Nevertheless discipline was not the essential characteristic of Farel, Calvin, and their friends: they were in a special degree men of faith and of a living faith. In their eyes faith was the one thing needful—the good thing above all others. They desired that man should be holy and do good works; but for that, he must believe in the love which God had shown him in Christ. Faith, according to the reformers, is the presiding principle of morality. If a man has faith, he is a child of God; if he has not, he is under the dominion of sin. Moreover Farel did not want a purely negative reform, which should consist in merely rejecting the pope; he wanted it to be positive, and to that end it was necessary that the people should believe in Jesus Christ. Lastly, Farel saw disunion and disputes in Geneva. In order that the community, the new Church, should be strong, it ought not to be composed (he thought) of scattered members, opposed perhaps to one another; it must form a single body, and glorify God with one voice and one heart. He desired, therefore, that a public profession of faith in the Gospel should be made at Geneva. As sovereignty in matters of state belongs to the assembly of all the citizens, it was supposed with still further reason, that to the same body, convened according to the ancient customs, belonged the right of proclaiming the evangelical doctrine. On Friday, the 19th of May, Farel, accompanied by Antoine Saunier, his old travelling companion in the valleys, and by the pastor Henri de la Mare, appeared before the council. 'Most honored lords,' he said, 'it is of great importance for all the people to live in strict union. To get rid of the quarrels, jeers, reproaches, and dissensions, which the fretful disposition of our nation may occasion every day, we must employ mildness; and, further still, we must manifest our concord. Seeing that there is one only truth of God, all the people should declare their intention to adhere to it with one and the same heart.' The council approved of the proposition, and resolved to call together the council-general for a confession of faith, on Sunday, the 21st of May. At Augsburg it was the priests and doctors who had confessed the doctrine; at Geneva, it was to be the whole nation.[747] The difference between the two reforms is natural. Democracy ruled in Geneva, and it had become all the dearer to the citizens from their conviction that if the liberties of nations had been taken away, the crime lay at the door of the papacy. Calvin has repeated this more than once. It has been said that the communes, the liberties of the Middle Ages, issued from the furrow and the shop.[748] From the _shop_ came specially the liberty of Geneva. The Burgundians who settled there were traders, and willingly exchanged their arms for merchandise. Some of the heroes of Geneva, whose devotedness reminds us of ancient times, sprang from the counter or the factory. [Sidenote: ROMAN-CATHOLICS IN GENEVA.]