor saw himself between two rivers of blood—that of his brethren already immolated, and that of other Christians who would certainly be immolated in their turn. He had not been able to prevent the death of a Milon and a La Forge; but he would at least try to turn away the sword that threatened other lives. 'If I do not oppose it righteously and to the best of my ability,' said Calvin, 'I shall fairly be called cowardly and disloyal on account of my silence.' He will speak, he will rush between the executioners and their victims. A heavenly word rang through his soul: _Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction_.[344] He therefore formed one of those resolutions which, in a character such as his, are unalterable. 'I will obey Him who speaks to me from on high,' he said. 'I will reply to the wicked tales that are circulated against my brethren; and as similar cruelties may be practised against many other believers, I will endeavour to touch foreign nations with some compassion in their favour. Such was the reason,' he adds, 'which moved me to publish the _Institutes of the Christian Religion_.'[345] Never had noble book so noble an origin. Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Tertullian had written their _Apologies_ by the light of the stakes of the second century; Calvin wrote his by the light of those of the sixteenth. The publication of the _Christian Institutes_ was the pitiful cry of a compassionate soul at the sight of those who were going to the stake. [Sidenote: THEOLOGY RESTORED.]