The friends of the Gospel and of light set earnestly to work. It was necessary to persuade Melancthon, the Elector, and the protestants of Germany, which might be a task of some difficulty. But the mediators did not shrink from before obstacles; they raised powerful batteries; they stretched the strings of their bow, and made a great effort to carry the fortress. Sturm, in particular, spared no exertions. The free courses he was giving at the Royal College, his lectures on Cicero, his logic, which, instead of preparing his disciples (among whom was Peter Ramus) for barren disputes, developed and adorned their minds—nothing could stop him. Sturm was not only an enlightened man, a humanist, appreciating the Beautiful in the productions of genius, but he had a deep feeling of the divine grandeur of the Gospel. Men of letters in those times, especially in Italy, were often negative in regard to the things of God, light in their conduct, without moral force, and consequently incapable of exercising a salutary influence over their contemporaries. Such was not Sturm: and while those _beaux-esprits_, those wits were making a useless display of their brilliant intelligence in drawing-rooms, that eminent man exhibited a Christian faith and life: he busied himself in the cultivation of all that is most exalted, and during his long career, never ceased from enlightening his contemporaries.[689] ‘The future of French protestantism is in your hands,’ he wrote to Bucer; ‘Melancthon’s answer and yours will decide whether the evangelicals are to enjoy liberty, or undergo the most cruel persecutions. When I see Francis I. meditating the revival of the Church, I recognize God, who inclines the hearts of princes. I do not doubt his sincerity; I see no hidden designs, no political motives; although a German by birth, I do not share my fellow-countrymen’s suspicions about him. The king, I am convinced, wishes to do all he can to reform the Church, and to give liberty of conscience to the French.’[690] Such was, then, the hope of the most generous spirits—such the aim of their labors.