BOOK 5

STRUGGLES OF THE REFORMATION.

CHAPTER 1

EFFORTS IN THE PAYS DE VAUD.

(1521.)

STRUGGLES, political or religious, are the normal state of society and the life of history. Their necessity in a christian point of view is established by the highest of authorities: I am not come to bring peace upon earth but the sword, said the Savior of men; ^fh61 and one of his disciples sixteen centuries later, developing his master’s words, added: ‘As the greater part of the world is hostile to the gospel, we can not confess Christ without encountering opposition and hatred.’ ^fh62

This thought would be saddening indeed, did not experience and Scripture teach us that opposition is often a means of development; that the gifts of God to man easily perish if nothing revives them; that contradiction, resistance, and trial (thanks to the care of divine providence) tend to civilize nations, and preserve to Christianity the truth, morality, and life it has received from on high.

Whence proceeds this moral influence of contradiction? A principle never evolves all that it contains, says a school, except by coming in collision with a contrary principle. In effect, the blow which a soldier receives on the battle-field adds to his valor. The inflexible obstinacy of Rome in upholding all abuses, excited Luther to display with more energy the great principles of the Reformation. And at Geneva, it was because the huguenots had to contend perpetually against a mean despotism in the state, and an incorrigible corruption in the Church, that their souls groaned after liberty and a better religion.

Yet contradiction is not all that is necessary: there must be reconciliation afterwards. The two-fold opposition of the huguenots (high-minded as it was) against civil and religious despotism, would have been ruined by its excess and would have ruined Geneva, if it had not been moderated afterwards. It was not good for the state that ‘no one was willing to obey,’ ^fh63 It was not good for religion that opposition to popery should consist in walking about the churches during mass. Modern times needed, from their very cradle, authority in the bosom of a free people, and pure doctrine in the bosom of a living Church. God gave both to Geneva, and he did so essentially through the Reformation.

Care must be taken, however, that we go not too far in the way of accommodation. The Reformation must make no concessions to popery. Whenever it has gone down that easy incline, it has left its calm heights and fallen among quagmires which have endangered its purity and existence.

But that was the conciliation which had to be carried out in those times, and which ought still to be attempted in the Christendom of our times. Between negative protestantism and Roman-catholicism there is a middle path. On the one hand the gospel ought to supply this: negative protestantism with what is deficient in it, and on the other hand to take away from Romanism whatever is erroneous in it. The huguenots, in part at least, were transformed in the city of Calvin by the great principles of the Reformation. It was by the potent virtue of the gospel that this little city, which had been only an Alpine burgh, was so marvelously metamorphosed and became in Europe the capital of a great opinion.

One circumstance, however, tended to compromise its future. The Reform triumphed, but not without losing strength, for the sword struck foul in the struggle. ‘If a man strive for mastery, he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.’ ^fh64 Calvin understood better than the other reformers the spirituality and independence of the Church; and yet giving away to the general weakness, he had recourse to the secular arm to maintain discipline, and was unable to prevent the death of Servetus. That fatal stake did more injury to truth than to falsehood. From that hour, the doctrine lost its power, a stain soiled its flag, and error seized the advantage of slipping into the ranks of those who were summoned to combat her. Eminent minds were seen abandoning the doctrines of the Reformation, chiefly on account of the civil intolerance by which they were defended. And thus a more or less culpable stagnation followed the powerful activity and furious battles of the primitive days of the Reformation. There were no more combats round the expiatory cross, the eternal Word, the fall, grace, and regeneration. No more struggles, and therefore no more life. The Christian fortress that Calvin had erected having been assailed for two centuries, shaken and dismantled, was on the point of being razed to the ground; when fortunately the struggles, entirely spiritual struggles, began again, and religion was saved by them. When God, after ploughing Europe in the early part of this century with the terrible share of a conqueror, awoke it from its long sleep, he remembered Geneva, and revived there as in other places doctrine and life. That city and all Christendom are now challenged again to the old struggles, and also to new ones, in which faith shall triumph over absolute thoroughgoing negations, which not only deprive man of the grace and adoption of the children of God, but deny also the immateriality and immortality of the soul.

We shall not begin with the struggles of the Reformation in Geneva, but with those which were fought in a country beautifully situated between the lakes and the mountains, — the Pays de Vaud. The country was not large, its cities were not populous, and the names of the men who struggled there do not occupy an important place in the annals of nations. Let us not forget, however, that there are two kinds of history: the stage of one is a brilliant circle, of the other a humble sphere. The actors in the former are great personages, in the latter men of low esteem in their own day. But is not the least sometimes the greatest of these two kinds of history? Are not events of small dimensions geometrically similar to great ones? Have they not often a deeper moral significance and a wider practical influence? With truth it may be said of the struggles of Vaud and Geneva: Magnam causam in parvum locum concludi, a great cause is here confined within narrow limits. The scenes, so modest and obscure, so full of decision and life, which this history presents, have probably done more to found the kingdom of truth and liberty, than the disputes and wars of powerful potentates. Such a thought as this has been expressed, even in Paris. A contemporary writer, after tracing in his history of the sixteenth century an outline of the portentous future threatened by the intrigues of the papacy, regains his courage with the words: Europe was saved by Geneva. ^fh65 All the reformers have been men of strength; but while Luther and Calvin have particularly contended for the principles and doctrine of the Reformation, others, like Knox and Farel, applying themselves to the practice, have specially undertaken to win certain countries or cities to the gospel. The men of God, in all ages, have done both these things; but not one of them has combined the two, like St. Paul. There were two men in that apostle, the doctor and the evangelist. Calvin was the great doctor of the sixteenth century, and Farel the great evangelist: the latter is one of the most remarkable figures in the Reformation.

A catholic in his youth, fanatic in abstinence and maceration, Farel had embraced salvation through grace with all the living ardor or; his soul, and from that hour everything appeared to him under a new face. His desire to enlighten his contemporaries was intense, his heart intrepid, his zeal indefatigable, and his ambition for God’s glory without bounds. A difficulty never stopped him; a reverse never discouraged him; a sacrifice, even were it that of his life, never alarmed him. He was not a great writer; in his works we meet occasionally with disorder and prolixity; but when he spoke he was almost without an equal. The energetic language which transported his hearers had been derived from the writings of the prophets and apostles; his doctrine was sound, his proofs strong, his expressions significative. Poets are made by nature, orators by art, but preachers by the grace of God; and Farel had the riches of nature, of art, and of grace. ^fh66 He never stopped to discuss idle or frivolous questions, but aimed straight at the conscience, and exhibited before those who listened to him the treasures of wisdom, salvation, and life that are found in the Redeemer. Full of love for truth and hatred for falsehood, he inveighed energetically against all human inventions. In his eyes the traditions of popery were a gulf in which horrible darkness reigned, and hence he labored to extricate souls from it and plant them in the soil of God’s Word. His manly eloquence, his lively apostrophes, his bold remonstrances, his noble images, his action flank, expressive, and sometimes threatening, his voice that was often like thunder (as Beza tells us), and his fervent prayers, carried away his hearers. His sermon was not a dissertation but an action, quite as much as a battle is. Every time he went into the pulpit, it was to do a work. Like a valiant soldier he was always in front of the column to begin the attack, and never refused battle. Sometimes the boldness of his speech carried by storm the fortress he attacked; sometimes he captivated souls by the divine grace he offered them. He preached in market-places and in churches, he announced Jesus Christ in the homes of the poor and in the councils of nations. His life was a series of battles and victories. Every time he went forth, it was conquering and to conquer. ^fh67

It is very true, as we have said, that the cities where he preached were not large capitals; but Derbe, Lystra, and Berea, where St. Paul preached, were little towns like Orbe, Neuchatel, and Geneva. Most assuredly the Acts of the Reformation are not the Acts of the Apostles; there is all the difference between them which exists between the foundation of Christianity and its reformation; but notwithstanding the inferiority of the sixteenth century, the labors of the reformers have a claim upon the interest of all those who love to contemplate the humble origin of the new destinies of mankind. Is there, after the establishment of Christianity, anything greater than its Reformation? Have not those weak movements which began in the petty spheres in which Farel and Calvin lived, gone on widening from age to age? Are they not the origin of that new religious transformation which, notwithstanding the declamations and the triumphant cries of unbelievers, is now going on in every nation of the earth? The source of the Rhone is but a thread of water which would pass unnoticed elsewhere; but the traveler who stands at the foot of the huge glaciers which separate the mountains of the Furka and the Grimsel, cannot look unmoved at that little stream, which, issuing, imperceptibly from the earth, is to become a mighty river. The thought of what it is to be inspires the friend of nature and of history in this sublime solitude with emotions more profound than those excited by its copious and monotonous waters at Lyons, Beaucaire, or Avignon. It is for this reason we dwell longer upon the origin of the Reformation.

A general who desires to capture an important city, first makes sure of his position and occupies the surrounding country: and so Farel, desirous of winning Geneva to the gospel, first set about enlightening the neighboring people. His operations were not strategic certainly; he thought only of converting souls; and yet his labors in the Vaudois towns and villages admirably prepared the way for his successes among the huguenots. We have already seen what he did at Aigle, Neuchatel, and elsewhere; ^fh68 we must now follow him into other parts of that picturesque country, enclosed between the pointed citadels of the Alps and the undulating lines of the Jura, whose waters flow — some by the lake of Neuchatel, the Aar and the Rhine to the North Sea, others by the lake of Geneva and the Rhone to the Mediterranean: a symbol of the spiritual waters which, issuing from the same hills, were soon to bear light and life to the peoples of the north and of the south.

Farel was inactive (a singular thing!) at the moment when we are going to see him prepare betimes for the conquest of Geneva. Wounded near Neuchatel by a riotous crowd, he had been placed in a boat, and carried across the lake to Morat, as we have said in a former work. ^fh69 His friends in that town had welcomed him with emotion, and kept watch around his bed. Condemned to repose, ‘shivering with cold, spitting blood,’ and scarcely able to speak, he was communing in silence with his God when he saw a young Dauphinese of good appearance, Christopher Fabri by name, enter his room. This Frenchman, of whom we have already spoken, had studied medicine at Montpelier, and there received the first rays of the gospel. Having started for Paris, in order to complete his studies in that city, he met with some friends of the truth at Lyons, who told him of all that was going on at Neuchatel and its vicinity. Fabri was greatly moved, and being a man of lively, prompt, and decided character, he suddenly changed his route, calling, and life, and instead of going on to Paris turned his steps to Geneva, and thence to Morat.

On arriving at that town, the student enquired after Farel, and on presenting himself at the house, was admitted into the room where the reformer was lying. Modestly approaching the bed, he said to him: ‘I have forsaken everything, family, prospects, and country, to fight at your side, Master William. Here I am; do with me what seems good to you.’ Farel looked at him kindly, and ere long appreciated the young man’s lively affection and boundless devotion. He saw that they both had the same faith, the same Savior. As he was unmarried, he looked upon Fabri as a son whom God had sent him, ^fh70 and henceforward had frequent christian conversations with him, in which he sought to train him for the ministry of the gospel. Farel would have liked to keep him always at his side; but he loved Jesus Christ more than the tenderest son is beloved; and accordingly, after a short but delightful intercourse he asked the converted Dauphinese to go and preach the gospel at Neuchatel. Fabri, who had not expected so early a separation, exclaimed with tears: ‘O master, my sorrow is greater to-day than when I left father and mother, so sweet have been my conversations with you.’ He obeyed, however.

Farel was never content with sending others to battle; he burned to return to it in person, and to lead to the heavenly King, whose servant he was, all the population which, enclosed between the Alps and the Jura, spoke the language of his country. He thought that if the intelligent people placed at the gates of France were won over to the divine Word, they would become a focus to cast the light of the gospel into that kingdom, and an asylum where the Christians persecuted by Francis I. might find a refuge.

A town lying at the foot of the lower slopes of the Jura attracted his thoughts during his solitary hours at Morat: this was Orbe. The ancient city of Urba, built, it is said, in the same century as Rome, was situated on the Roman way that led from Italy to Gaul. Being rebuilt later some little distance off, the kings of the first race of France, as the people of Orbe boasted, had taken up their residence there, as if, immediately after crossing the Jura, they had exclaimed at the ravishing prospect of the Alps: ‘It is enough! we will stop here,’ A torrent issuing from the lakes that are found in the high Jurassic valleys plunges into the gigantic clifts of the mountain, and after pursuing a subterranean and mysterious career, reappears on the other slope, towards the plain, whence descending from one fall to another, it gracefully sweeps round the beautiful hills on which the town of Orbe is situated, surrounded with vineyards, gardens, and orchards, ‘with all kinds of plants and good things.’ ^fh71

A dealer in indulgences, attracted by this wealth, was just at this time noisily selling his pardons for every offense. Farel, still detained at Morat, hearing the sound of his drum, as Luther says, made an effort to walk: he left the latter town, and proceeded to Orbe. On the next market-day, being determined to resist the new Tetzel, he quitted his inn and went to the market-place, where he found the indulgence-seller offering his wares with much shouting. The monk, whose eye was always on the watch, soon noticed in the middle of the crowd a little man with a red beard and piercing eyes who caused him some uneasiness. Farel, approaching slowly, took his place quietly before the stall and said to the quack, just as an ordinary purchaser would have done, but with concentrated anger: ‘Have you indulgences for a person who has killed his father and mother?’ Without waiting for an answer, and wishing to undeceive the superstitious crowd, he boldly stept on the basin of the public fountain; and began to preach as if he were in the pulpit. The astonished market-people left the monk and gathered round the new orator, whose sonorous voice entreated the multitude to ask pardon of the Savior instead of buying indulgences from the monk. As the priests and the devout were exceedingly irritated at both preaching and preacher, Farel could not remain at Orbe; but a few drops of living water had gushed forth, and some souls had had their thirst quenched by them. A tradesman, Christopher Holland by name, and one Mark Roman, a schoolmaster, were converted to the gospel at this time.

The whole town was in commotion, and the sisters of St. Clair, as bigoted as those of Geneva, entreated their confessor to preach against heresy. Such a request had great weight and must be attended to, for these sisters were held in great consideration. Phillippina of Chalons, Louisa of Savoy, recently canonized at Rome, and Yoland, grand-daughter of St. Louis, had assumed the veil in this convent. The struggle might take place more freely in Orbe than in many other Vaudois towns. The Sires of Chateau-Guyon, who possessed the lordship at the time of the war between Switzerland and Burgundy, having taken the part of Charles the Bold, had been deprived of their possessions by the League, and the suzerainty adjudged in 1476 to the cantons of Berne and Friburg. The municipal magistrates, chosen from the principal burgesses or nobles of the city, were good catholics; but the superior authority belonged to a bailiff, living at Echallens, and who was by turns a Friburger or a Bernese. Now Berne was zealous for the Reform. The friar-confessor, full of confidence in himself, smiled at the flattering request the nuns of St. Claire had made him, and having no mistrust of his eloquence, he said to the banneret, the Sire de Pierrefleur: ‘I shall create these Lutherans anew in the faith, as they were before.’ Noble de Pierrefleur, a fervent catholic but a man of good sense, who knew the firmness of the reformers and saw Berne in the background, did not believe that the new creation, with which the monk flattered himself, was such an easy thing, and answered: ‘I am far from your opinion, father, for such people have more obstinacy than knowledge, and great is the folly of those who desire to remonstrate with them.’ ^fh72

Michael Juliani (for that was the friar’s name) was not to be stopped by this opinion, and he gave notice of his sermons against the Reform, which were talked about all over the city. The bells rang; priests, monks, and devotees filled the church, and even those suspected of Lutheranism attended. The orator was filled with joy at the sight of the unusual crowd, and his head was turned. Had not his patron saint, the archangel Michael, armed with a golden spear, trampled Satan under his feet; and should he not gain a similar victory? Losing all moderation, he began to extol in the most pompous terms Rome, the priesthood, celibacy, and to attack the reformers with violence and abuse. Five or six Lutherans were noticed in the church, pen in hand, writing down all the father said on a piece of paper which they held on their knees. When the sermon was over, the offended bailiff of Diesbach, the grand banneret, and other notables, displeased with the presumptuous discourse, accosted the friar and begged him to desist from abusive language and to preach simply the doctrines of the Church. But in the eyes of certain devout folks, the greater Michael’s abuse, the greater his eloquence.

The confessor, delighted at his success, and thinking, as they did in many convents, that knowledge is a sign of the children of the devil (Farel had studied at the university of Paris), and ignorance that of the children of God, went into the pulpit again on the 25th March, and took for his text: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Sirs,’ he exclaimed, ‘the poor in spirit here referred to are the priests and friars. They have not much learning, I confess, but they have what is better: they are mediators between man and God, worshipers of the Virgin Mary, who is the treasure-house of all graces, and friends of the saints who cure all diseases... What then can those want who listen to them? But who are the people who say they are justified by faith? who are they who throw down the crosses on our roads and in our chapels?... Enemies of Christ. What are those priests, monks, and nuns who renounce their vows in order to marry? — Unclean, impure, infamous, abominable apostates before men, and before God. ^fh73 The friar was continuing in this strain, when suddenly a loud noise was heard in the church. The evangelicals present had been excited at the very commencement of the discourse; at first they had restrained themselves, and then whispered to each other; but when the monk began to insult those who thought (as the Bible says) that marriage is honorable to all men, one of them, unable to contain himself, stood up and before the whole assembly repeated twice and with sonorous voice, the words: ‘You lie!’... The orator stopped in amazement, and everybody turned toward the quarter whence these words proceeded. They saw a man of middle age standing there greatly agitated. It was Christopher Hollard, who had been converted by Farel’s first sermon, and who combined an honest heart with a violent character. His brother, John Hollard, the late dean of Friburg, had embraced the Reformation and married; Christopher, fancying the monk was reflecting on his brother, had hastened to protest, rather coarsely, it must be acknowledged, but with the frankness of an honest heart, which sees the commandment of God blasphemed.

This exclamation had hardly resounded through the church, when a great uproar, caused by the people, drowned the Lutheran’s voice. The men who were present would have rushed from their places upon the disturber; but the women who filled the nave were before them. ‘All with one accord fell upon the said Christopher, tore out his beard and beat him; they scratched his face with their nails and otherwise, so that if they had been let alone, he would never have gone out of the said church, which would have been a great benefit for poor catholics.’ ^fh74 Thus spoke the grand banneret, who had lost, as it would seem, a little of the moderation he had shown on other occasions. The castellan, Anthony Agasse, was not of his opinion; he wanted the culprits, if there were any, to be punished by the law and not by the populace; and rushing into the midst of this savage scene, he rescued Hollard from the hands of the furies, and threw him into a dungeon to avoid a greater scandal.’

CHAPTER 2

PLOT OF THE WOMEN AGAINST REFORM; FAREL’S PREACHING.

(1531.)

THE Reformation brought great benefits to women. The divine Word which it placed in their hands, and which it desired to see in their hearts, would free them from the dominion of the priest to put them under that of the Savior; give them that meek and peaceful spirit which (as Calvin says) becomes their sex; and substitute for a religion of external practices an inner, holy, and useful life. However, the women, attached to their priests and ceremonies, and who are easily aroused, were often opposed to the Reform, of which we shall have instances.

Hollard’s mother was not of this number. Strongly attached to her son, she gave way to her maternal sorrow. Her son a prisoner, her son without a protector, her son exposed to the vengeance of the exasperated Romancatholics — thoughts like these caused her the deepest anxiety. She could think of nothing but saving him, ready to incur any danger, and to brave even the anger of the enemies of the gospel. The bailiff of Berne, she said to herself, alone can save Hollard. He lives at Echallens, in a castle, surrounded with his officers; he is a haughty Bernese, a cold diplomatist perhaps... It matters not; the poor woman will go and implore his help. Romain will not abandon her; if there are any difficulties, any dangers, he will be near her; he will protect the mother and deliver the son. Madame Hollard and the schoolmaster set off together for Echallens, and presenting themselves at the castle, informed the bailiff of Diesbach of the monk’s insulting address and its consequences... O happiness! the Bernese magistrate is moved, grows angry, and departs immediately. The lord-bailiff felt that the friar’s insults were the cause of all the disorder; that by denouncing the married priests and monks as apostates and villains, he had attacked the gospel and the Reformation, recognized by My Lords of Berne; and that the friar was the person to be blamed.

Arriving the same day about four o’clock, Diesbach would not go to the guildhall or the castellan’s; but sitting down in the open air near the old castle, ^fh75 he sent his officers to fetch Friar Juliani. The sergeants carefully searched the convent and several houses without finding the monk, who was hiding in the house of a woman, named ‘Frances Pugin, instructress of girls in all virtue and learning.’ Being informed of the search, he took courage, left the house, and went straight to the bailiff, who was still seated in front of the castle, waiting the result of his enquiries. Friar Michael saluted him respectfully; but the lord of Diesbach, rising up, caught him by the hand and said: ‘I arrest you in the name of My Lords,’ and then, taking him to the prison, ‘drew Hollard out of his hole and put the said friar in his place.’ Such were the energetic proceedings of Berne.

Mark Romain, as pleased at having rescued his friend, as if he had gained a thousand crowns, and thinking he had achieved a master-piece,’ says a contemporary, was going quietly home. Meanwhile the people, alarmed at the arrival of the bailiff and the imprisonment of the monk, had assembled in the market-place, and spoke of flinging the schoolmaster into the river to punish him for having gone to fetch the Sieur de Diesbach. Unfortunately Mark Romain came in sight just at this moment. The townspeople, ‘seeing him come joyfully along,’ pointed him out to one another. ‘There he is,’ they said, and began to cry: ‘Master, come here!’ Romain, observing the tumult, passed suddenly from joy to fear and took to flight, all following in pursuit. They gained upon him: he looked from side to side to see if some door would not open to receive him, but all remained closed. Arriving in front of the church, he rushed into it; but had hardly set his feet inside, when he stopped in astonishment. The women who had desired to tear Hollard to pieces were in the church, as well as some men, on account of the Salve Regina which was said daily at five in the afternoon. Kneeling before the altar, with clasped hands and eyes turned to the ground, they were invoking the Queen of heaven: ‘Hail, queen of mercy; we send up our groans to thee! O thou who art our advocate, save us!’ At the moment when Romain entered, the women turned their heads and caught sight of him; being suddenly changed into furies, they rushed upon him, as they had done before upon Hollard, ‘caught him by the hair, threw him on the ground, and beat him.’ The women were the champions of catholicism in Orbe. The grand banneret looked on quietly at this execution. He saw the whole affair,’ he said, ‘and I did not think the schoolmaster would ever get out alive.’ Pierrefleur took care not to go to his help, and the blows continued to fall on poor Romain, until one of his friends arrived. ‘I am certain,’ says the banneret, who had seen all this without being moved, ‘that had it not been for the assistance he received from this Lutheran, he would never have gone out of the place until he was dead.’ ^fh76 ‘We read in Scripture of people who ceased not to beat St. Paul; Romain, who experienced ‘this riotous and cruel rage,’ was afterwards a minister of the gospel. He was now going through his apprenticeship.

A mob had collected round the castle in which Friar Michael was confined, and angry voices were heard loudly demanding his liberty. At this moment the bailiff of Diesbach came out to return to his place of residence, having Hollard by his side, whom he was going to restore to his mother. When he saw the crowd he was much astonished, for ‘all were crying out and demanding their good father.’ ‘Why have you arrested Friar Michael?’ asked some. ‘Why have you delivered Christopher?’ asked others. ‘By order of My Lords of Berne,’ answered the imperturbable bailiff; and then added, pointing to the lofty walls of the castle, ‘If you can set him at liberty, you may take him... .but I advise you not.’ ^fh77 ‘We will be bail for our good father, body for body, goods for goods,’ exclaimed the burgesses; but the bailiff kept on his way without answering them.

The Sieur of Diesbach had hardly arrived at the great square, when he perceived the ladies and other women of the city waiting for him, their hearts full of sorrow and anguish. They all fell on their knees ‘with many tears,’ and stretching their hands towards him, exclaimed: ‘Mercy for the good father! set him at liberty!’ These cries softened the Bernese, he stopped and could hardly speak for emotion, He made them understand, however, that it was not in his power to liberate Juliani, and then returned home, for ‘the hour was late.’ ^fh78

The principal catholics now assembled to consider what was to be done. A priest put in prison in Orbe, for a strictly Romish sermon... What a scandal! They resolved to appeal from the heretical Bernese bailiff to the Friburgers who were good catholics. The grand banneret volunteered for this important mission, and next day Noble P. de Pierrefleur and Francis Vuerney set out for Friburg, where they related everything to the council. The lords and princes of that city were much ‘concerned and vexed,’ and a deputation composed of Bernese and Friburgers received instructions to arrange the difference. But this measure, far from diminishing the struggle, was destined to increase it. As the deputation passed through Avenches, a Roman city older than the Caesars, they fell in with Farel, who for more than a month had been preaching the gospel there, amid its ruined aqueducts and amphitheaters, and had met with nothing but lukewarmness. Without hesitation the evangelist left Avenches, and departing with the Bernese arrived at the banks of the Orbe, whither the noise of battle attracted him. No ruins were to be seen there: but seven churches and twenty-six altars testified to the ancient splendor and Romish fervor of the city.

It was the 2nd of April, Palm-Sunday. Mass had been celebrated, the various offices had been said, even to vespers. Farel, who had stayed quietly in doors, observing that the service was over, left his inn ‘with presumptuous boldness.’ His friends followed him, idlers flocked round him, the devout ran after, and a crowd of men, women, and children soon filled the church with a great noise. Then ‘without asking leave of any one, Farel went into the pulpit to preach.’ But he had scarcely opened his mouth, when everybody, ‘men, women, and children, hissed, howled, and stamped with all sorts of exclamations to disconcert him. Dog, they cried; lubber, heretic, devil, and other insults: it was a glorious noise.’ ‘You really could not have heard God’s thunder,’ said Pierrefleur. Farel, who was accustomed to tumult, as a soldier to the whistling of the bullets, continued his address. Anger got the better of some of them. ‘Seeing that he would not desist, they grew riotous, surrounded the pulpit, pulled him out of it, and would even have proceeded to blows.’ The confusion was at its height, when the bailiff, ‘fearing that worse would follow,’ rushed into the midst of the crowd, took the reformer by the arm, and escorted him to his lodging.

The mixed commission was empowered to restore peace to this agitated city; but as for Farel he had but one idea: Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. If he can not preach it in the church, he will do so in the open air. On the following day (Monday) he left the house of his entertainer at six in the morning, and proceeding toward the great square, began to preach.

There was nobody present; it mattered not; he thought that his powerful voice would soon collect a good assembly. But satisfied with the victory of the evening before, the inhabitants of Orbe had said to themselves that they would leave the preacher alone: he had not a single hearer. ^fh79 That was not, however, the only reason: a plot was concerting against Farel — a women’s plot naturally; for the men in general were cold in comparison with the other sex.

There was a noble dame at Orbe, a native of Friburg, Elizabeth, wife of Hugonin, lord of Arnex, an honest and devout woman, but enthusiastic, violent, and fanatical. Elizabeth, being persuaded that the death of the reformer would be a very meritorious work, had assembled at her house some other bigoted women, had addressed them, and worked upon them, so that they had agreed to beat the reformer and even kill him: they only waited for an opportunity. The same day at four in the afternoon a city council was held at which the deputies of Berne and Friburg and even Farel also were present, when the council was over, the reformer came out: it was the moment that Elizabeth and her accomplices, informed of the circumstance, had selected to carry out their plot. A gentleman, Pierre de Glairesse, knowing the danger the evangelist ran, quitted the council after him, and begged permission to accompany him. Meanwhile the women who had left their houses were waiting for Farel in the middle of a street through which he must necessarily pass. Approaching them without any mistrust, they fell upon him unawares, ‘and took him by the cloak so gently,’ says the chronicler ironically, ‘that they made him stagger and fall.’ They then attempted to ill-treat him and beat him; but Pierre de Glairesse rushing in between them, took him out of their hands, and said, bowing to them very politely: ‘Your pardon, ladies; at present he is under my charge.’ They all let go of him, and Glairesse conducted him to the inn where My Lords of Berne awaited him.

While Elizabeth was trying go kill the reformer, her husband, William of Arnex, as bigoted as herself, was pleading the cause of the monk. The mediators had ordered that Friar Michael should be put on his trial. He was taken to the castle in agitation and alarm, and the lords of Berne, bringing a criminal charge against him, said: ‘You asserted that the poor in spirit are the monks.’

Friar Michael: ‘I deny it.’

‘You said that to resist the pope, the bishops, and other ecclesiastics is resisting the commandment of God.’ Friar. ‘I deny saying it in those terms.’ ‘You said that few follow the new law, except a heap of lascivious

monks.’ Friar. ‘I deny having said it in that way, and I named nobody.’ ‘You said that when priests marry, the women they take are not

their wives but their harlots, and that their children are bastards.’ Friar. ‘I confess it.’ ‘You said that Mary was the treasure-house of graces.’ Friar. ‘I did.’ ‘You said the saints, like Anthony, expel and cure certain diseases,’ Friar. ‘I did’ ‘You said that those who deny that the books of the Maccabees

form part of the Holy Scripture, are heretics.’ Friar. ‘I did.’ ‘You said that those who have adopted the new law have no good

in them, and deny the articles of faith.’ Friar. ‘I did not.’ ^fh80 This mixture of denials and confessions disarmed the judges. They listened to the solicitations of D’Arnex and set Juliani at liberty. The Bernese, however, bound him to preach in future nothing but the Word of God. ‘Most honored lords,’ exclaimed the poor friar, ‘I have never preached anything that is not found in the holy gospel, in the epistles of St. Paul, or in some other part of Holy Scripture.’ Friar Michael, confounded at not gaining a triumph as striking as that of his patron with the brilliant helmet, and fearing lest he should be sent back to prison, thought only of saving

himself. He entered the convent for a short time, and then fled into Burgundy. ^fh81 The deputies returned home and Farel remained.

Shortly after Easter there came a mandate from Berne ordering that whenever Farel desired to preach, he should be given a hearing, support, and favor. As soon as the mandate had been read, the people, without waiting got the opinion of the Council, exclaimed, ‘Let him go about his business, we do not want him or his preaching.’ The lords of Berne answered that Farel was to be free to speak, but that no inhabitant was constrained to hear him. The evangelist gave notice that he would preach on the Saturday after Quasimodo, at one o’clock, when he would expose Juliani’s errors.

The catholics, not content with the permission given them to keep away, determined to organize a reception for Farel that should disgust him for ever with preaching. As soon as the minister entered the church the strangest of congregations met his eyes: all the brats (marmaille) of the place were assembled; lying in front of the pulpit and all round it, the children pretended to be asleep, snoring and laughing in their sleeves. Farel observing three persons who appeared to be serious, went into the pulpit and said, pointing to the little ragamuffins: ‘How many weapons Satan has provided to hinder our cause! Never mind, we must surmount every obstacle.’ Being determined to refute Friar Michael, he began his discourse; but on a sudden the children started to their feet, as sharp-shooters lying flat behind the bushes start up at the approach of the enemy, and salute him with their fire. The young scamps exerted their lungs, howling and shouting with all their might, and at last quitted the church with a horrible uproar. ‘Nobody was left but the minister, quite amazed. And this was the first sermon preached in the town of Orbe,’ says the grand banneret maliciously. ^fh82

The next day, Sunday, there was a great procession. Priests, monks, and all the parish, chanting as loud as they could, proceeded according to custom to St. George’s, outside the town. Farel profited by the departure of the enemy to seize upon the place, and the last parishioner had hardly crossed the threshold of the church, when he entered it, followed by his friends, went up into the pulpit, and loudly declared the truth. Ten evangelicals, Viret, Hollard, Secretan, Romain, and six of their friends, composed the whole of his congregation. Meanwhile the procession was on its way back. First appeared the children two and two, then the exorcist with the holy water and the sprinkler, then came the priests, magistrates, and people, all singing the litany. The children, seeing the minister in the pulpit, and remembering the lesson they had received, rushed into the church, whistling, howling, and shouting as on the evening before. The priests and people who followed them made threatening motions, and Farel, understanding that the storm was about to burst, showed a moderation he did not always possess, came down from the pulpit, and went out. ^fh83

The clergy exulted: they ascribed Farel’s retreat to weakness and fear, and said openly in the city: ‘The minister can not refute the articles of faith established by Juliani.’ ‘Indeed,’ answered the Bernese bailiff, ‘you have heard the monk and you now complain that you have not heard the minister... Very good! you shall hear him. It is the will of the lords of Berne that every father of a family be required to attend his sermon under pain of their displeasure.’

They dared not disobey, and the church was thronged. Filled with joy at the sight of such a congregation, Farel ascended the pulpit: never had he been clearer, more energetic and more eloquent. He passed in review all the subjects of which Juliani had treated; at one time attacking the pardons which the Romish Church sells to credulous souls, at another the doctrine which assigns the keys of heaven to St. Peter. ‘The key of the kingdom of heaven,’ he said, ‘is the Word of God — the Holy Gospel.’ One day Farel spoke of the stupid practices imposed upon catholics under the name of penance. ‘The penance which God demands,’ he said, ‘is a change of heart, life, and conversation.’ ^fh84 Another day he battled with indulgences: ‘The pope’s pardons take away money,’ he said, ‘but they do not take away sin. Let every christian be aware that nobody can escape the anger of God, except through Jesus.’ ^fh85 He thundered against auricular confession. ‘Confession in the priest’s ears which the pope commands,’ he said, ‘helps him to learn the secrets of kings and aids him in catching countries and kingdoms. But how many souls have been cast into hell by it! how many virgins corrupted! how many widows devoured! how many orphans ruined! how many princes poisoned! how many countries wasted! bow many large establishments of men and women given up to debauchery... O Heaven, unveil these accursed horrors! O Earth, cry out! Creatures of God, weep; and do thou, O Lord, arise!’ ^fh86

Farel, without possessing the iconoclastic ardor which Hollard displayed ere long, was indignant at the worship paid to the images of the saints, and strove against them with the arms of the Word. ‘The people,’ he said, ‘set candles before the saints who are out of this world and have nothing to do with them... While if those saints were alive and had need of a light to read the Gospel by, instead of giving them candles, you would tear out their eyes!’... Then scandalized at the disorderly living of the world and the Church, the christian orator exclaimed: ‘Farces full of scoffing, filth, ribaldry; obscene and idle songs, books full of vanity, lewdness, falsehood and blasphemy, wicked and illicit conversations... all this is suffered openly... But the New Testament which contains the doctrine and passion of Christ is forbidden, as if it were the Koran of Mahomet, or a book of witch- craft and enchantment... O Sun, canst thou pour thy light on such countries? O Earth, canst thou give thy fruits to such people? And thou, O Lord God, is thy vengeance so slow against such a great outrage? Arise, O Lord, and let the trumpet of thy holy Gospel be heard unto the ends of the earth.’ ^fh87

Although the catholics were indignant, and not without reason, at the order from Berne, which obliged them to attend the sermons opposed to their faith, the reformer preached without difficulty the first and second day; but on the third, the alarmed priests harangued their flocks and thundered from their pulpits against the heretical discourses; and from that time Farel counted few hearers in the church besides the friends of the Gospel. The bailiff had the good sense not to observe this disobedience.

The surrounding districts compensated Farel for the contempt of Orbe. His reputation having spread into the neighboring villages, the people eagerly desired to hear him. Receiving message after message, and touched at the sight of these worthy peasants knocking at his door, he wrote to Zwingle: ‘Oh! how great is the harvest! No one can describe the ardor the people feel for the Gospel, and the tears I shed when I see the small number of reapers.’ ^fh88 Several of the evangelicals of Orbe asked to be sent out to preach, but Farel, thinking them not ripe enough, refused. There were some who took offense at this, but it did not move Farel. ‘It is better to offend them,’ he said, ‘than to offend God.’

St. Paul said: Lay hands suddenly on no man. Farel and the other reformers desired that the minister should honor his ministry. He required above all things a converted heart, but that was not enough. It is a bad sign when the Church admits into the number of those who are to point out the gate of salvation, either men who have not passed through it or who have not the gift of the Word, or are deficient in wisdom. But if the leaders of the Church are faithful, God will send them true ministers.

CHAPTER 3

A NEW REFORMER AND AN IMAGE-BREAKER.

(1531.)

IN 1511 William Viret, a burgess of Orbe, ‘cloth-dresser and tailor,’ had a son born to him whom he named Peter. The boy had grown up in the midst of the wool-combers, and had watched his father’s workmen as they pressed, or glossed, or fulled the cloths as they came from the hands of the weavers. But he took no delight in this, for he was not born tradesman. It was the inner man that was to be developed in him: he felt within himself a necessity for seeking God, which impelled him towards heaven. He sought the society of the best informed burgesses, and even had some relations with the nobles; ^fh89 but the first object of his wishes was God. If he took a walk alone, or with one of his brothers Anthony and John, along the picturesque banks of the Orbe, through the charming country bathed by its waters, and even to the foot of the Jura, ^fh90 he looked around him with delight, but afterwards lifted his eyes to heaven. ‘I was naturally given to religion,’ he said, ‘of which however I was then ignorant... I was preparing myself for heaven, seeing that it was the way of salvation.’ ^fh91 He resolved to devote himself to the service of the altar, which his father did not oppose, townspeople and peasantry alike regarding it as an honor to count a priest among their children. Peter, who had a good understanding and memory, soon learnt all that was taught in the school at Orbe, and turned his eyes towards the University of Paris, that great light which twelve years before had attracted Farel’s footsteps. His father, whose trade had placed him in easy circumstances, consented to send him to Paris, whither the boy proceeded in 1523, being then a little over twelve years of age. The same year and about the same time John Calvin of Noyon, who was two years older than Viret, arrived in the same city and entered the college of La Marche. Did these two boys, who were one day to be so closely united, meet then, and did their friendship begin with their childhood? We have not been able to satisfy ourselves on the point.

Viret distinguished himself at college by his love of study; ‘he made good progress in learning;’ and also by his devotion to the practices of the Roman Church. ‘I can not deny,’ he said, ‘that I went pretty deep into that Babylon.’ ^fh92 In one of the last visits he made to Paris, Farel seems to have remarked Viret, whose charming modesty easily won the heart, and to have helped in freeing the young Swiss from the darkness in which he still lay. The Gospel penetrated the soul of the youthful scholar of Orbe almost at the same time as it enlightened the large understanding of the scholar of Noyon. The mildness of his character softened the struggles which had been so fierce in Farel and Calvin. And yet he too had to tread the path of anguish to arrive at peace. Perceiving a frightful abyss and an eternal night beneath his feet, he threw himself into the arms of the Deliverer who was calling him: ‘While still at college,’ he Said, ‘God took me out of the labyrinth of error before I had sunk deeper into that Babylon of Anti-christ.’ ^fh93 The time having arrived when he should receive the tonsure, he felt that he must make up his mind: the struggle was not a long one; he refused, and was immediately set down as belonging to the Lutheran religion.’ ^fh94 Foreseeing what awaited him, he hastily quitted Paris and France, and ‘returned to his father’s house.’ In after years he exclaimed: ‘I thank God that the mark and sign of the beast were not set upon my forehead.’ ^fh95

Viret found Orbe greatly changed; the contest then going on between the gospel and popery intimidated him at first. His was one of those reflective souls which, absorbed by the struggles within, naturally shrink from those without. Like other reformers, he had a difficulty in quitting the body of catholicity, but a severe conscience obliged him to seek truth at any sacrifice. Sometimes the Church of Rome, with all its errors and abuses, alone struck his imagination, and he would exclaim with emotion: ‘It is the stronghold of superstition, the fortress of Satan.’ ^fh96 Then all of a sudden, and before he had time to defend himself, the old system of catholicism resumed its power over him, and he found himself in anguish and darkness. He struggled and prayed; the truth, for a moment hidden, reappeared before his eyes, and he said: ‘Rome asserts that antiquity is truth; but what is there older in the world than lies, rebellion, murder, extortion, impurity, idolatry, and all kinds of wickedness and abomination?... To follow the doctrine of Cain and of Sodom is verily to follow an old doctrine... But virtue, truth, holiness, innocence, and thou, O God, which art the Father of them all, art older still!’ ^fh97

The priests of Orbe, who were strongly attached to the Romish doctrine, seeing the cloth-dresser’s son often solitary and full of care, began to grow uneasy about him: they accosted him and spoke of the old doctors, of the testimony of the saints, of Augustin, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and Jerome. These testimonies had much weight in Viret’s mind. His head was bewildered, his feet slipped, and he was on the point of falling back into the gulf, when snatching again at the word of God, he clung to it, saying: ‘No, I will not believe because of Tertullian or Cyprian, or Origen, or Chrysostom, or Peter Lombard, or Thomas Aquinas, not even because of Erasmus or Luther... If I did so, I should be the disciple of men... I will believe only Jesus Christ my Shepherd.’ ^fh98

At length the divine Word delivered Viret from the theocratic dominion of Rome, and he then began to look around him... Alas! what did he see? Chains everywhere, prisoners held fast ‘in the citadel of idolatry.’ He felt the tenderest affection for the captives. ‘Since the Lord has brought me out,’ he said, ‘I can not forget those who are within.’ ^fh99 Two of these prisoners were never out of his thoughts: they were his father and mother. At one time absorbed by the cares of business, at all other mechanically attending divine service, they did not seek after the one thing needful. The pious son began to pray earnestly for his parents, to show them increased respect, to read them a few passages of Holy Scripture, and to speak gently to them of the Savior. They felt attracted by his conduct, and the faith he professed took hold of their hearts. The grateful Viret was able to say: ‘I have much occasion to give thanks to God in that it hath pleased him to make use of me to bring my father and mother to the knowledge of the Son of God... Ah! if he had made my ministry of no other use, I should have had good cause to bless him.’ ^fh100

As soon as Viret met Farel again at Orbe, he immediately became one of the evangelist’s hearers, and ere long took his father along with him. The most intimate union sprung up between these men of God. One completed the other. If Farel was ardent, intrepid, and almost rash, Viret ‘had a wondrously meek temper.’ ^fh101 There was in him a grace that won the heart, and a christian sensibility that was really touching; and yet, like Farel and Calvin, he was firm in doctrine and morals. Farel, always eager to send workmen into the harvest, persuaded his friend to preach not only in the country but in Orbe itself. The young and timid Viret recoiled from the task Farel proposed to him; but the reformer pressed him, as others had pressed Luther and Calvin; he believed that Viret, who belonged to the city, and was loved by everybody, would receive a favorable welcome. The thought of the divine grace, the strength of which he knew, decided Viret. ‘Let it not be my mouth which persuades,’ he said, ‘but the mouth of Jesus Christ; for it is Jesus Christ who pierces the heart with the fiery arrow of his Spirit.’ ^fh102

On the 6th May 1531 an unusual crowd, not only of townpeople but of persons from the neighborhood, filled the church of Orbe; the son of one of the most respected of the burgesses, a child of the place, was to enter the pulpit. He was accused of being rather heretical, but he was so inoffensive, that nobody would believe it; and besides, many of the young folks of Orbe, who had sported with him on the banks of the river, wished to see their old playfellow in the pulpit. The congregation, who were waiting impatiently, saw the young man appear at last: he was of small stature and pale complexion, his face thin and long, his eyes lively, and the whole expression meek and winning; ^fh103 he was only twenty years old, but appeared to be younger still. He preached: his sermon was accompanied by so much unction and learning, his language was so persuasive, his eloquence so searching and penetrating, that even the most worldly men were attracted by his discourse and hung, as it were, upon his lips. ^fh104 The proverb ‘No man is a prophet in his own country’ was not exemplified in Viret’s case. The 6th of May was a great day for him. All his life through he preserved the recollection of his first sermons. Thirty years later he said to the nobles and burgesses of Orbe: ‘Your church was the first in which God was pleased to make use of my ministry, when it was still in its youth, and I was very young.’ ^fh105

From that day Viret took his place in that noble army of heralds of the Word which the Lord was raising among the nations. His part in it was modest but well marked. The college of reformers, as well as the college of the apostles, contained the most different characters. As the sap is everywhere the same in nature, the Spirit of God is everywhere the same in the Church; but everywhere alike each of them produces different flowers and different fruits. The ardent Farel was the St. Peter of the Swiss Reform, the mighty Calvin, the St. Paul, and the gentle Viret the St. John.

Farel, Viret, Romain, Hollard, and the other evangelicals waited for the effects of the preaching at Orbe. They saw clearly ‘some slight touches and pricks, but few persons had been wounded and pierced to the quick,’ and so overwhelmed with the feeling of everlasting death, that they thought of looking for help solely to the grace of Jesus Christ. All of a sudden, and a month only after Farel’s arrival, the report of an unexpected conversion filled Orbe with astonishment, and became the subject of general conversation. It was said — and he who repeated it could hardly believe it — that Madame Elizabeth, the wife of the lord of Amex, the very same who had planned the women’s conspiracy and so severely beaten Farel, was entirely changed; that even her husband, who had become bail for Juliani, and had set him at liberty, had changed likewise. The bigots of both sexes could not deny the fact. ‘Really,’ they said, ‘she has become one of the worst Lutherans in the city.’ Not long after, they made a great noise because at All Saints or some feast of Our Lady, Elizabeth had a large wash or other manual labors at her house. ^fh106 They shook their heads, shrugged their shoulders, and smiled. The evangelicals did not imitate them: they thought, to borrow the language of one of their leaders, that though these iron-hearted people smiled, it was a forced smile, ^fh107 for they felt as if inwardly choking... .They knew that God’s word is a hammer, and that there is nothing so hard, so massive, or so hidden in the heart of man that its power can not reach... Had not Paul been a persecutor like Elizabeth and Hugonin?

Worse still, at least in the opinion of the catholics, happened ere long. One of the ecclesiastics of the place was George Grivay, surnamed Calley, an excellent musician who had been appointed precentor. He had been trained by a fervent catholic mother, and had received a good education in the church. ^fh108 In order to receive further instruction his parents had sent him to Lausanne, where he had been made chorister and had particularly improved in the knowledge of music. On his return to Orbe the nobles and priests had given him a flattering reception; and he deserved it, for he enchanted the people by his singing or electrified them by his discourses. But on the 10th May 1531, the same month in which Viret delivered his first sermon, Grivat had gone up into the pulpit and astonished his hearers by preaching the evangelical doctrine in the clearest manner. This was too much; his father and his brothers were in despair; nobles and friends who had received him so well exclaimed in great irritation: Have we not given him good wages; has not the Church fed and taught him? and now he wants to imitate the cuckoo that eats the mother who reared it.’ ^fh109

As these successive conversions gave the evangelicals more courage, they took an important step. Feeling the necessity of being strengthened in the faith by the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, they asked for it, and Farel, who was then at Morat, immediately returned to Orbe. On Whitsunday (28th May) at six in the morning — an hour selected to insure tranquillity for the act they were about to perform — he announced to a numerous assembly collected in the church the remission of all sins by the breaking of Christ’s body on the cross; and as soon as the sermon was ended, eight disciples came forward to break bread. They were Hugonin of Arnex and his wife, C. Hollard and his aged mother, Cordey and his wife, William Viret, Peter’s father, and George Grivat, afterwards pastor at Avenches; many of the evangelicals did not think themselves sufficiently advanced in the faith to take part in this act, and doubtless Peter Viret was absent. Two of the eight disciples modestly spread a white cloth over a bench, on which they placed the bread and wine. Farel sank on his knees and prayed, all following his prayer in their hearts. When the minister rose up he asked: ‘Do you each forgive one another?’... and the believers answered Yes. Next Farel broke off a morsel of bread for each, saying he gave it them in memory of Christ’s passion, and after that he handed them the cup.’ The minister and these true disciples possessed by faith the real presence of Jesus in their hearts. They had hardly finished when the exasperated priests entered the church hastily and sang the mass as loud as they could. The next day, Whitmonday, there was a fresh scandal: the evangelicals were at work. ‘Ha!’ said many indignantly; ‘they keep no holiday, except the Sunday!’ ^fh110

If the evangelization had continued in a peaceful course of christian edification, the city would in all probability have been entirely gained over; but the Reformation had its ‘enfans terribles.’ Calvin said in vain: ‘Those who are wise according to God are modest, peaceable, and gentle. They do not conceal vices; they endeavor rather to correct them, but provided it be in peace, that is to say, with so much moderation that unity remains unbroken. Peaceable and loving representations ought not to be laid aside, and those who desire to be physicians must not be executioners.’ ^fh111

A fine stone crucifix in St. Germain’s cemetery had been thrown down, and another, which stood at a cross road near the city, had been destroyed: but this had been done at night and it was not known by whom. Ere long the ardent reformers grew bolder, and especially Christopher Hollard, a true iconoclast of the Reform, who thought more of pulling down than building up. One day, as Farel was preaching before the deputies of Berne and Friburg, Hollard flew at an image of the Virgin and dashed it to pieces. Another day he threw down the great altar of the church of Our Lady. This was not enough.

According to Hollard, whose mind was upright, and even pious, but ardent, extreme, and rather deficient in judgment, the Reformation, that is to say, the destruction of images and altars, did not go on fast enough, and he therefore resolved to carry it out on a grand scale. He took twelve companions with him; and these agents of the judgments of God (as they thought themselves), going from street to street and from church to church, ‘pulled down all the altars’ in the seven churches of the city; twenty-six heaps of rubbish bore witness to their triumph. They could say, no doubt, that all worship paid to an image is a relic of paganism; but their fault was to suppose that catholics ought to adore God, not according to their catholic conscience, but according to that of the reformed protestants. The people looked at each other with alarm, but said nothing. ‘I was greatly astonished,’ says De Pierrefleur, ‘at the patience of the populace.’ ‘Sir banneret,’ observed some catholics, ‘if we did not feel great loyalty towards our lords of Berne, the body of Christopher Hollard would not have touched earth;’ that is to say, they would have hanged him. These combatants were pretty well matched for gentleness. The catholics set up tables in place of the altars, upon which they celebrated mass ‘rather meanly.’ ^fh112

The intolerance of Christopher Hollard and of one of his friends, named Tavel, threatened to substitute a new tyranny for the ancient tyranny of popery. Alas! the protestant clergy have sometimes been known to oppose the disciples and doctrines of the gospel, just as the Romish clergy would have done. Intolerance is a vice of human nature which even piety does not always cure. The priests saying mass at their little tables offended Hollard and Tavel. Agasse was no longer governor; he had been removed by the influence of Berne, and Anthony Secretan, one of the reformed, put in his place. The two fiery Lutherans laid a complaint before him against all priests as being murderers (of souls): and according to the custom of the age, surrendered themselves prisoners. The governor ordered the Roman ecclesiastics to be arrested, which was no easy matter, for there were some sturdy fellows among them. Three sergeants having attempted to seize Messire Pierre Bovey in the street, the stout priest ‘dragged them into the passage of a house,’ and there beat them so that they were glad to escape out of his hands. Having thus defended himself like a lion, he remained free; but it was not so with Blaise Foret, the cure, who ‘went like a sheep straight to prison.’ The officers put him along with the rest, who were ‘well treated at bed and board, with permission to go all over the castle.’ ^fh113 Some bold priests (for they were not all shut up) chanted mass at five o’clock in the morning, notwithstanding the prohibition. The catholics attended ‘armed with pikes, halberds, and clubs; and rang the bells as if the city were on fire.’ Before long the intolerant protestants received a severe and well merited lesson.

The grand banneret Pierrefleur, who was a man of the world, well read, of a cultivated mind, charming simplicity, and profound intelligence, combined great decision of character with Vaudois good temper. Being a catholic from conviction, and knowing that the majority of the inhabitants were for the Roman faith, and disgusted at seeing the priests in prison and the faithful compelled to hear mass almost in secret, he summoned a general council of the people. ‘Will you,’ he asked them, ‘will you have the mass, and live and die in the holy faith, like your forefathers? If you do wish it, let every one hold up his finger, and if perchance there should be any one of a contrary opinion, let him leave the assembly.’ Every one raised his finger in token of an oath, whereupon the Friburgers sent a herald to Orbe. The priests were taken out of prison, and those who had helped to pull down the altars were put in their place. There were fifteen in all, and among them was Elizabeth’s husband, the noble Hugonin of Amex. They were not so well treated at ‘bed and board’ as the priests had been, but were put on bread and water; after three days, however, they were allowed to return home. ^fh114 During this time the priests and fervent catholics were restoring the altars everywhere. It required more than twenty years for the Reform in Orbe to recover from the blow inflicted on it by the intolerance of Hollard and his friends. It was not till 1554 that an assembly of the people decided by a majority of eighteen votes in favor of the establishment of evangelical worship. The priests, nuns, and friars then left the city for ever, amid the tears of their supporters. ^fh115

CHAPTER 4

THE BATTLES OF GRANDSON.

(1531 — 1532.)

FAREL’S zeal was not cooled by the check he had received at Orbe; he saw before him other places that must be evangelized. If he withstood the ambitious demands of the new converts who, like Hollard, fancied themselves more capable than they really were, and indiscreetly sought for consecration to the holy office, he did but seek with more zeal for servants of God, who possessed a spirit of strength, charity, and prudence. Certain men appeared to him to have been ripened in France by persecution. He invited into Switzerland Toussaint, Lecomte, Symphoranus, Andronicus, and others. As soon as these brethren arrived, he sent them into the harvest; ^fh116 and frequently after fervent prayers he seemed to see the whole valley enclosed between the Jura and the Alps filled with the living Waters of the Gospel. ‘Of a truth,’ said he, ‘if we look at the times that have gone before, the work of Christ is glorious now... And yet what roots remain to be torn up before the field is ready to receive the divine seed. ^fh117 What works to be accomplished, what toils to be endured, what enemies to be overcome!... We have need of laborers inured to labor... I can not promise them mountains of gold, ^fh118 but I know that the Father will never abandon His own, and that He will give them an abundant harvest.’

In Farel’s heart overwhelming depression often followed close upon the fairest expectations. One sorrow especially afflicted him: the malady of petty questions seemed threatening to invade the new Church. At all times narrow and ill-balanced minds attach themselves to certain details in the doctrine of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the ministry, and so forth: they are eager about anise and cummin ^fh119 and by their minutiae encumber the kingdom of Christ. Farel, who with a holy doctrine and unwearied activity combined a wise discernment and a large liberal spirit, trembled lest this weakness of little understandings had crept into the minds of the ministers to whom he addressed his call. There happened to be at Strasburg just then a christian man named Andronicus, whom the reformer desired to attract into Switzerland; but he wished to know whether he was tainted with formalism or fanaticism — two evils which sometimes met on the banks of the Rhine. He resolved to speak frankly to him, and his letter shows us his opinion of the ministry: ‘Dear brother,’ he wrote to Andronicus, ‘do you possess Christ so as to teach Him purely, apart from the empty controversies of bread and water, taxes and tithes, which in the eyes of many constitute Christianity? ^fh120 Are you content to require of all that, renouncing ungodliness and unrighteousness, they should arm themselves with faith, and press to their hearts the heavenly treasure, Christ who sitteth at the right hand of the Father? Are you ready to give to all authorities what is their due — taxes, tithes — to pay them not only to the ungodly, but also to the brethren? Do you seek Christ’s glory only? Do you propose simply to plant in their hearts the faith that worketh by charity? Are you resolved to bear the cross? for, be assured, the cross awaits you at the door. If you are ready to bear it, then, dear brother, come instantly.’ Such was the wise language of the most ardent of the reformers.

While Farel was thus loudly calling for new workers, he was getting rid of the idle and cowardly, promising to all of them fatigue, insult, and persecution: it was with such promises that the reformer levied his soldiers. ‘Do not look for idleness, but for labor,’ ^fh121 he said; ‘only after fatigue will you find repose, and you will not reap until after you have sown at your own cost. A wide door is opened, but no one can enter except those who desire to feed the sheep and not to devour them, and who are determined to reply with kindness to the insults with which they are assailed. Labor and toil await you. ^fh122 I can promise you nothing but trouble... If you will come with us, know that you are entering into a hard service. You will have to fight not against craven and disheartened adversaries, but against enemies brimful of decision and strength. Be therefore a brave and noble soldier; attack the enemy joyfully, and rush into the hottest of the fight, placing your confidence in God, to whom alone belong the battle and the victory. It is not we who fight, but the

_Lord. fh123

But Farel called to the battle in vain: the timid recruits would not join the army. He received some little help indeed, but what was that for so great a work? Then his appeals grew louder. In the presence of the gigantic Alps, this humble man rose like them: his language swelled and resembled rather the cry of a soldier struggling in the midst of the enemy’s ranks, than the sweet and subtle voice of the Gospel of peace. ‘We are in the thick of the fight,’ he said; ‘the conflict is terrible; we are fighting man to man... but the Lord giveth the victory to his own. ^fh124 Take up the sword, set the helmet on your head, buckle on the breastplate, hang the shield to your arm, gird your loins; and being thus armed with the panoply of God, rush into the midst of the battle, hurl the darts, throw down the enemy on every side, and put all the army to flight. ^fh125 ... But alas! instead of joining the soldiers of Christ, instead of rushing into the Lord’s battles, you fear the cross, and the dangers that lie in wait for you. Preferring your own ease, you refuse to come to the assistance of your brethren... Is that the behavior of a christian?... The Holy Scriptures declare that the Lord will exact a severe reckoning for such cowardice... Beware lest you bury the talent you have received... Call to mind that you must give an account of all those souls, whom tyranny holds captive in its gloomy dungeons. You can set the light before their eyes, you can deliver them from their chains, you must conjure them to throw themselves into the arms of Jesus Christ... Do not hesitate... Christ must be preferred to everything. Do not trouble yourself about what your wife wishes and requires, but about what God asks and commands.’ ^fh126 More powerful solicitations had never been made; there was a new Paul in the world at this time. At last Farel’s earnestness prevailed. Andronicus and others hastened to him, and labored with him in the country that stretches from Basle to Berne as far as Geneva.

Delighted at receiving such helpers, the reformer hastened to fresh combats. Every parish, village, and town was to be won to Christ by an obstinate struggle. There is no soldier that has fought more battles. We can only find a parallel to Farel in the convert of Damascus. He took with him De Glautinis, minister of Tavannes, in the Bernese Jura, who had come to his help, and quitted Orbe, leaving on his left the picturesque gorge of the Jura, where the village of St. Croix lies hid, and over which soar the lofty tops of the Chasseron, and turned his steps towards Grandson. Ere long he came in sight of the celebrated walls of the old castle which stood near the extremity of the lake of Neuchatel. This place, which was about to become an evangelical battle-field, had witnessed a far different struggle.

Here, in 1476, the Swiss had rushed from the heights of Champagne and Bonvillars, while the terrible roaring of the bull of Uri portended death, and the cow of Underwald uttered its warning sound. ^fh127 Here they bent the knee in presence of the hostile columns, and rising with shouts of ‘Grandson!’ playing their fearful music, unfurling their ancient banners, and guarding them with their long and formidable spears, they charged the Burgundians with the rush of the tempest. Vainly did the commander of the cavalry, Sire Louis of Chateau-Guyon, brother of the Prince of Orange and of the Lord of Orbe and Grandson, — vainly did he spur his large warhorse and charge impetuously at the head of six thousand horsemen; vainly did he seize the banner of Schwytz, In der Gruob of Berne had given him a death-blow, and the Burgundians, as they saw the gigantic warrior fall, were struck with terror. Grandson as well as Orbe were lost to the family of that hero, and the sovereignty of the two towns passed to the cantons of Berne and Friburg. A panic spread through the ranks, and Charles the Bold was forced to fly, leaving behind him four hundred silk tents embroidered with gold and pearls, six hundred standards, and an immense quantity of plate, money, jewels, and precious stones. This vigorous attack and glorious victory, the fame of which still remained in that peaceful country, was a type of the work that Farel was to accomplish. By his means, Berne was about to strike at Grandson as well as Orbe a more formidable enemy than the Lord of Chateau-Guyon. ^fh128

On the shore of the lake at the entrance of the town stood the vast convent of the Gray Friars. Farel and his friend De Glautinis, who accompanied him, stopped before its walls and said to each other that to this place doubtless the Lord had first directed their steps. They rang, entered the parlor, and the superior of the monastery, Friar Guy Regis, having asked them what they wanted, they begged him very coolly ‘in the name of the Lords of Berne,’ to grant them the use of the church. But Guy Regis, a resolute man and earnest priest, who knew all that had happened at Orbe, was offended at such insolence. ‘Heretic!’ said he to Farel. ‘Son of a Jew!’ exclaimed another monk. The reception was not encouraging. The two ministers discussed with some friends of the Word of God, what was to be done. ‘Go to the priory on the hill,’ said the latter. ‘As you bear a letter from Messieurs of Berne for the prior, the monks will not dare refuse you.’

Accordingly Farel, De Glautinis, and a few of the brethren, proceeded to the Benedictine convent. They knocked and the door was opened; several monks appeared. As they knew already something about the arrival of the missionaries, they looked at them from head to foot, and Farel had scarcely asked permission to preach, when a loud uproar arose in the cloister. The sacristan hid a pistol under his frock, another friar armed himself with a knife, and both came forward stealthily to lay hands upon the heretic who (according to them) was disturbing all the churches. The sacristan arrived first; pointing the pistol at Farel with one hand, he seized him with the other, and pulling him along, endeavored to drag him into the convent, where a prison awaited him. De Glautinis observing this, sprang forward to rescue his friend, but, the other monk, arriving at the scene of combat, fell upon him, flourishing his knife. Alarmed by the noise within the cloister, the friends of the evangelists, who had remained at the door, waiting to know whether they could hear Farel or not, rushed in and tore both him and his comrade from the stout arms of the monks. The gates of the monastery were closed immediately, and they remained so for a whole fortnight, so great was the terror inspired by the reformers.

Farel seeing there was nothing to be done at Grandson just then, departed for Morat, beseeching De Glautinus, whom he left behind him, to take advantage of every opportunity to proclaim the gospel. The monks entrenched within their walls, trembled, deliberated, kept watch, and armed themselves against this one man as if they had an army before them. Convent gates and church doors were all close shut. De Glautinus, finding that he could not preach in the churches, determined to preach in the streets and in private houses; but he had hardly begun when the monks, informed by the signals of their agents whom they had instructed not to lose sight of the evangelist, made a vigorous sally. Guy Regis, the valiant superior of the Gray Friars, the precentor, and all the monks came to the place where De Glautinis was preaching, and boldly placed themselves between him and his hearers: ‘Come,’ said the superior, ‘come, if you dare, before the king or the emperor. Come to Besancon, to Dole, or to Paris; I will show you and all the world that your preaching is mere witchcraft. Begone, we have had enough of you. You shall not enter the churches.’ As soon as this harangue was over, the monks capped it by roaring out: ‘Heretic, son of a Jew, apostate!’ The troop having thus fired their volley, hastily retreated within their walls. ^fh129

Some Bernese deputies, who chanced to be at Neuchatel, hearing what was going on at Grandson, went thither without delay. They did not wish to force the people to be converted, but they desired that all under their rule should hear the gospel without hindrance, and thus have liberty to decide with full knowledge for Rome or for the Reformation. When the Bernese lords arrived at Grandson, which is not far from Neuchatel, they ordered the conventual churches to be thrown open to the reformers. A messenger was sent to Farel, who returned immediately, bringing Viret with him, and from the 12th May the three evangelists began to preach Sundays and week-days. The monks, surprised, irritated, and yet restrained by fear of their dread lords, looked with gloomy eyes on the crowd that came to hear the heresy. The superior of the Gray Friars, who had a great reputation for learning, thought himself called upon to resist the reformers. They had hardly left the pulpit when he entered it, and thus Farel and Guy Regis attacked and refuted each other, struggling, so to say, hand to hand. The evangelist preached grace, the monk prescribed works; the former reproached his opponent with disobeying Scripture, the latter reproached the other with disobeying the Church. The monks went further still: they conjured the magistrates to come to the defense of the faith, and the latter outlawed the ministers, while the sergeants arrested them. The populace, seeing them in the hands of the officers, followed them and covered them with abuse, and they were shut up in prison. ^fh130

Thus the struggle descended to the people and grew all the warmer. Parties were formed, bands were organized. The catholics, in order to distinguish themselves, stuck fir-cones in their caps, and thus adorned stalked proudly through the streets. Their adversaries said to them as they passed: ‘You insult Messieurs of Berne;’ to which they arrogantly answered: ‘You shall not prevent us.’

The inhabitants of Yverdun, a neighboring town, which eagerly espoused the cause defended by Guy Regis, organized, not a troop of soldiers, but a procession. It quitted the town and passed along the shore of the lake; clerical banners instead of military colors waved above their heads, sacred chants instead of drums and trumpets filled the air. At last this curious reinforcement reached the city where such a fierce struggle was going on. The catholics no longer doubted of victory. Men’s minds grew heated and their passions were inflamed. Farel and his friends, having been set at liberty, a black friar named Claude de Boneto stuck to the reformer and loaded him with abuse. The latter undismayed said: ‘Christians, withdraw from the pope who has laid insupportable burdens on your back, which he will not touch with the tip of his finger. Come to Him who has taken all your burden and placed it on his own shoulders. Do not trust in the priests or in Rome. Have confidence in Jesus Christ.’ ^fh131 The council of Berne took up the defense of the evangelist, and condemned friar Boneto.

fh132

As the support of Yverdun had produced no effect, help was sent from Lausanne. On St. John’s day (28th June) a cordelier arrived at Grandson to preach in honor of the saint. The church of the Franciscans was soon crowded, and Farel and De Glautinis were in the midst of the throng. The strange things which the preacher said filled them with sorrow; presently the reformer stood up, and (as was the custom of the times) began to refute the monk. The latter stopped, and the eyes of the assembly were turned upon the minister with signs of anger. The bailiff, John Reyff of Friburg, a good catholic, unable to restrain himself, raised his hand and struck Farel. This was the signal for a battle. Judges, gray friars, and burgesses of Grandson, who had come armed to the church, fell upon the two ministers, threw them to the ground, and showered blows and kicks upon them. Their friends hastened to their help, flung themselves into the midst of the fray, and succeeded in rescuing the reformers from the hands of the riotous crowd; but not before they had been ‘grievously maltreated in the face and other parts.’ The grand banneret of Orbe saw it, and it is he who tells the story. ^fh133

The evangelicals lost no time: one of them started off at once to see the Sieur de Watteville, the avoyer of Berne, who chanced to be at his estate of Colombier, three leagues from Grandson. That magistrate went to the town, and wishing to put the inhabitants in a position to exercise the right of free inquiry, according to the principles of Berne, he ordered the cordelier and Farel to preach by turns, and then went to the church, attended by his servant, with the view of hearing both preachers. But there was something else to be done first. The people were still agitated with the emotions of the preceding day, and pretended that the reformers wanted to pull down the great crucifix, which was much respected by all the city. Two monks, Tissot and Gondoz, were distinguished by their zeal for the doctrines of the pope; sincere but fanatical, they would have thought they were doing God a service by murdering Farel. They had been posted as sentinels to defend the image supposed to be threatened. Armed with axes hidden under their frocks, they paced backwards and forwards, silent and watchful, at the foot of the stairs which led to the gallery where the famous crucifix stood. When the Lord of Berne appeared, one of the sentinels, seeing a strange face, which had an heretical look about it, stopped him abruptly. ‘Stand back, you can not pass this way,’ he said, while his comrade rudely pushed the Sieur de Watteville. ‘Gently,’ said the avoyer in a grave tone; ‘you should not get in such a heat.’ The patrician’s serving-man, exasperated at this want of respect to his master, and less calm than he was, caught the cowled sentinel round the body, and feeling the axe under his frock, took it away and was about to strike him with it, when the Bernese lord checked him. All the monks fled in alarm, and De Watteville remaining master of the ground, placed his servant there on guard. The latter, stalking up and down with the axe on his shoulder, kept watch instead of the monks.

He had been there only a few minutes, when about thirty women, with flashing eyes and sullen air, each holding her serge apron gathered up in front, made their appearance and endeavored to get into the gallery. Some had filled their aprons with mould from their gardens, and others with ashes from their kitchens, and with these weapons they were marching to battle. Their plan was not, indeed, to engage in a regular fight, but to lie in ambush in the gallery near the pulpit; and then as soon as Farel appeared, to throw the ashes into his eyes and the earth into his mouth, and so silence the fearless preacher of the Gospel. This was their notion of controversy. The troop approached: the avoyer’s serving-man, firm as became a servant of my lord of Berne, was still pacing to and fro, axe in hand. He perceived the feminine battalion, immediately saw what was their intention, and advanced brandishing the weapon he had taken from the monks. The devotees of Grandson, seeing a Bernese instead of a gray friar, were alarmed; they shrieked, let go their aprons, suffered the mould and ashes to fall upon the floor of the church, and ran off to their homes.

The conspiracies of the monks and of the women being thus baffled, the Bernese magistrate did not take advantage of it to make Farel preach alone. He wished the balance to be even. The gray friar therefore and the reformer quietly took their turns. Tissot and Gondoz, who had stopped De Watteville, were imprisoned for a fortnight. The two monks, recovering from their passion, began to consider what this Lutheran doctrine could be which possessed such stanch adherents. The reformers visited them, and showed them much affection. The monks were touched, they saw that the heresy of which they had been so afraid was simply the all-merciful Gospel of Jesus Christ. They left the prison with new thoughts, and two years later, says the banneret, ‘they received the Lutheran law, were made preachers, one at Fontaines, the other at Chavornay, married, and had a large family of children.’ In the days of the Reformation, as in those of the apostles, it was often seen that those who ‘kicked against the pricks’ obtained mercy and became heralds of the faith. ^fh134

A last tumult was to cause the principles of religious liberty to be proclaimed in Switzerland. It occurred at Orbe during the Christmas holidays. The catholics, proud of the midnight devotions customary among them at that season of the year, insulted the reformed: ‘Go to bed,’ they said; ‘while we are singing the praises of God in the church you will be sleeping in your beds like swine.’... The reformers, who did not like midnight masses with all their profanations, desired to take advantage of the evening hours, when the cessation of labor gave an opportunity of collecting a large congregation. At seven o’clock on Christmas eve they asked the governor for the keys of the church: ‘It is not sermon time,’ he answered, ‘and you shall not have them.’ They rejoined that every hour, except at night, was sermon time; and being determined to begin the evening services, they went to the church, opened the doors, the preacher got up into the pulpit, and in a moment the place was crowded. A few priests or bigots, peeping into the building, exclaimed in surprise at the crowd: ‘The devil must have sent a good many there!’ The minister (it may have been Viret) explained the great mystery of faith, the coming of the Savior, and asked his hearers if they would not receive him into their hearts. The sermon had lasted some time, and the clock struck nine. Immediately the bells rang, and the catholics crowded into the church, although there was no service at that hour.

The reformed being unwilling to quarrel, retired home quietly; but a mischievous fellow, who had crept into the assembly with the intention of exciting the people, began to whisper to his neighbors that the heretics were going to destroy everything at St. Claire. This was false, but they believed it; the crowd deserted the altars, and, meeting with a few reformers in the streets, knocked some down, and broke the heads of others; the best known among them had already reached home, but the catholic population assembled in front of their houses, and threw stones at their windows. Viret departed for Berne with ten of the reformed, in order to make his complaint. ^fh135

A few days later, on the 9th January 1532, two hundred and thirty ministers assembled at Berne, among whom was the wise Capito, and formed a sort of council. Having most of them left the Romish church, they desired liberty not only for themselves, but also for their adversaries. The laymen were of the same opinion. Berne, the representative of protestantism, agreed with Friburg, the champion of popery, on this subject. ‘We desire,’ said the Bernese, ‘that every one should have free choice to go to the preaching or to mass.’ ‘And we also,’ said the Friburgers. ‘We desire that all should live in peace together, and that neither priests nor preachers should call their adversaries heretics or murderers. ‘And we also,’ said the Friburgers. ‘Nevertheless, we do not wish to hinder the priests and preachers from conferring amicably and fraternally concerning the faith.’ ‘Quite right,’ said the Friburgers. These articles, and others like them — the first monument of religious liberty in Switzerland — were published on the 30th January 1532. ^fh136 It is to be regretted that this proclamation of the sixteenth century was ‘not henceforward taken as a pattern in all christian countries, and in Switzerland, where it was drawn up. The order did not for long prevent violent collisions.

We shall now leave this quarter, and follow elsewhere the great champion of the Word of God, Farel; but we shall return here later. The evangelical seed was to be sown still more abundantly in the Pays de Vaud, and that soil, which appeared adverse at first, will produce and has produced, in our days especially, the finest of fruits.

CHAPTER 5

THE WALDENSES APPEAR.

(1526 TO OCTOBER 1532.)

ON Friday, 12th July, Farel came from Morat to Grandson, where a quiet conference was to be held. Four disciples of the Gospel begged to receive the imposition of hands. Farel and his colleagues examined them, and, finding them fitted for the evangelical work, sent them to announce the Gospel in the neighboring villages of Gy, Fy, Montagny, Noville, Bonvillars, St. Maurice, Champagne, and Concise. But the conference was to be occupied with more important business.

For two or three years past a strange report had circulated among the infant churches that were forming between the Alps and the Jura. They heard talk of christians who belonged to the Reformation without having ever been reformed. It was said that in some of the remote valleys of the Alps of Piedmont and Dauphiny, and in certain parts of Calabria, Apulia, Provence, Lorraine, and other countries, ^fh137 there were believers who for many centuries had resisted the pope and recognized no other authority than Holy Scripture. Some called them ‘Waldenses,’ others ‘poor men of Lyons,’ and others ‘Lutherans.’ The report of the victories of the Reformation having penetrated their valleys, these pious men had listened to them attentively; one of them in particular, Martin Gonin, pastor of Angrogne, was seriously moved by them. Being a man of decided and enterprising character, and ready to give his life for the Gospel, the pious barbe (the name given by the Waldenses to their pastors) had felt a lively desire to go and see closely what the Reformation was. This thought haunted him everywhere: whether he traversed the little glens which divided his valley, like a tree with its branches, ^fh138 or whether he followed the course of the torrent, or sat at the foot of the Alps of Cella, Vachera, and Infernet, Gonin sighed after Wittemberg and Luther. At last he made up his mind; he departed in 1526, found his way to the reformers, and brought back into his valleys much good news and many pious books.

From that time the Reformation was the chief topic of conversation among the barbes and shepherds of those mountains.

In 1530 many of them, threading the defiles of the Alps, arrived on the French slopes, and following the picturesque banks of the Durance, took their way towards Merindol, where a synod of Waldensian christians had been convened. They walked on, animated with the liveliest joy; they had thought themselves alone, and in one day there had been born to them in Europe thousands of brethren who listened humbly to the Word of God, and made the pope tremble on his throne... They spoke of the Reformation, of Luther, and Melanchthon, and of the Swiss as they descended the rough mountain paths. When the synod was formed, they resolved to send a deputation to the evangelicals of Switzerland, to show them that the Waldensian doctrines were similar to those of the reformers, and to prevail upon the latter to give them the hand of fellowship. In consequence, two of them, George Morel and Peter Masson, set out for Basle.

On their arrival in that city, they asked for the house of Oecolampadius; they entered his study, and the old times, represented by these simpleminded worthy barbes, greeted the new times in the person of the amiable and steadfast reformer. The latter could not see these brave and rustic men standing before him and not feel an emotion of respect and sympathy. The Waldenses took from their bosoms the documents of their faith, and presented them to the pious doctor. ‘Turning away from Antichrist,’ said these papers, and Masson and Morel repeated the words, ‘we turn towards Christ. He is our life, our peace, our righteousness, our shepherd, our advocate, our victim, our high-priest, who died for the salvation of believers. ^fh139 But alas! as smoke goeth before the fire, the temptation of Antichrist precedeth the glory, ^fh140 In the time of the apostles Antichrist was but a child; he has now grown into a perfect man. He robs Christ of the merit of salvation, and ascribes it to his own works. He strips the Holy Ghost of the power of regeneration, and attributes it to his ceremonies. He leads the people to mass, a sad tissue of jewish, pagan, and christian rites, and deprives them of the spiritual and sacramental manducation. ^fh141 He hates, persecutes, accuses, robs, and kills the members of Jesus Christ. ^fh142 He boasts of his length of life, of his monks, his virgins, his miracles, his fasts, and his vigils, and uses them as a cloak to hide his wickedness. nevertheless, the rebel is growing old and decreasing, and the Lord is killing the felon by the breath of his mouth.’ ^fh143 Oecolampadius admired the simplicity of their creed. He would not have liked a doctrine without life, or an apparent life without doctrine, but he found both in the Waldensian barbes. ‘I thank God,’ he told them, ‘that he has called you to so great light.’ ^fh144

Ere long the doctors and faithful ones of Basle desired to see these men of ancient times. Seated round the domestic hearth, the Waldenses narrated the sufferings of their fathers, and described their flocks scattered over the two slopes of the Alps. ‘Some people,’ they said, ‘ascribe our origin to a wealthy citizen of Lyons, Peter de Vaux or Waldo, who, being at a banquet with his friends, saw one of them suddenly fall dead. ^fh145 Moved and troubled in his conscience he prayed to Jesus, sold his goods, and began to preach and sent others ‘to preach the Gospel everywhere. ^fh146 But,’ added the barbes, ‘we descend from more ancient times, from the time when Constantine introducing the world into the Church, our fathers set themselves apart, or even from the time of the apostles.’ ^fh147

In the course of conversation, however, with these brethren, the christians of Basle noticed certain points of doctrine which did not seem conformable with evangelical truth, and a certain uneasiness succeeded to their former joy. Wishing to be enlightened, Oecolampadius addressed a few questions to the two barbes. ‘All our ministers,’ they answered on the first point, ‘live in celibacy, and work at some honest trade.’ ‘Marriage, however,’ said Oecolampadius, ‘is a state very becoming to all true believers, and particularly to those who ought to be in all things ensamples to the flock. We also think,’ he continued, ‘that pastors ought not to devote to manual labor, as yours do, the time they could better employ in the study of scripture. The minister has many things to learn; God does not teach us miraculously and without labor; we must take pains in order to know.’

fh148

The barbes were at first a little confused at seeing that the elders had to learn of their juniors; however, they were humble and sincere men, and the Basle doctor having questioned them on the sacraments, they confessed that through weakness and fear they had their children baptized by Romish priests, and that they even communicated with them and sometimes attended mass. This unexpected avowal startled the meek Oecolampadius. ‘What,’ said he, ‘has not Christ, the holy victim, fully satisfied the everlasting justice for us? Is there any need to offer other sacrifices after that of Golgotha? By saying Amen to the priests’ mass you deny the grace of Jesus Christ.’

Oecolampadius next spoke of the strength of man after the fall. ‘We believe,’ said the barbes modestly, ‘that all men have some natural virtue, just as herbs, plants, and stones have. ^fh149 ‘We believe,’ said the reformer, ‘that those who obey the commandments of God do so, not because they have more strength than others, but because of the great power of the Spirit of God which renews their will.’ ^fh150 ‘Ah,’ said the barbes, who did not feel themselves in harmony with the reformers on this point, ‘nothing troubles us weak people so much as what we have heard of Luther’s teaching relative to free-will and predestination... Our ignorance is the cause of our doubts: pray instruct us.’

The charitable Oecolampadius did not think the differences were such as ought to alienate him from the barbes. ‘We must enlighten these christians,’ he said, ‘but above all things we must love them.’ Had they not the same Bible and the same Savior as the children of the Reformation? Had they not preserved the essential truths of the faith from the primitive times? Oecolampadius and his friends agitated by this reflection, gave their hands to the Waldensian deputation: ‘Christ,’ said the pious doctor, ‘is in you as he is in us, and we love you as brethren.’

The two barbes left Basle and proceeded to Strasburg to confer with Bucer and Capito, after which they prepared to return to their valleys. As Peter Masson was of Burgundian origin, they determined to pass through Dijon, a journey not unattended with danger. It was said here and there in cloisters and in bishops’ palaces that the old heretics had come to an understanding with the new. The pious conversation of the two Waldendans having attracted the attention of certain inhabitants of Dijon, a clerical and fanatical city, they were thrown into prison. What shall they do? What, they ask, will become of the letters and instructions they are bearing to their religionists? One of them, Morel, the bearer of this precious trust, succeeded in escaping: Masson, who was left, paid for both; he was condemned, executed, and died with the peace of a believer.

When they saw only one of their deputation appear, the Waldenses comprehended the dangers to which the brethren had been exposed, and wept for Masson. But the news of the reformers’ welcome spread great joy among them, in Provence, Dauphiny, in the valleys of the Alps, and even to Apulia and Calabria. The observations, however, of Oecolampadius, and his demand for a stricter reform, were supported by some and rejected by others. The Waldensians determined therefore to take another step: ‘Let us convoke a synod of all our churches,’ said they, ‘and invite the reformers to it.’

One July day in 1532, when Farel was at Grandson, as we have seen, in conference with other ministers, he was told that two individuals, whose foreign look indicated that they came from a distance, desired to speak with him. The two barbes, one from Calabria, named George, the other Martin Gonin, a Piedmontese, entered the room., After saluting the evangelicals in the name of their brethren, they told them that the demand that had been addressed to them to separate entirely from Rome had caused division among them. ‘ Come,’ they said to the ministers assembled at Grandson, ‘come to the synod and explain your views on this important point. After that we must come to an understanding about the means of propagating over the world the doctrine of the Gospel which is common to both of us.’ No message could be more agreeable to Farel; and as these two points were continually occupying his thoughts, he determined to comply with the request of the Waldensian brethren. His fellow-countryman, the pious Saunier, wished to share his dangers.

The members of the conference and the evangelicals of Grandson gazed with respect upon these ancient witnesses of the truth, arriving among them from the farther slopes of the Alps and the extremity of Italy, where they would have had no idea of going to look for brethren. They crowded round them and gave them a welcome, overflowing with love for them as they thought of the long fidelity and cruel sufferings of their ancestors. They listened with interest to the story of the persecutions endured by their fathers, and the heroism with which the Waldenses had endured them. They were all ears when they were told how the barbes and their flocks were suddenly attacked by armed bands in their snowy mountains during the festival of Christmas in the year 1400; how men, women, and children had been compelled to flee over the rugged rocks, and how many of them had perished of cold and hunger, or had fallen by the sword. In one place the bodies of fourscore little children were found frozen to death in the stiffened arms of their mothers who had died with them... In another place thousands of fugitives who had taken refuge in the deep caverns (1488) had been suffocated by the fires which their cruel persecutors had kindled at the entrance of their hiding-place. ^fh151 Would not the Reformation regard these martyrs as its precursors? Was it not a privilege for it thus to unite with the witnesses who had given glory to Jesus Christ since the first ages of the Church?

Some of the Swiss christians were alarmed at the idea of Farel’s journey. In truth great dangers threatened the reformer. The martyrdom of Peter Masson, sacrificed two years before, had exasperated the Waldenses of Provence, and their lamentations had aroused the anger of their enemies. The bishops of Sisteron, Apt, and Cavaillon had taken counsel together and laid a remonstrance before the parliament of Aix, which had immediately ordered a raid to be made on the heretics: the prisons were filled with Waldensians and Lutherans, real or pretended. Martin Gonin, one of the two Waldensian deputies, was in a subsequent journey arrested at Grenoble, put into a sack, and drowned in the Isere. A similar fate might easily happen to Farel. Did not the country he would have to cross depend on the duke of Savoy, and had not Bellegarde and Challans laid hands on Bonivard in a country less favorable to ambuscades than that which Farel had to pass through? That mattered not: he did not hesitate, he will leave these quarters where the might of Berne protects him and pass through the midst of his enemies. ‘There was in him the same zeal as in his Master,’ says an historian; ^fh152 ‘like the Savior, he feared neither the hatred of the Pharisees, nor the cunning of Herod, nor the rage of the people.’ He made every preparation for his departure, and Saunier did the

fh153

same.

Just as Farel was about to leave Switzerland, he received unpleasant tidings from France, and thus found himself solicited on both sides. He wrote to his fellow-countrymen one of those letters, so full of consolation and wisdom, which characterize our reformers. ‘Men look fiercely at you,’ he said, ‘and threaten you, and lay heavy fines upon you; your friends turn their robes and become your enemies... All men distress you... Observing all modesty, meekness, and friendship, persevering in holy prayers, living purely, and helping the poor, commit everything to the Father of mercies, by whose aid you will walk, strong and unwearied, in all truth.’ ^fh154

Towards the end of August, Farel and Saunier took leave of the brethren around them, got on their horses, and departed. Their course was enveloped in mystery: they avoided the places where they might be known and traversed uninhabited districts. Having crossed the Alps and passed through Pignerol, they fixed their eyes, beaming with mournful interest, on the lonely places where almost inaccessible caverns, pierced in the rugged sides of the mountains, often formed the only temple of the christians, and where every rock had a history of persecution and martyrdom. Their place of meeting was Angrogne, in the parish of the pious Martin Gonin. The two reformers quitted La Tour, and following the sinuosities of the torrent, and turning the precipices, they arrived at the foot of a magnificent forest, and then reached a vast plateau abounding in pastures: this was the Val d’ Angrogne. They gazed upon the steep ranges of the Soirnan and Infernet, the pyramidal flanks of mount Vandalin, and the gentler slopes upon which stood the lowly hamlets of the valley. They found Waldenses here and there in the meadows and at the foot of the roads; some were prepared ‘to be a guard for the ministers of the good law;’ and all looked with astonishment and joy at the pastors who came from Switzerland. ‘That one with the red beard and riding the white horse is Farel,’ said John Peyret of Angrogne, one of their escort, to his companions; ‘the other on the dark horse is Saunier.’ ‘There was also a third,’ add the eye-witnesses, ‘a tall man and rather lame;’ he may have been a Waldensian who had acted as a guide to the two deputies. ^fh155 Other foreign christians met in this remote valley of the Alps. There were some from the southern extremity of Italy, from Burgundy, Lorraine, Bohemia, and countries nearer home. There was also a certain number of persons of more distinguished appearance: the lords of Rive Noble, Mirandola, and Solaro had quitted their castles to take part in this Alpine council. Clergy, senate, and people were thus assembled; and as no room could have held the number, it was resolved to meet in the open air. Gonin selected for this purpose the hamlet of Chanforans, where there is now only one solitary house. There, in a shady spot, on the side of the mountain, surrounded by an amphitheater of rugged cliffs and distant peaks, the barbe had arranged the rude benches on which the members of this christian assembly were to sit.

Two parties met there face to face. At the head of that which was unwilling to break entirely with the Roman Catholic Church were two barbes, Daniel of Valence and John of Molines, who struggled for the success of their system of accommodation and compliance. On the other hand Farel and Saunier supported the evangelical party, who had not such distinguished representatives as the traditional party, and proposed the definitive rejection of all semi-catholic doctrines and usages. Before the opening of the synod the two ministers, finding themselves surrounded by numbers of the brethren, both in their homes and under the shade of the trees where the assembly was to be held, had already explained to them the faith of the Reformation, and several of the Waldenses had exclaimed that it was the doctrine taught from father to son among them, and to which they were resolved to adhere. Yet the issue of the combat appeared doubtful; for the semi-catholic party was strong, and described the reformers as foreigners and innovators who had come there to alter their ancient doctrines. But Farel had good hopes, for he could appeal to Holy Scripture and even to the confessions of the Waldenses themselves.

On the 12th September the synod was opened ‘in the name of God.’ One party looked with favor on Farel and Saunier, the other on John of Molines and Daniel of Valence; but the majority appeared to be on the side of the Reformation. Farel rose and boldly broached the question: he contended that there was no longer any ceremonial law, that no act of worship had any merit of itself and that a multitude of feasts, dedications, rites, chants, and mechanical prayers was a great evil. He reminded them that Christian worship consists essentially in faith in the Gospel, in charity, and in the confession of Christ. ‘God is a spirit,’ he said, ‘and divine worship should be performed in spirit and in truth.’ The two barbes strove in vain to oppose these views, the meeting testified their assent to them. Did not their confession reject ‘all feasts, vigils of saints, water called holy, the act of abstaining from flesh, and other like things invented by men?’ ^fh156 The worship in spirit was proclaimed.

Farel, delighted at this first victory, desired to win another and perhaps more difficult one. He believed that it was by means of the doctrine of the natural power of man that popery took salvation out of the hands of God and put it into the hands of the priests: ‘God,’ said he, ‘has elected before the foundation of the world all those who have been or who will be saved. It is impossible for those who have been ordained to salvation not to be saved. Whosoever upholds freewill, absolutely denies the grace of God.’ This was a point which Molines and his friend resisted with all their might. But did not the Waldensian confessions recognize the impotency of man and the all-sufficiency of grace? Did not they call the denial of these things ‘the work of Antichrist? ^fh157 Farel moreover adduced proof from Scripture. The synod was at first in suspense, but finally decided that it recognized this article as ‘conformable with holy Scripture.’ ^fh158

Certain questions of morality anxiously occupied the reformer. In his opinion the Romish Church had turned everything topsy-turvy, calling those works good which she prescribed though they had nothing good in them, and those bad which were in conformity with the will of God. ‘There is no good work but that which God, has commanded,’ said Farel, ‘and none bad but what He has forbidden.’ The assembly expressed their entire assent.

Then continuing the struggle, the firm evangelical doctor successively maintained that the true confession of a christian is to confess to God alone; that marriage is forbidden to no man, whatever his condition; that Scripture determines only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that christians may swear in God’s name and fill the office of magistrate; and finally, that they should lay aside their manual occupations on Sunday in order to have leisure to praise God, exercise charity, and listen to the truths of Scripture. ^fh159 ‘Yes, that is it,’ said the delighted Waldenses, ‘that is the doctrine of our fathers.’ ^fh160

Molines and Daniel of Valence did not, however, consider their cause lost. Ought not the fear of persecution to induce the Waldenses to persevere in certain dissimulations calculated to secure them from the inquisitive eyes of the enemies of the faith? Nothing displeased the reformers so much as dissembling. ‘Let us put off that paint,’ said Calvin, ‘by which the Gospel is disfigured, and let us not endeavor slavishly to please our adversaries; let us go boldly to work. If we permit compromises in some practices the whole doctrine will fall, and the building be thrown down.’ ^fh161 Farel thought as Calvin did. Perceiving this loophole for the two bathes, he urged the necessity of a frank confession of the truth. The members of the assembly, pricked in their consciences by the remembrance of their former back-slidings, bound themselves to take no part henceforward in any Romish superstition, and to recognize as their pastor no priest of the pope’s church. ‘We will perform our worship,’ they said, ‘openly and publicly to give glory to God.’

The two barbes, who were no doubt sincere, became more eloquent. The moment was come that was to decide the future. In their opinion, by establishing new principles they cast discredit on the men who had hitherto directed the churches. No doubt it was culpable to take part in certain ceremonies with an unworthy object, but was it so when it was done for good ends? To break entirely with the Catholic Church would render the existence of the Waldenses impossible, or at least would provoke hostilities which would reduce them completely to silence... Farel replied with wonderful energy maintaining the rights of truth. He showed them that every compromise with error is a lie. The purity of the doctrine he professed, his elevated thoughts, the ardent affection expressed by his voice, his gestures, and his looks, electrified the Waldenses, and poured into their souls the holy fire with which his own was burning. These witnesses of the middle ages called to mind how the children of Israel having adopted the customs of people alien to the covenant of God, wept abundantly and exclaimed: ‘We have trespassed against God!’ ^fh162 The Waldenses felt like them, and desired to make amends for their sins. They drew up a brief confession in 17 articles, in conformity with the resolutions that had been adopted, and then said: ‘We adhere with one accord to the present declaration, and we pray God that, of his great charity, nothing may divide us henceforward, and that, even when separated from one another, we may always remain united in the same spirit.’ Then they signed their names. ^fh163