In tracing the silver line of God's grace, in the operations of His Spirit, we are arrested by the different forms it takes in different countries. We have just left a land where the sky was reddened with the flames of martyrdom, and the earth soaked with the blood of God's saints. Such is the history of every land where the Inquisition was established. In Germany-and where it never gained a footing-the struggle was with the princes and the imperial power; but in Switzerland the question of retaining the Romish, or adopting the Reformed faith, was not unfrequently decided by vote. This mode of determining the religion of a state strikingly illustrates the popular, or republican character of the Swiss government.
In German Switzerland, the principal Reformers-Zwingle, OEcolampadius, Bullinger, Haller, Wittenbach, and others, were natives; while the agents used of God for the conversion of French-Switzerland, with a single exception, were foreigners. William Farel, a French-man, and almost single-handed, had accomplished the overthrow of popery in several French districts, before he reached Geneva or saw John Calvin. D'Aubigne speaks of Farel as the Luther of French Switzerland, and of Calvin as the Melancthon.
This remarkable man-William Farel-was born of a wealthy and noble family at Gap, in Dauphiny, in the year 1489, and diligently instructed by his pious parents in, the faithful observance of the devout practices of the Romish church. Naturally sincere, upright, full of ardor, and true to his convictions, he invoked the Virgin and the saints night and day, as he has himself related. He scrupulously conformed to the fasts prescribed by the church, held the pontiff of Rome to be a god upon earth, saw in the priests the sole channel of all celestial blessings, and treated as infidels whoever did not exhibit an ardor similar to his own.