Rise and Establishment of Protestantism at Geneva - James Aitken Wylie

time, the many occasions on which it had been
lifted up in this same place, sometimes to approve,
sometimes to condemn, but always to attest that he
who spoke was the fearless champion of what he
believed to be truth, and the unbending and
incorruptible patriot. His adieu moved the Council
to tears.[2]
A month after, he sent another message to the
Council, intimating his desire to meet its members
yet once more before he shouhd die. Having regard
to his great weakness, the Council resolved to visit
him at his own house. Accordingly, on the 30th
April, the twenty-five Lords of Geneva, in all the
pomp of a public ceremony, proceeded to his
humble dwelling in the Rue des Chanoines.
Raising himself on his bed, he exhorted them,
amongst other things, to maintain ever inviolate the
independence of a city which God had destined to
high ends. But he reminded them that it was the
Gospel which alone made Geneva worth
preserving, and that therefore it behooved them to
guard its purity if they would preserve for their city
the protection of a stronger arm than their own.
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