The council of Berne thereupon decreed that the parishioners of the four mandemens should assemble. Those of Bex declared for the Reform; Aigle followed their example, but with indecision; and in the mountains above Ollon, the peasants not daring to maltreat Farel, set their wives at him, who rushed upon him with their fulling-clubs. But it was especially the parish of the Ormonds which, calm and proud at the foot of its glaciers, signalized itself by its resistance. A companion of Farel's labourers, named Claude (probably Claude de Glontinis), when preaching there one day with great animation, was suddenly interrupted by the ringing of the bells, whose noise was such that one might have said all hell was busy pulling them. "In fact," says another herald of the Gospel, Jacques Comralis, who chanced to be present, "it was Satan himself, who, breathing his anger into some of his agents, filled the ears of the auditors with all this uproar."[874] At another time, some zealous Reformers having thrown down the altars of Baal, according to the language of the times, the evil spirit began to blow with violence in all the chalets scattered over the sides of the mountains; the shepherds issued precipitously like avalanches, and fell upon the Church and the Reformers. "Let us only find these sacrilegious wretches," cried the furious Ormondines; "we will hang them,—we will cut off their heads,—we will burn them,—we will throw their ashes into the Great Water."[875] Thus were these mountaineers agitated, like the wind that roars in their lofty valleys with a fury unknown to the inhabitants of the plains.
Other difficulties overwhelmed Farel. His fellow-labourers were not all of them blameless. One Christopher Ballista, formerly a monk of Paris, had written to Zwingle: "I am but a Gaul, a barbarian,[876] but you will find me a man pure as snow, without any guile, of open heart, through whose windows all the world may see."[877] Zwingle sent Ballista to Farel, who was loudly calling for labourers in Christ's vineyard. The fine language of the Parisian at first charmed the multitude; but it was soon found necessary to beware of these priests and monks disgusted with Popery. "Brought up in the slothfulness of the cloister, gluttonous and lazy," says Farel, "Ballista could not conform to the abstemiousness and rude labours of the Evangelists, and soon began to regret his monk's hood. When he perceived the people beginning to distrust him, he became like a furious monster, vomiting waggon-loads of threats."[878] Thus ended his labours.
STATE—RELIGION.
Notwithstanding all these trials, Farel was not discouraged. The greater the difficulties, the more his energy increased. "Let us scatter the seed everywhere," said he, "and let civilized France, provoked to jealousy by this barbarous nation, embrace piety at last. Let there not be in Christ's body either fingers, or hands, or feet, or eyes, or ears, or arms, existing separately and working each for itself, but let there be only one heart that nothing can divide. Let not variety in secondary things divide into many separate members that vital principle which is one and simple.[879] Alas! the pastures of the Church are trodden under foot, and its waters are troubled! Let us set our minds to concord and peace. When the Lord shall have opened heaven, there will not be so many disputes about bread and water.[880] A fervent charity—that is the powerful battering-ram with which we shall beat down those proud walls, those material elements, with which men would confine us."[881]
Thus wrote the most impetuous of the Reformers. These words of Farel, preserved for three centuries in the city where he died, disclose to us more clearly the intimate nature of the great Revolution of the sixteenth century, than all the venturesome assertions of its Popish interpreters. Christian unity thus from these earliest moments found a zealous apostle. The nineteenth century is called to resume the work which the sixteenth century was unable to accomplish.
IRRESOLUTION OF BERNE.
II. Of all the Swiss cantons, Berne appeared the least disposed to the Reformation. A military state may be zealous for religion, but it will be for an external and a disciplined religion; it requires an ecclesiastical organization that it can see, and touch, and manage at its will. It fears the innovations and the free movements of the Word of God: it loves the form and not the life. Napoleon, by restoring religion in France in the Concordat, has given us a memorable example of this truth. Such, also, was the case with Berne. Its government, besides, was absorbed by political interests, and although it had little regard for the Pope, it cared still less to see a Reformer put himself, as Zwingle did, at the head of public affairs. As for the people, feasting on the "butter of their kine and milk of their sheep, with fat of lambs,"[882] they remained closely shut up within the narrow circle of their material wants. Religious questions were not to the taste either of the rulers or of their fellow-citizens.
The Bernese government, being without experience in religious matters, had proposed to check the movement of the Reform by its edict of 1523. As soon as it discovered its mistake, it moved towards the cantons that adhered to the ancient faith; and while that portion of the people whence the Great Council was recruited, listened to the voice of the Reformers, most of the patrician families, who composed the Smaller Council, believing their power, their interests, and their honor menaced, attached themselves to the old order of things. From this opposition of the two councils there arose a general uneasiness, but no violent shocks. Sudden movements, repeated starts, announced from time to time that incongruous matters were fermenting in the nation; it was like an indistinct earthquake, which raises the whole surface without causing any rents: then anon all returns to apparent tranquillity.[883] Berne, which was always decided in its politics, turned in religious matters at one time to the right, and at another to the left; and declared that it would be neither Popish nor Reformed. To gain time was, for the new faith, to gain everything.
ALMANACK OF HERETICS.