Meanwhile Father Michael was standing before the judges, whom the officers of Berne and Friburg had appointed to hear his defense. And the lord of Arnex, Elizabeth’s husband, stood by his side to plead his cause. At the entreaties of this gentleman the friar was set at liberty, having been made to promise he would henceforth preach nothing but the Word of God.
It seems not to have occurred to those judges that a man cannot be made to preach the Word of God by orders from his fellow men. The friar thought it best to escape to France. The officers of Berne and Friburg then returned home, leaving Farel at Orbe to do the best he could.
An order soon came from Berne that Master Farel was to have full liberty to preach. The people replied, “Let him go about his business, we want neither him, nor his preaching.” The Bernese officers answered, “He is to be free to speak, but no one is forced to go and listen.” Farel then gave notice that on the following Saturday he would preach in the church at one o’clock, and prove to them from Scripture that Father Michael’s sermons were wrong.
But Lady Elizabeth, though she no longer dared to kill Farel, was still resolved that he should never preach at Orbe. She made a plan by which she hoped the coming sermon would be as useless as the past ones. When Farel went into the pulpit, he observed that the church was filled with little ragamuffins, and all fast asleep. Some snored loudly, others were plainly endeavoring not to laugh aloud. The moment the sermon began, they all started to their feet, howled, shouted, whistled and shrieked, and then rushed out of the church with a “horrible uproar,” leaving Farel alone. “Nobody remained but the minister,” says the old chronicle.
The next day, Sunday, all the priests, monks, and most of the people went in a great procession to another church, outside the town. Farel seized the opportunity, and preached this time, for a while, in peace and quiet. But he had only ten hearers—amongst them Peter Viret, who had welcomed him with overflowing joy. Before the sermon was over the procession returned. The children, who had formed part of it, were longing to have another opportunity of screaming and howling in the church. They rushed in, and speedily put an end to the sermon. Farel came down from the pulpit, and returned to his lodging.
The priests now considered they had gained a complete victory. “He had to run away at last,” they said; “he cannot prove a single thing to be wrong in Father Michael’s sermons.”
The bailiff of Berne heard their boasting. “Very well,” he said; “you complain you have not heard the minister. You shall hear him at last. It is the will of my lords of Berne that every father of a family be required to go to his next sermon, under pain of their displeasure.” The people of Orbe knew that Berne must be obeyed. The church was now filled from one end to the other. Farel preached, we are told, a wonderful sermon. He told of the one Savior, the one Mediator between God and man. “The pope’s pardons,” he said, “take away money, but they cannot take away sin; but the pardon which God gives is bought with the blood of Jesus—a full and free pardon for the chief of sinners.”
For two days the people of Orbe were obedient to the orders of Berne. On the third day few came except the two or three whose names I have told you.
But in the villages around there were multitudes who longed to hear the glad tidings. The door of Farel’s lodging was beset by cow-herds, and vine-dressers, by shepherds, and weavers, entreating him to come to their mountains and valleys to bring them the news of peace and life. Farel wept with grief that there were not preachers enough to go into all these villages. “No one can describe,” he said, “the longing of these people for the gospel—the harvest so great, the laborers so few.”
A little later he wrote, “It would need a long letter to give you any idea of the extent of the harvest, and of the eagerness with which the people crowd to hear the gospel. Unhappily we need laborers, for those who have come to us from France are not equal to their task, and those pious Frenchmen, whom we would gladly welcome, are ensnared by the charms of home, and prefer the silence of slavery to the open confession of the name of Christ. Our brother Toussaint himself has resisted all our entreaties till he was forced to fly for safety to Zurich. Exhort him to make up by his zeal for his long inactivity.”
Some of those lately converted at Orbe, offered to go; but Farel did not think them sufficiently taught in the Scriptures. He would not consent to their teaching before they had learned. Some of the rest were offended at this, and Farel was told they thought him too strict. “Never mind,” he said, “it is better to offend them than to offend God.”
But there was one amongst the believers at Orbe, who had not offered to go, and he was just the one whom Farel thought fit for it. This was young Peter Viret. He had diligently studied the Scriptures, and his heart was given to Christ; but he was modest and humble, and he therefore shrank from coming forward. “God calls you, Peter,” said Farel; “it is not your power, but God’s power that we have to depend upon. His strength is made perfect in weakness.” Peter looked to God for guidance and help. Through his words, or rather through God’s Word, read and explained by him, his father and mother had already been brought to Christ. Young and ignorant as he felt himself to be, God might use him to bring others also.
On the 6th of May, five weeks after Farel’s arrival at Orbe, Peter preached his first sermon in the great church. Though he was not a clergyman, and was suspected of heresy, the whole town went to hear him. The townspeople had known him from a boy, and they felt it rather an honor to their little town that the son of Master Viret the tailor, only nineteen years old, should have learning enough to preach sermons in a church. God used that first sermon of Peter Viret’s to save some souls.