The Huguenots were not as well satisfied. Now that Anthony’s preaching was forbidden, they were the more determined to hear it. In the case of some of them, it was no doubt a real desire to hear the gospel, which made them take up Anthony’s cause so warmly. In the case of others, it was plain that they were glad of an opportunity of standing up for their own rights, and of showing that they were not to be domineered over by the priests. They knew the priests were at the bottom of all this. For the one reason or the other, or both, all determined to go in a body to the Golden Cross next morning.
When Anthony started from his inn that New Year’s morning to go to his school, he found the streets round the Golden Cross so closely packed with people that it was impossible to make his way. With great effort he succeeded in getting within a short distance of the door; but the doorway, the passages, the stairs, and the great hall were already crowded to suffocation. The mass of people still in the streets were anxious that Anthony should remain outside. If he once got in, they had no chance of hearing a word.
A man shouted out, “To the Molard!” and in a minute the cry ran through the crowd, “To the Molard!”
The Molard is a large square near the lake, and not very far from the Golden Cross. It is the place where the fish market is held, and where it was held in the days of Froment.
Anthony was speedily carried off to the Molard. The Huguenots cleared a fish stall without ceremony, and hoisted up Anthony to preach from it. The crowd had followed, and the great square was completely filled.
“Preach the Word of God to us!” they shouted on every side; but, so great was the noise, preaching was at first impossible. Anthony made signs to them to be silent. He then got off the stall, and knelt upon the ground. The people were at once quiet. They uncovered their heads; some knelt also. Anthony at first could not speak. The tears ran down his cheeks. At last, lifting up his hands and eyes to heaven, he prayed in a voice so clear and strong that all could hear. He thanked God that He was the hearer and answerer of prayer—that He was bound by His own promise to hear the prayers of alI who draw near to Him through His beloved Son.
“Father,” he said, “look down upon Thy poor blind people, led by the blind, so that they both fall into the ditch, and can only be lifted out by Thy mercy.” He prayed that the Lord would open their eyes, and open their ears to listen to the Word, though preached to them by one “unworthy to be the bearer of so great a message—one chosen from among the weak things of the world.” “Give me, Lord,” he said, “strength and wisdom, so that Thy power may be shown—that it may be seen that Thy power is greater than Satan’s, and that Thy strength is not like man’s strength.”
The people wondered at this prayer. They knew no prayers but those which the priests chanted out of their books. This prayer seemed a reality to them.
Then Anthony stood up on his stall, and took out of his pocket a little book. It was a New Testament. The text he read from it was, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
You can imagine, having heard the text, what was the subject of Anthony’s sermon. He did this time speak of the priests—he spoke openly, boldly, and faithfully. He spoke of the pope, and of the mass. He told the people plainly that they and their fathers had been deceived for a thousand years by wolves in sheep’s clothing, worse than the Pharisees of whom the Lord spoke such solemn words of old. Worse—for they professed to forgive sin, which the Pharisees never dared to do. Worse—for they told men that a piece of bread shut up in a golden box was God Himself.
“Do not believe them!” said Anthony. “Christ, who has ransomed us by His blood, is at the right hand of the Father. Seek Him there—not in a box.” He told them also that Christ had said the Pharisees should be known by their long robes—worn to distinguish them from common men. It was not that the length of a robe made it displeasing to God, but it was worn as a sign that they were not as other men. “Who are those among you,” he said, “who wear vestments, and shave their heads to show that they are holier than laymen? Look around you, and judge for yourselves.”
In the midst of Anthony’s sermon, arrived a sergeant, sent by the magistrates, to whom the priests had carried the startling news that “the Lutherans had taken their idol to preach in the square.”
“In the name of my lords,” shouted the sergeant, “I command you to cease from preaching!”
Anthony stopped, and answered in a loud voice, “We ought to obey God rather than man.” He then continued his sermon.
The sergeant dared not do more in the presence of the army of Huguenots. He carried back Anthony’s answer to the magistrates. Anthony went on to speak of the evil teaching of the priests—of their profligate lives, and of their human inventions. Suddenly a body of armed men entered the square—magistrates, soldiers, and priests, all alike well provided with swords and guns. Claude Bernard, one of the Huguenots rushed forward. “Save yourself, Anthony Froment!” he shouted at the top of his voice. Anthony, nothing daunted, refused to move, or to break off his preaching. “For God’s honor let us avoid the spilling of blood,” said Bernard, who perceived that a fight was beginning. Froment saw it was right to give way. His friends dragged him from the stall, and carried him by a covered passage to the house where Robert Olivetan was tutor. There they hid him in a secret corner. The magistrates dispersed the crowd, and sought in vain for the preacher. They then returned to report to the town council that he had suddenly vanished.
I have given you, in few words, an account of this New Year’s sermon. It was, as you have seen, a sermon preached openly and directly against the priests of Rome. It was not simply the preaching of the gospel of Christ. In fact it was not the preaching of the gospel at all, except that Christ was mentioned in it in a sentence here and there as the Savior and Redeemer.
Ought it to have been otherwise? Ought Anthony to have preached the glad tidings of salvation only, and avoided giving offense to the priests, by holding them up as the Pharisees of Christendom?
It would be easy to pass judgment upon Anthony Froment in words which sound wise, and kind, and good: yet such words might, in the ears of God, be foolish, unkind, and evil. Who are we that we should “judge another man’s servant?” Have we any right to say that Anthony was not delivering the message which God put into his mouth? The same gracious Savior who spoke in the 15th chapter of Luke, spoke also in the 23rd chapter of Matthew. For more than a thousand years, as Anthony said, had God looked down upon the apostate church. He had seen the blind led by the blind, and His blessed Word taken from His people. Dare we to say that the God who commanded Ezekiel to prophecy against the shepherds of Israel—that the Christ who preached openly to the multitudes of the sins of the Pharisees, did not also send His message against the priests of Rome, by the mouth of the young schoolmaster, that New Year’s day?
It was not Christ who set the example of that course, now so commonly recommended, of trusting that truth will displace false teaching, without our venturing to say of any that they are wrong. The people of Geneva, in any case, had the matter put plainly before them, and could no more complain of the hardship of being fairly warned against the priests, than a sick man could complain, if warned that his doctor was giving him poison instead of medicine.
The priests were not willing that the matter should end by the disappearance of Anthony. They prowled about the streets, and before the day was over they had assured themselves of the fact that Anthony was somewhere in Chautemps’ house. They therefore collected in a crowd under the windows, shouting and threatening. Chautemps led Anthony out of the back door, in the dark, and took him to the house of the resolute Perrin, who had defied the priests the day before. But the priests soon found out what had happened. They rushed to Perrin’s house, and shouted loudly that they would set it on fire, and burn all who were in it. But Perrin, who was a match for them, went to the door, and said, “I am free to keep an honest servant in my house without asking your leave, and I shall do so.”
He then turned to Anthony, and said, “You are my servant—I herewith engage you.” At the same moment a body of Huguenots appeared in the street, and the priests fled.
During the few days that followed, the magistrates and the priests consulted together as to what should be done next. Had not some of the magistrates been Huguenots, things might have been speedily settled. But the town was divided, and so equally divided, it was impossible to decide between the two parties.
Meanwhile Anthony worked for his master, Perrin, being employed in weaving ribbon. He went out sometimes to visit those who had been converted by the preaching. Every now and then he was insulted and abused, but as some of his friends always followed him, armed with stout sticks, no one dared to touch him.
One day he met a procession on the Rhone bridge. The priests carried crosses and relics, and chanted prayers to Peter and Paul. Anthony stood upright, and did not bow to the images. The priests left off chanting, and shouted, “Fall on the dog! Drown him!” The women, always the most zealous, rushed upon him and endeavored to push him into the river. But his friends with their sticks ran to the rescue, seized Anthony, and dragged him into the house of our friend, Claudine Levet, which was at the corner of the bridge.
Aimé, Claudine’s husband, was an apothecary, and the lower part of the house was his shop. The priests led on the people to the attack. They flung stones through the windows, threw mud into the shop, and at last rushed in, and shattered the bottles, and scattered the drugs over the floor. The Huguenots put Anthony in a secret chamber, and then, armed with their sticks, drove priests, women, and all the mob speedily from the bridge. At night, Anthony returned to his master, Perrin, and told him he felt that the time was come for him to leave Geneva. His Huguenot friends were grieved, but they said he was right—it was no longer safe for him to remain there. Setting out in the dark, he left the city, and found his way back to his peaceful little home at Yvonand.