FAREL'S PREACHING.
This was at the beginning of December. They entered by the gate of the castle, and leaving the church on the hill to the left, they passed in front of the canons' houses, and descended through the narrow streets inhabited by the citizens. On reaching the market-cross, Farel ascended a platform and addressed the crowd, which gathered together from all the neighbourhood,—weavers, vine-dressers, husbandmen, a worthy race, possessing more feeling than imagination. The preacher's exterior was grave, his discourse energetic, his voice like thunder: his eyes, his features, his gestures, all showed him a man of intrepidity. The citizens, accustomed to run about the streets after the mountebanks, were touched by his powerful language. "Farel preached a sermon of such great efficacy," says a manuscript, "that he gained over much people."[974]
Some monks, however, with shaven crowns,[975] glided among his hearers, seeking to excite them against the heretical minister. "Let us beat out his brains," said some. "Duck him, duck him!" cried others, advancing to throw Farel into a fountain, which may still be seen near the spot where he preached. But the reformer stood firm.
POPERY IN NEUCHATEL.
This first preaching was succeeded by others. To this Gospel missionary every place was a church; every stone, every bench, every platform was a pulpit. Already the cutting winds and the snows of December should have kept the Neuchatelans around their firesides; "the canons made a vigorous defence;"[976] and in every quarter "the shorn crowns" were in agitation, supplicating, menacing, howling, and threatening,—but all was useless. No sooner did this man of small stature rise up in any place, with his pale yet sunburnt complexion, with red and unkempt beard, with sparkling eye and expressive mouth, than the monks' labour was lost: the people collected around, for it was the Word of God that fell from his lips.[977] All eyes were fixed on him: with open mouth and attentive ears they hung upon his words.[978] And scarcely does he begin to speak, when—Oh! wonderful work of God! he himself exclaims—this multitude believes as if it had but one soul.
The Word of God carried the town, as it were, at the first assault; and throwing down the devices Rome had taken ages to compose, established itself in triumph on the ruins of human traditions. Farel saw in imagination Jesus Christ himself walking in spirit through the midst of this crowd, opening the eyes of the blind, softening the hard heart, and working miracles,[979]......so that scarcely had he returned to his humble residence before he wrote to his friends with a heart full of emotion: "Render thanks with me to the Father of mercies, in that he has shown his favour to those bowed down by a weighty tyranny;" and falling on his knees, he worshipped God.[980]
But during this time what were the adherents of the Pope doing in Neuchatel?
The canons, members of the General Audiences, of which they formed the first estate, treated both priests and laymen with intolerable haughtiness. Laying the burden of their offices on poor curates, they publicly kept dissolute women, clothed them sumptuously, endowed their children by public acts, fought in the church, haunted the streets by night, or went into a foreign country to enjoy in secret the produce of their avarice and of their intrigues. Some poor lepers placed in a house near the city were maintained by the produce of certain offerings. The rich canons, in the midst of their banquets, dared take away the bread of charity from these unhappy wretches.
RESISTANCE OF THE MONKS.
The abbey of Fontaine-André was at a little distance from the town. Now the canons of Neuchatel and the monks of Fontaine were at open war. These hostile powers, encamped on their two hills, disputed each other's property, wrested away each other's privileges, launched at one another the coarsest insults, and even came to blows. "Debaucher of women!" said the canons to the abbot of Fontaine-André, who returned the compliment in the same coin. It is the Reformation which, through faith, has re-established the moral law in Christendom,—a law that Popery had trodden under foot.