(Continued from, p. 143).
THE next morning at six o’clock Farel was preaching again in the great square. The people of Orbe tried another plan this time. Instead of attacking him, they left him perfectly alone. Lady Elizabeth then called together at her house “the devout women” of Orbe. She made them a speech, telling them that even women were called to defend holy mother church. They would be rendering a service to all good Catholics by killing Farel. He was to be present, as they all knew, at the town council that afternoon. They would waylay him as he came out, set upon him, and kill him. They knew he could not reach his inn without passing a certain street. They all agreed to meet there in full force. At the time they expected, Farel appeared. Lady Elizabeth rushed forward, and with her friends’ assistance, dragged him to the ground. But a friend of Farel’s suspecting mischief, had followed him from the council. He arrived at this moment, seized Farel, and dragged him away, after bowing politely to the ladies, to whom he said “I beg your pardon ladies, this gentleman is under my charge.” He then took Farel to his inn, and placed him in the safekeeping of the Bernese officers.
Meanwhile Father Michael was standing before the judges, whom the officers of Berne and Friborg had appointed to hear his defense. And the lord of Arnez, 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 Friborg 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 Saviour, 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 come 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.
And had Farel’s sermons been useless? It had seemed in his case as though the seed had fallen upon the wayside, and the fowls of the air had devoured it.
But God had a purpose of love and grace in sending his beloved servant amongst the enemies and blasphemers at Orbe. There were those even amongst them, upon whom He had set his love—whom. He loved even when they were dead in trespasses and sin—loved them with great love, which many waters could not quench, neither could floods of their wickedness and rebellion drown it.
It was at the beginning of that month of May that there was joy in the presence of the angels of God over the Lady Elizabeth Arnez, and Hugonin her husband. I cannot tell you how the Lady Elizabeth was brought to Christ. Her husband was, as we know, compelled to hear the preaching by the order from Berne. Perhaps he took his wife with him. The news came like a thunderbolt upon the people of Orbe. It was not long before they said that the Lady Elizabeth was the worst Lutheran in the place. Yes, “on the great festival of our Lady, she stayed at home, and had her washing day.”
And scarcely had the news spread through the town that these two lions had been changed into lambs, when a fresh thunderbolt fell upon the people of Orbe. Only four days after Peter Viret’s first sermon, George Grivat, the precentor of the church choir, appeared in the pulpit, not to sing Latin anthems, as he had done till that time, but to preach the glad tidings he had heard from William Farel. The best singer in the choir was now a heretic preacher! his father, his brothers, and his friends were filled with anger and despair.
It was just about this time that Farel, who had gone to preach at S. Blaise, near the lake of Neuchatel, 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 Dauphiny. I have been studying medicine at Montpelier, 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 Montpelier, 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 Neuchatel, 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 Neuchatel—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 lisp, and he went to Neuchâtel.
F.B.