'Of myself I will speak as I think; I will more gladly spend fifteen hours in communicating my judgment with you, in explaining as God pleases to open to me any place of Scripture, than half an hour in any matter beside.' Before six months had passed, however, Knox, who was again abroad, had become troubled by the too great freedom of opinion and the dangers of consequent freedom of life even in the Protestant community, and his letter 'To the Brethren'[67] in Scotland from Dieppe, against Anabaptists and Sectarians, foreshadows the more rigid form which was to be one day impressed upon Church doctrine and life in his native land. During the ensuing year, 1557, everything was peaceful and hopeful. The Protestants kept their worship private, but it spread from town to town, and from the land of one friendly baron to his neighbours' territory. Knox had been formally condemned, but those he left behind were not molested, and in March four of the Lords wrote him to Geneva asking him to return to Scotland. They accompanied this with assurances that though 'the Magistrates in this country' were in the same state as before, the Churchmen there were daily in less estimation. After consulting Calvin, Knox said farewell to his congregation, and had got as far homewards as Dieppe, where he was much disappointed to receive 'contrary letters.' His reply, indignantly acquiescing, indicates the plan which by this time he had formed in order to solve the combined difficulties in theory and practice which beset Scotland. He reminded his correspondents--Glencairn, Lorne, Erskine, and James Stewart--in very memorable words, that they were themselves magistrates, or at least representatives of the people, and had duties accordingly. 'Your subjects, yea, your brethren, are oppressed, their bodies and souls holden in bondage; and God speaketh to your consciences (unless ye be dead with the blind world) that you ought to hazard your own lives (be it against kings and emperors) for their deliverance. For only for that cause are ye called Princes of the people, and ye receive of your brethren honour, tribute and homage at God's commandment; not by reason of your birth and progeny (as the most part of men falsely do suppose), but by reason of your office and duty, which is to vindicate and deliver your subjects and brethren from all violence and oppression, to the utmost of your power.'[68]