ict was given in
favour of the Geneva divines, and Caroli deposed from his office and
banished. He returned to France, rejoined the Roman communion and spent
the rest of his life in passing to and from the old faith and the new.
Thus ended an affair which seems to have occasioned Calvin much more
uneasiness than the character of his assailant, and the manifest
falsehood of the charge brought against him, would seem to justify. Two
brief anti-Romanist tracts, one entitled _De fugiendis impiorum sacris_,
the other _De sacerdotio papali abjiciendo_, were also published early
in this year.

Hardly was the affair of Caroli settled, when new and severer trials
came upon the Genevan Reformers. The austere simplicity of the ritual
which Farel had introduced, and to which Calvin had conformed; the
strictness with which the ministers sought to enforce not only the laws
of morality, but certain sumptuary regulations respecting the dress and
mode of living of the citizens; and their determination in spiritual
matters and ecclesiastical ceremonies not to submit to the least
dictation from the civil power, led to violent dissensions. Amidst much
party strife Calvin perhaps showed more youthful impetuosity than
experienced skill. He and his colleagues refused to administer the
sacrament in the Bernese form, i.e. with unleavened bread, and on Easter
Sunday, 1538, declined to do so at all because of the popular tumult.
For this they were banished from the city. They went first to Bern, and
soon after to Zurich, where a synod of the Swiss pastors had been
convened. Before this assembly they pleaded their cause, and stated what
were the points on which they were prepared to insist as needful for the
proper discipline of the church. They declared that they would yield in
the matter of ceremonies so far as to employ unleavened bread in the
eucharist, to use fonts in baptism, and to allow festival days, provided
the people might pursue their ordinary avocations after public service.
These Calvin regarded as matters of indifference, provided the
magistrates did not make them of importance, by seeking to enforce them;
and he was the more willing to concede them, because he hoped thereby to
meet the wishes of the Bernese brethren whose ritual was less simple
than that established by Farel at Geneva. But he and his colleagues
insisted, on the other hand that for the proper maintenance of
discipline, there should be a division of parishes--that