like the morning-star, and our righteousness to shine like the sun.’ But he endeavors chiefly to console the believers of Geneva. ‘Be not cast down because it hath pleased the Lord to humble you for a time, for he lifts up the humble out of the dust and takes the poor from the dunghill. He gives the manna of joy to those who are in tears; he gives back light to them that sit in darkness, and he restores to life them that walk in the shadow of death. Be of good courage then, and endure with patience the chastening of his hand, until the time that he reveal his grace to you.’[744] It is impossible not to recognize the wisdom and the Christian charity which have left their impress on this letter. It is indeed a pastor that speaks. Calvin was so far from the excessive strictness imputed to him that he wrote at the same time to Farel--‘If we find in any Church the ministry of the Word and the sacraments, it is better not to separate from it. It is not right even to do so on the ground that some doctrines are not purely taught in it; for there is hardly a Church in existence which does not retain some traces of its former ignorance. It is sufficient for us if the doctrine on which the Church is founded has its place there and keeps it.’[745] Calvin held that there are some doctrines fundamental and vital, essential to salvation; but he acknowledged that there are others on which difference is permissible. [Sidenote: FAREL’S LETTER TO THE GENEVESE.] Farel likewise wrote to the Christians of Geneva. He did so even before Calvin, in June, in August, and again in November. He expressed to them his deep sadness. He would fain be ‘so far away that he could hear nothing of the miserable breaking-up and dispersion of the Church.’ He strives ‘to banish from his heart the pains, the labors that he undertook for that town; for nothing pierces the heart like ingratitude; to see evil rendered for good, hate for love, death and shame in place of the life and the honor which were procured.’ He contents himself with praying for the town and commending it to all who are able to give it any assistance. Meanwhile he cannot help seeing the unhappy condition in which his own friends and all the faithful of Geneva are, deprived of their pastors, and witnessing the triumph of their enemies. He shares largely in their troubles; they are his only trial. ‘I should be too happy,’ he wrote to them, ‘if you were not so unhappy.’ But at the same time he exhorts them to Christian charity and gives evidence of it himself. ‘Cherish in your hearts no rancor,’ he said to his former flock, ‘no root of bitterness, no anger. Do not reproach this man nor that man, but let each one reproach himself: lay all the blame on yourselves and say nothing but good of others. Let God’s holy will be your rule, and not _poor man_ (the natural man), and what is in him.’ He does not hesitate to rebuke his friends. ‘You have not obeyed God wholly, but have halted and swerved to one side and