In the interference of Berthelier, which we see must have given such umbrage to Calvin, we have the first open indication by the Libertine party of their sympathy with the prisoner; sympathy, real or pretended, that may be said to have sealed the fate of the unhappy Servetus; for the issue, though continuing to be debated on the ground of speculative theology, on which so many questions might be raised and doubts entertained, was henceforth to a certain extent transferred to the domain of politics, on which there was the one practical issue involved, as to who or which party that divided the state of Geneva should have the upper hand. It may be fairly presumed that Calvin, with the great advantage he had in natural talent and acquirements, had no difficulty in satisfying the majority of the Judges of the culpability of Servetus on theological grounds; his opinions differed too obviously from all they had ever been led to believe concerning the Trinity and Infant Baptism, especially, to leave them in any doubt as to this. Servetus differed, in fact, on every point brought forward, from the doctrine familiar to the mind of Geneva--enough of itself to lay him under suspicion; and, accepting Calvin’s interpretation of the incriminated passages of his book, which his Judges must have felt bound in some sort to do, they could have had nothing for it, had the prosecution now insisted on having made out their case, but to proceed to judgment, and pronounce the prisoner guilty. But this was not done; the Judges appear not only to have felt no kind of hostility towards the solitary stranger in the singular and painful position in which he stood, but even to have been moved to something like compassion in his behalf.