From Dieppe, after having launched across the channel the thunderbolt of the "Faithful Admonition," Knox retired to Geneva, where he enjoyed the friendship of John Calvin and other Swiss divines, and where, though he was now bordering on fifty years of age, he applied himself to the study of Hebrew with all the ardour of youth. But such a man could not long be permitted to enjoy learned leisure. Accordingly we find that in the end of September, 1554, he was called to be one of the pastors of a congregation of English exiles who had found an asylum in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, a city whose inhabitants had early embraced the principles of the Reformation, and befriended refugees from all countries so far as that could be done by them without coming to an open breach with the Emperor. Already a church of French Protestants was in existence there, and on application to the authorities the English exiles obtained the joint use of the place of worship allotted to that congregation, on condition that they should in their {84} service conform as nearly as possible to the forms observed by the French. This was thankfully accepted by the English, who agreed among themselves, be it observed before Knox appeared among them, to give up the audible responses, the Litany, the surplice, and other things which "in these reformed churches would seem more than strange." It is added in the "Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Frankfort" which lies before us as we write, that "as touching the ministration of the sacraments, sundry things were also by common consent omitted as superstitious and superfluous;" and that "after that the congregation had thus concluded and agreed, and had chosen their minister and deacons to serve for a time, they entered their church on the 29th of July."