(Continued from p. 96).
BUT what had the priests and canons and the monks of the five convents been about all this time Had they been asleep whilst the gospel had thus been preached, day after day, from June till the end of October? They had been fully awake and alive. They had sent messengers to Berne entreating the Bernese to deliver them from Farel. They had forbidden the people to listen to him. They had carried him early in the summer before a magistrate, and had had him fined to the amount of 10,000 crowns. This, they said, was but a just punishment for his having stuck up placards, saying that the priests were thieves, murderers, and deceivers of the people. Farel had replied to this that it was not he who stuck up the placards. At the same time, if they desired him to deny that the priests were thieves and murderers, he must decline to do so. “For is not,” he said, “a man who extorts money on false pretenses a thief? And if you call a man a murderer who only kills the body, how much more is he a murderer who destroys souls by his evil teaching, and keeps perishing sinners from Christ?”
The citizens had then demanded of the priests that they should hold a public discussion with Farel. “If he is wrong,” they said, “at least let us hear what you have to say. Tell us, in the name of God, what proof there is that he is a heretic. Speak either for him or against him, and let us hear both sides.”
But the priests were silent. The citizens had then sent to the canons a paper containing their reasons for believing Farel was right. Not one of the priests contradicted this paper. They treated it only with silent contempt. And thus had the citizens been brought at last to see that nothing was to be hoped for from the priests. It was no use to ask their leave or advice any more. Some of the people had even before the 23rd of October broken some images in the streets in order to force the priests to speak their mind. But all was in vain.
And now the hour had come when the priests were to be appealed to no more. The people of Neuchatel found themselves on that wonderful day face to face with God. It was with Him they had to do. And the priests felt themselves as nothing in the presence of that mighty power which heeded them not. Those of them who were not convinced by all they then saw and heard fled in terror, and Neuchatel was free.
It was not yet a year since the poor, pious Farel “had come, in the power of the Holy Ghost, to take Neuchatel for Christ.” And how had God led him on to that wonderful moment, when he saw the last idol demolished, the last priest go forth from Neuchatel, never to return! And now, with none to hinder, he could preach the glad tidings, and thank God day by day for souls added to the Lord.
None to hinder! Was there not still George de Rive? But he, poor man, was now utterly helpless. He wrote to the Princess Jeanne to tell her of the dreadful day when the images had been destroyed. He said it was useless for him to say anything to people who declared that in the matter of their faith God alone was their ruler. All that he could do he had done: that was, to lock up in the castle all the ornaments which he could find in the private chapel of the princess. He had stored away there her images and her chapel organ. He had also provided a refuge in convents at a distance for the priests and canons and chorister boys. He could do no more.
The Princess Jeanne took no notice of this letter. She cared too little for the quiet, old-fashioned town, which she never wished to see again. They might do anything they liked there, provided she got her revenues paid when they were due. In the following April she sent her youngest son, Francis, to make sure that the people of Neuchatel still owed their allegiance to her. Francis was quite satisfied that they were loyal subjects, and when those of the citizens who were still Papists entreated him to restore the old worship, he gave them to understand that he did not come to meddle with religion—they must settle that as best they could.
And so the last hope of the Papists vanished. They were the smaller and the weaker party now. They had to be silent.
Meanwhile, two tables for the breaking of bread had been placed in the church instead of the broken altar. A plain pulpit was fixed against a pillar. There Farel preached with none to hinder. “Here,” he said, “you can now offer up the worship the Father delights in. You can worship Him at last in Spirit and in truth. The great Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, and the glory of His Gospel need none of our lighted incense, none of our candles and tapers! The anti-Christ, who has nothing to show but vileness, darkness, and corruption, has need to seek for all he can find to give a luster to his devilries. Jesus, who is the truth, rejects all that. He himself is enough, and nothing more is needed. Accursed by God are all those things which are called His service, but which He has not Himself commanded. Let us pray to the good Lord Jesus, that He may make of us an Assembly pure and holy, purged from everything which He has not ordained, so that nothing may be seen amongst us but Jesus only, and that which He has commanded, and may it be seen purely and simply as He commanded it, so that we in Him, and He in us, by living faith, we may serve and honor our blessed God and Father, who lives and reigns eternally with the Son and with the Holy Ghost.”
George de Rive himself was convinced that the cause of popery was lost. He took the votes of the citizens one by one, as to whether the mass should be restored. The town waited anxiously to know the result. There were eighteen more votes on the side of the gospel than on the side of the mass. There was, therefore, to be mass no more. The governor himself and the magistrates of the town set their seals to this decision. The governor then rose and said— “I promise to do nothing to oppose the decision of this day, for I am myself witness, that all has been done fairly and justly without threatening or compulsion.”
Thus was the matter set at rest from that day to this.
And it is worthy of remark, that in the letter written by the governor to the Princess Jeanne, and in all other accounts given by him of these great events, the name of Farel is not mentioned. The destruction of the images, the change of worship, the cessation of the mass were all described by the governor as the work of the citizens. Nor did the citizens themselves bring forward Farel as their authority for what they had done. The voice which had spoken to them was from other lips; it was the voice which speaks from Heaven. Christ had His sheep in that barren corner of the wilderness, and His sheep had followed Him, for they knew His voice. “The enlightenment of the Holy Ghost,” said the citizens, “and the holy teaching of the gospel, as we find it in the Word of God, have proved to us that the mass is an abuse without any use, and that it serves more for the damnation than for the salvation of souls. We are ready to prove and to certify that in demolishing the altars we have only done that which was right and pleasing to God.”
Yes, in the presence of God Himself, Farel was lost sight of. It was the voice of God that had spoken. It was the light of God that had shone down, from the glory upon that dark old town, and in the glory of that light Farel was no longer seen. “The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus had eclipsed everything. The stars, as well as the darkness of night, disappear before the sun.”
It would be worse than useless to tell you this story if it were to prove to you how great a man was Farel. But the highest honor any man can have is this—that when his history is told it is a tale of the greatness and the love of God. May this be your history and mine!
I must now tell you a story of a day in the month of the August that was past. The second capital of the little state of Neuchatel was the small town of Valangin. This town had long been a stronghold of popery—more so, perhaps, than Neuchatel had been—for it was under the despotic rule of the lady of the castle, who, unlike the Princess Jeanne, lived on the spot, and had it all her own way.
This old lady had a zeal for popery which was equaled only by her intense hatred of “the gospellers.” She had heard of Farel, and looked upon him as a sort of fiend. The old chronicles say much of the “piety” of this old lady. When the count, her husband, died, she had sent for one hundred priests who were to sing mass for his soul in purgatory. For one whole year she had given a dinner every Friday to five lepers, and to each one a silver penny besides his dinner. This was to atone for the harm which the dead count had done, by hunting over the cornfields of his subjects. The countess gave away much money to the poor in the villages around. “She kept up a noble state,” we are told, “and when the Countess of Gruyeres and Other noble ladies came to visit her, they would all dance together to the sound of the fife and the tambourine.”
The name of this old countess was Guillemette de Vergy. Her steward and councilor, Claude de Bellegarde, vied with her in his hatred of the gospel preaching. If this fortress of popery could be also “taken for Christ,” it must be His work alone.
Close to the town of Valangin was the little village of Bondevilliers. This village belonged not to Countess Guillemette, but to the town of Neuchatel. It was on a great festival day, August 15th, in that summer of 1530, that the peasants from the hills and the valleys around, were flocking to the church of Bondevilliers. Amongst them came a stranger with a grave and resolute countenance. There came with him a lad of eighteen or twenty years old. The priests and choristers were already singing mass at the high altar, and the church was filled with worshippers when the two strangers came in. The elder man went straight up into the pulpit, and, regardless of the singing, he told the astonished people that there was a Saviour for them in heaven, Christ, the Son of God.
Some who were there knew the face of the preacher—they had seen and heard him in the streets of Neuchatel. And there were some who were glad he was come.
The priest took no notice of this strange interruption. He perhaps sang all the louder. He, too, may have recognized the flashing eyes of William Farel. At last the moment came when the priest sang out the words of consecration. The bell rang which was to tell that the wafer was now changed into God Himself. The priest held up the wafer in its golden case, and the crowd of peasants fell down and worshipped before it. All fell down on their knees but one man only. This was the lad who had come with Farel—our old friend, Anthony Froment. The voice of Farel was silent for a moment.
Suddenly Anthony Froment sprang through the kneeling crowds—he crossed the church—he went up the altar-steps—he took the wafer from the hands of the priests, and himself held it aloft before the people. “It is not this god of paste that you must worship!” he said. “The living Christ is up there, in Heaven, in the glory of the Father. Worship Him.”
There was a dead silence. The people remained motionless upon their knees. The priest stood as if thunderstruck. Then the voice of Farel was heard again— “Yes,” he said, “Christ is in Heaven. The Heavens have received Him until the times of the restitution of all things. And it is this Christ in Heaven who has sent me here. It is of Him I come to speak.” And as the people listened in solemn wonder, Farel preached to them of that living Saviour who had died, and who had risen again, that they might have forgiveness of sins and everlasting life.
This sermon was not a long one. The terrified priest, on recovering his senses, had fled to the belfry-tower. He there rang the alarm bell with might and main. A crowd from Valangin and the villages around gathered round the church. The priest led them on to the attack upon Farel and Anthony. This army of recruits far outnumbered the village congregation.
But how Farel and Anthony escaped I cannot tell you. The old chronicle only says, “God delivered them.” This is the best explanation that can be given. But their perils were not yet over. Their only road lay straight through the town of Valangin. The streets were already filled with excited crowds, who had been aroused by the alarm-bell of Bondevilliers. A narrow side path turned off, and led round the massive walls of the old castle. Farel and Anthony ran along this path. But before they could get round the castle their enemies caught sight of them. A volley of stones flew at them immediately, and some twenty of their pursuers, priests, men, and women, rushed upon them, armed with clubs and sticks.
“These priests,” says the old chronicle, “were certainly not afflicted with gout, either in their feet or hands. They battered the two gospellers till they had nearly made an end of them.”
F.B.