It was just about this time that Farel, who had gone to preach at St. Blaise, near the lake of Neuchâtel, was attacked by a furious mob, and beaten till he was half dead. He arrived at Morat so ill and exhausted that he had to stay in bed for some days. He shivered from head to foot, and began to spit blood. Preaching was out of the question for the present. But God had provided for him just the work that he was able to do. As he lay on his bed, a young man of pleasant countenance came into the room, and sat down beside him.
“My name,” said the young man, “is Christopher Fabri. I come from Dauphiné. I have been studying medicine at Montpellier, in France. I was to finish my studies at Paris. On my way there I arrived at Lyons. The Lord had shown me something of His blessed gospel before I left Montpellier, and to my great joy I found some of His people at Lyons, who taught me more than I knew before. They told me, too, about the great work the Lord has been doing at Neuchâtel and so many other places. When I heard this, I said to myself, 'I will not go to Paris, but I will go to Switzerland. It matters not that I have to forsake my family, and my country, and my studies; I must go and fight for Christ, by the side of William Farel!’ And now, Master William, here I am, do with me what seems good to you.”
Farel felt his heart drawn to this young man, “as to a son whom God had sent him.” And it was this moment, when he was laid aside and suffering, that God had chosen to give him this pleasure. He and Christopher read and prayed and talked together, during the days that followed—happy, quiet days, such as Farel had seldom known. He would have liked to keep his beloved Christopher always with him. But dear as Christopher had become, Christ was dearer.
“You must go, my son,” said Farel, “and preach at Neuchâtel—I cannot go there now.” Christopher answered with tears, “Oh! Master William, my sorrow is greater at leaving you than when I left father and mother.”
But Christ was first in the heart of Christopher also, and he went to Neuchâtel.
Meanwhile, a message came to Farel from his friends at Orbe. They wished to meet together to break bread in remembrance of Christ. Farel was now able to move. He went at once to Orbe. On Whit-Sunday, the 28th of May, at six in the morning, he appeared in the pulpit in the great church. Only those were there who desired to hear the preaching, but they were a large number.
He preached to them how the body of Christ was broken on the cross, and how full and free is the pardon of sin, which that precious death has gained for all who believe in Him.
When the sermon was over, eight believers met together to break bread with William Farel. They were Hugonin and Elizabeth, Christopher Holard and his old mother, William Viret, the tailor, George Grivat, and two others. Peter Viret was away at that time. There, in the great church where, not two months before, both Christopher and Mark Romain had been attacked so fiercely by Lady Elizabeth, they were now gathered as members of the One Body of Christ—one with Him—one also with one another.
“Do you forgive one another?” said Farel. Heartily they answered, “Yes.”
Then two of them spread a white cloth upon a bench, and there they placed a loaf of bread, and a cup of wine. They would not place them on the altar, because “it was polluted by idolatry.”
Then Farel prayed. And then together they broke the bread and drank the wine, as it had been done in the upper room at Troas long ago.
It was at last that worship in spirit and in truth, for which Farel’s heart had longed— Christ, and Christ alone, was owned at last.
But scarcely had they finished, when a crowd of angry priests rushed into the church. They were filled with horror at the crime which had been committed. And how many are there not now in “Protestant England,” who would feel much as these enraged priests? “Is that the Lord’s supper? No clergymen! no consecration of bread or wine! no vestments! no service books!” Alas! are there not amongst us many honored forms and rules which are just as much absent from the pages of the New Testament as saint-worship and purgatory, popedom and holy water?
It is well to know what is to be found in the Bible: it is well also to know what is not to be found. And if forms and rules, which have no place in the Word of God, have a place in our hearts, it is because we keep a place there in which Christ does not reign alone. If we condemn the infidel who diminishes from the holy Word of God, let us remember that to add to it is no less a sin in the eyes of Him, whose perfect Word it is.
If this breaking of bread is startling to you, is it because it is contrary to the Bible? or because it is contrary to the rules which man has made? Look through the Scriptures, and see what you can find as to the supper of the Lord, which should have been added to that simple meeting in the church at Orbe.
The priests, with the fear of Berne before their eyes, cared only to express their anger by singing mass more loudly than was their wont. And the next day, Whit-Monday, “these heretics” did not come to church at all. William Viret made coats, and Christopher Holard kept his shop open—all were at work. “Ha!” said the priests, “they keep no holiday, except the Sunday!”