Men’s minds were at that time in a state of great agitation. Hostile opinions were not expressed in mawkish phraseology; and the Council, as it was bent on having Calvin at any cost, conveyed its meaning unmistakably. There might be, perhaps, some rudeness of expression; the writing was forcible rather than refined; but we certainly possess in these letters the views of the Genevese magistrates and people, especially of the best among them, respecting Calvin, the authors of his banishment, and the condition of Geneva after his departure. The latitudinarian and often unbelieving spirit of our days would fain reconstruct this history after the fashion of the nineteenth century; but in these documents we have assuredly the impress of the olden time. The chief magistrates of the republic could not possibly have expressed themselves as they did if their statement of facts could have been contradicted by the people, their contemporaries, as they have been several centuries afterwards. The syndics who signed these letters were not upstarts raised to office by a party. They had long been in the Council, and all of them had previously been syndics, one in 1540, two of the others in 1537, and one of these two as early as 1534, and the fourth in 1535.[87] It is not to be doubted that the view taken at this epoch by the chiefs of the Genevese nation will be likewise the view of impartial and enlightened men of every age. It has been said that the faction which expelled Calvin does not deserve the grave reproaches which have been cast upon it by modern historians. The syndics and councils of 1541 can hardly be placed in the ranks of modern historians. These letters were everywhere well received. The pastors of Zurich wrote word to the Council of Geneva that their Council, eager to give them pleasure, had written to the Council and the ministers of Strasburg, and likewise to Calvin at Ratisbon, begging the former to press Calvin, and requesting the latter to comply with the call from Geneva.[88] This testimony, borne by the leading men in the State and in the Church at Zurich, Basel, and Strasburg, after they had received the letters of which we have just given some account, is a confirmation of their contents, and shows that the view set forth in them was the opinion of European Protestantism, ever ready to do homage to the greatest theologian, who was, at the same time, one of the greatest men and greatest writers of the age. [Sidenote: Calvin And Farel.]