Like our English Wycliffe, the aged Lefevre greatly desired that every man in France should have the privilege of reading the holy scriptures in his mother tongue. For this he labored, and with the assistance of Brissonnet, the four Gospels in French were published in October, 1522; the remaining books of the New Testament soon followed; and in October, 1524, a complete edition of the New Testament was published at Meaux. There the great fountain of light was first introduced which placed the work on a solid basis, and there the first Protestant congregation publicly assembled.
The pious bishop greatly furthered this good work by his wealth and his zeal. The word of God was speedily and widely circulated, the poor were supplied gratis. Never did a prelate devote his income to nobler purposes, and never did a seed time promise to bear a more glorious harvest. The preachers transferred from Paris to Meaux, and finding themselves unfettered, were acting with great liberty, while the word of God was diligently read in the homes and workshops of the people. The effect was sudden and great. Divine light had taken the place of papal darkness. The new book became the theme of their constant conversation, for while they handled their spindles and their combs, they could talk to each other of some fresh discovery they had made in the Gospels or the Epistles; and so the villagers in the vineyards, when the meal-hours came, one read aloud, while the others gathered round him. "There was engendered in many," says a chronicler of that day, "an ardent desire for knowing the way of salvation, so that artisans, fullers, and wool-combers took no other recreation, as they worked with their hands, than to talk with each other of the word of God, and to comfort themselves with the same. Sundays and holidays especially were devoted to the reading of scripture, and inquiring into the good pleasure of the Lord."
The following quotation from a Catholic historian, though hostile, bears witness to the positive influence of the word of God on the people. "Lefevre, aided by the renown of his great learning, contrived so to cajole and circumvent Messire Brissonnet with his plausible talk, that he caused him to turn aside grievously, so that it has been impossible to this day to free the city and diocese of Meaux from that pestilent doctrine, where it has so marvelously increased. The misleading that good bishop was a great injury, as until then he had been so devoted to God and to the Virgin Mary."