One thought absorbed him at the time he left Poitiers. It was the month of April 1534; on the 10th of July he would be twenty-five years old. A regulation of the Church, confirmed by the Council of Trent, fixed this as the age at which those who have received the tonsure were promoted to the priesthood. In early youth he had received the tonsure, that symbol of sacerdotal royalty, borrowed (St. Jerome tells us) from the pagan priests of Isis and Serapis;[136] and his age now summoned him to enter holy orders. He did not want for friends who advised him to remain in the Church for its reformation; the chapel of Gesine at Noyon, and the cure of Pont l'Evêque awaited him, and many other doors would open before him. He was invited to come and put himself in due order. But Calvin shrank in alarm from the idea of enrolling himself among the pope's soldiers. 'If I make myself the pope's vassal,' he said, 'how can I conscientiously fight against the papists?... The sovereign majesty of God would be offended!... I would sooner give up not only one benefice, but a hundred, even of the most brilliant.[137] O cursed wealth of the Church! There is not a single penny of it that is not defiled with cheating, sacrilege, and robbery!' There was no ecclesiastical dignity to which a mind so preeminently administrative might not aspire. But Calvin was convinced that to save the Church it was necessary to sacrifice Rome. Two paths lay before him: one broad and easy, the other narrow and difficult: his choice was not doubtful. 'The Gospel,' he said, 'is more than all the riches, honour, and ease of this world.... I am ready to give up everything that withdraws me from it.' Calvin left Poitiers, accompanied by his faithful Du Tillet, who for two years scarcely ever quitted him. The young canon was one of those honest but weak natures who have absolute need of a support, and who not knowing how to find it in the word of God, seek it in strong men. He therefore attached himself to the young reformer, as the vine to the elm. Alas! the day was to come, when terrified by persecution, and unable to make up his mind to break with the Church, he would cling to the papacy and take that for his support. [Sidenote: IMPRESSION HE LEFT AT POITIERS.] A surprising transformation had been effected in Poitiers, and Calvin left behind him many regrets and tears. 'Oh! would to God that we had many Calvins!' wrote Charles de Ste. Marthe, one of the professors of the university. 'I am distressed that you have been taken from us; I envy the country where you are, and my only consolation is that our university is now filled with pious and learned men. Pray to God that, by the Spirit of Christ, we may worthily proclaim the Gospel, in the midst of our enemies and even in the midst of the flames.'[138]