When we refer to Œcolampadius’s letters,[88] we have no difficulty in believing what Servetus here asserts to be the truth. It was only after Servetus had more thoroughly exposed his opinions in conversation, that the Reformer of Basle saw the _unsoundness_, which had not appeared in the confession of faith sent him at an earlier period by his correspondent. And here let us observe that, whilst Œcolampadius is now particularly cited, nothing is said of Capito, still a Minister in the Reformed Church. Capito, however, was, as it seems, not entirely to be relied on in his views of the Trinity, that stumbling-block in the way of the first Reformers, so many of whom we have found giving but a half-hearted assent to the verbal contradictions it involves: the Reformers could spare one another as it seems, on the subject, though they had no mercy for Servetus! It being objected to the prisoner that he was in manifest contradiction with himself when he said he thought he should offend God did he not impart the doctrine that had been revealed to him; he replied that what he had stated was his opinion and the truth; not-withstanding which he had spoken of his views to none but the doctors of the Reformed Church particularly named; a course he had followed, indeed, in consonance with the commandment of our Lord, not to cast pearls before swine: ‘I would not proclaim myself to incompetent persons, and I was living among Papists in times when there was active persecution going on and much cruelty practised.’ The prosecutor now alleged, but as usual without a tittle of evidence, that the prisoner had had extensive epistolary relations with Italy, a country in which it was believed his doctrines had many followers--a fact, said Rigot, which it was unlikely he did not know, and less likely, still, not to improve upon, did he know it. To this Servetus replied by a simple denial: he had had no communications with Italy by letter or otherwise; adding that his only correspondents had been Œcolampadius, Calvin, Abel Poupin, and F. Viret, from whom alone the Court had any information concerning letters of his. Had we no other intimation of Calvin’s prompting, at this stage of the proceedings, than the reference now made to the spread of Antitrinitarian doctrines in Italy, we should feel assured that it was he who was fighting under the mask of Rigot, as he had formerly fought under that of Trie and of De la Fontaine. Rigot was not likely to know much of the spread of Antitrinitarian views in Italy, but Calvin was, as we learn distinctly through the letter of Paul Gaddi to him, which we have quoted. Calvin, indeed, makes pointed and angry reference to such a state of things both in his ‘Refutatio Errorum’ and ‘Déclaration pour maintenir la vraie Foy.’