Thus was fulfilled a prophecy of Bonivard, uttered ten years before. It will be remembered that in 1528 some of the Genevese, who were desirous of the Reformation only that they might get rid of the priests, with their vices and their superstitions, having declared to the prior of the depraved ecclesiastics of St. Victor that they wished to put in their place ministers of the Gospel who would introduce a true Christian Reformation, Bonivard replied to them, ‘If you wish to reform others, ought you not in the first place to reform yourselves? Animals that live on the same meat naturally hate one another. It is just the same with us. We are unchaste; so are you. We are drunkards; you are the same. We are swearers, blasphemers; so are you. You want to drive us away, you say, to put Lutheran ministers in our place.... Gentlemen, take great care what you undertake to do. According to their doctrine, a man will be prohibited from gaming and from giving himself up to debauchery, and that under a heavy penalty. How that will vex you! You will not have had them for two years before you will regret us.’[653] Bonivard spoke candidly and even rudely, but his words fully confirm the testimony and the complaints of Calvin, of Farel, and of Rozet. It is all true, even to the time fixed by the prior--_not two years_. Farel and Calvin undoubtedly showed themselves in this business subject to human weaknesses. As they were both men of strong character, they easily stimulated each other to an inflexibility to which they were naturally inclined. Calvin himself tells us that the prudent Bucer, at a later period, wished that they should not live together, lest the influence which they had over each other should be hurtful to them.[654] They have said themselves that they might have displayed more gentleness. But it is impossible not to acknowledge that they did what fidelity to the Gospel demanded of them. The question about the bread was a little pennant raised by the councils, in opposition to the great evangelical banner courageously borne by Calvin and Farel. The two classes of combatants in this warm affair were representatives of two systems which not only bore no resemblance to each other but were diametrically opposed. If the reformers had given way, the great cause of religion and of morals would have been injured, the dignity of their ministry lowered, and their activity for the extension of the kingdom of God in Geneva fettered, perhaps rendered impossible. Their compliance in such a case would have been not only blameworthy, it would have been blamed. It was for them the question of ‘To be or not to be.’ They were bound to strive to win the victory; and if they failed to conquer, then they were bound to suffer as witnesses to the rejected truth. They had neglected no means of scaling the citadel, and of planting on it their noble flag. They had failed, and it only remained for them to retreat, conquered and yet in reality conquerors;