The council met after the departure of the reformers and their friends, and again decided that the Lord’s supper should be celebrated the next day, Easter Sunday, according to the rites established at Berne, and not according to those of Geneva; and it decreed that, if the ministers still refused to celebrate it, they should be forbidden to preach. One cannot but be astonished at this decision, and at the mean spirit which it displays on the part of the council. Simple and evangelical usages had been established in Geneva: the citizens had been called upon to take an oath in St. Peter’s church to a confession of faith which in its spirit is entirely in agreement with those practices; and now, in a matter which but little concerns it, in order to gratify the lords of Berne, whom it could easily resist when it chose to do so, the council determined to compel the ministers to observe a ceremony essentially Judaic,[609] even at the risk of seeing worship suspended and the Church overthrown. This looks very much like a pretext, good or bad, which they laid hold of for the purpose of getting rid of the reformers. The chief-usher went in the afternoon to the pastors to communicate the decree to them. He did not find Farel, but Calvin, learning from the officer that the civil magistrate, without waiting for the resolution of the synod of Zurich, was himself deciding this ecclesiastical question, just as if it were an affair of military orders to give to an officer, refused to accept the order. Thereupon the chief-usher, in the name of the council, prohibited his preaching.[610] What to do? This was the question which Calvin put to himself. He longed for unity and peace in Geneva. He appealed afterwards to the Genevese themselves. ‘We take God to witness,’ said he, ‘and your own consciences, in the light of his countenance, that while we have been among you all our exertions have been directed towards preserving you in happy union and pleasing concord. But those who had a mind to form a party by themselves have separated from us, and have introduced division in your Church and in your city.’[611] Lambert’s exclamation, when he spoke aloud of _traitors_ and _false witnesses_, is sufficient to show us what was the state of Geneva at that time. Concord was nothing more than a lovely dream. The most violent passions were called into play. One would have said that God was giving up the inhabitants of the city to the unruly motions of their own hearts; and that is the most terrible chastisement which he ever employs in the punishment of men. Not, indeed, that these motions showed themselves violent alike in all. The lower classes were agitated, like their lake when the north wind, blowing impetuously, lifts up the waves and dashes them furiously on the rocks, the walls, and the banks. But among other classes appearances were better kept up. Nevertheless, if any reason were still left, it was too often only passion that made use of it for its own ends.