Caroli, knowing all that could be told of his abandoned life, and as cowardly as he was rash, trembled when he found that Calvin was approaching that subject. In order to break the force of the blow, he retracted his charge, and declared that the writings of his opponent were good; that he had always spoken well of the Holy Trinity; and that no accusation could be drawn up against him, ‘provided that he did not support the cause of Farel.’ Caroli feared Farel less than Calvin, and hated him more. Viret then spoke, and compelled the presumptuous doctor to retract what concerned himself (_Viret_). ‘These retractations are not sufficient,’ said the two reformers; ‘we mean to defend likewise the cause of Farel and of our other absent brothers, whom you have unjustly accused.’ The delegates of Berne, when they saw what an important character the debate was assuming, declared that it was necessary to carry it before a general assembly, and undertook to get one held. The meeting then broke up.[507] These circumstances occurred in February. Calvin, on his return to Geneva, fearing that the Bernese delegates might be slow to fulfil their promise, and perceiving moreover that this affair concerned the Church rather than the state, persuaded the ministers of Geneva to write to the ministers of Berne, pressing them to take the matter in hand.[508] He wrote himself to Megander, the chief among the Bernese pastors. ‘I cannot find words,’ he said, ‘adequately to express the imminent peril to which the Church will be exposed if this business be indefinitely postponed. The influence which your position gives you lays on you more than any one else the obligation to use all your efforts to promote an early meeting of the assembly. You cannot imagine how severely the blow struck by Caroli has shaken the foundation which we have laid. People are saying, especially, even in country places, that we ought to begin by agreeing among ourselves before we think of converting others. Let us not allow the coat of the Gospel, woven in one piece, to be rent by wicked men. Do all that is possible to secure the meeting, before Easter, of all the French-speaking ministers who live under the government of your republic.’[509] Easter fell in that year on April 1.