The articles presented to the senate dealt also with the spiritual songs of the Church. If only the minister speak, worship remains cold: but the singing ‘has power to raise our hearts to God,’ said Calvin, ‘and to stimulate us to exalt his name.’ He urged the education of children, ‘in order to correct the wonderful rudeness and ignorance in which they were left through the negligence of their parents, and which is not by any means allowable in the Church of God.’ Then he treated of the order of marriage, ‘a subject involved in much confusion by the pope, who undertook to establish degrees at his own pleasure.’ Calvin closed his articles with an eloquent exhortation to the council. ‘Take not these admonitions,’ said he, ‘as coming from us, but from Him who gives them in his Word. And should any one allege the difficulty of putting them in practice, let it not trouble you; for we must cherish the hope that whenever we are willing to do what God has commanded, His goodness will prosper our enterprise and bring it to a good end, as you yourselves have found by experience to this day.’ Calvin thus set about his task like a great master. A catechism which bore at once the impress of genius and of piety: a confession of faith, pure and living: a Church order which had for its aim the removal of vice and the quickening of piety:--these formed the threefold labor with which the illustrious reformer began his work. [Sidenote: THE ARTICLES APPROVED.] The articles, after being sanctioned by the lower council, were carried the same day before the Council of the Two Hundred, and were allowed. The council further decreed that no shops should be open on Sundays during the time of divine service: that all persons who had images and idols in their houses should destroy them or bring them to be burnt: that no one should sing foolish songs nor play at games of chance: and finally that the syndic Porral and Jean Goulaz should be commissioned to see to the maintenance of good morals in the city, and that people led lives conformed to the will of God.[460] The choice of Porral was very good: that of Goulaz, who was personally no enemy to play or to taverns, was not so good. The council showed by these measures with what seriousness it meant to proceed in the accomplishment of the Reformation. Soon after it adopted another resolution. Many children of Geneva were sent away to various places and intrusted to foreign governors. The council decreed, January 30, that those persons who had children at schools not in Geneva, should have them brought into that town or placed in other _Christian_ schools; that otherwise the said children would be deprived of citizenship.[461] This was a rigorous measure; but it shows what spirit actuated the council, and its zeal in the cause of sound education.