This measure of the people of Geneva was a large one, but the Council did not stop there. Fearing, with good reason, that Strasburg would wish to keep to herself the great man whom Geneva had banished, they addressed two distinct letters to the ministers and the magistrates of Zurich and Basel, begging them to support their request at Strasburg. They wrote also to the Council and the ministers of the latter town. As these letters are important and very little known, it may be proper to give some passages from them. ‘You are not ignorant,’ said the Genevese syndics and senate in their letter to the pastors, ‘that our ministers have been unjustly driven from our town, not in the regular course of justice, but rather as the result of much injustice, tumult, and conspiracy; and you know the troubles and horrible scandals in which we have been thereby plunged.[81] For an evil so dangerous there is no remedy but the presence of able, prudent, and God-fearing pastors, qualified to repair this disaster. We, therefore, have recourse to you who have given us abundant evidence of your tender solicitude for our Church, endeavoring to persuade our magistrate to reinstate in the ministry our faithful ministers Farel, Calvin, and Courault. This could not be effected at the time because of the harshness and obstinacy of the perpetrators of the disturbances; and thus a great multitude of just and pious men were plunged in distress and tears.[82] But now our most merciful Father having visited us in his goodness, we beg you to use your endeavors to restore to us our faithful pastors, who were rejected by men that were seeking the gratification of their own evil desires rather than the will of God.’[83] In such terms did the syndics and the Council of Geneva request the ministers of the towns to which they applied to aid them in recovering their pastors.