At the time when magistrates who were better disposed towards Calvin were called to the government of the republic, a door was opened on another side which revealed to the reformer a new world, Germany with her doctors and her princes. Calvin was living on the banks of the Rhine at the period when the emperor was convoking frequent and important assemblies, which were attended by the princes either in person or by their delegates, and in which they discussed the deepest questions of theology with as much eagerness as diplomatists in congress discuss the interests of their respective governments. From the year 1535 to 1539 Protestantism had been gaining in strength; it had made many conquests in North Germany, and appeared to be on the point of winning the decisive victory. The Catholics were beginning to lose heart, and the successive congresses at which they required the Protestants to come to terms with them might well lead one to call them a weakened army which desired only favorable conditions for lowering its flag. Calvin watched with his keen eye this astonishing process. He continually asserted in his letters that it was not the existence of one Church (that of Geneva), but of all Churches, that was at stake. There were moments when he thought that he had a glimpse of the triumph of the Gospel in Europe; at other times he was seized with great despondency. There was a conflict within him. His natural timidity led him to shrink from appearing in the Germanic assemblies; but his faith and his zeal for the kingdom of God made him long to take part in them. [Sidenote: CONFERENCE AT FRANKFORT.]