At Neuchatel the Bernese supported the Evangelical citizens. The governor, whose resources were exhausted, sent ambassadors to the princess, "begging her to cross the mountains, to appease her people, who were in terrible trouble in consequence of this Lutheran religion."[1008]
Meantime the ferment increased. The townspeople prayed the canons to give up the Mass: they refused; whereupon the citizens presented them their reasons in writing, and begged them to discuss the question with Farel. Still the same refusal!—"But, for goodness' sake, speak either for or against!" It was all of no use!
FAREL IN THE CATHEDRAL.
On Sunday, the 23d of October, Farel, who had returned to Neuchatel, was preaching at the hospital. He knew that the magistrates of the city had deliberated on the expediency of consecrating the cathedral itself to the Evangelical worship. "What then," said he, "will you not pay as much honour to the Gospel as the other party does to the Mass?......And if this superstitious act is celebrated in the high church, shall not the Gospel be proclaimed there also?" At these words all his hearers arose. "To the church!" cried they; "to the church!" Impetuous men are desirous of putting their heads to work, to accomplish what the prudence of the burgesses had proposed.[1009] They leave the hospital, and take Farel with them. They climb the steep street of the castle: in vain would the canons and their frightened followers stop the crowd: they force a passage. Convinced that they are advancing for God's glory, nothing can check them. Insults and shouts assail them from every side, but in the name of the Truth they are defending, they proceed: they open the gates of the Church of our Lady; they enter, and here a fresh struggle begins. The canons and their friends assembled around the pulpit endeavour to stop Farel; but all is useless. They have not to deal with a band of rioters. God has pronounced in his Word, and the magistrates themselves have passed a definitive resolution. The townspeople advance, therefore, against the sacerdotal coterie; they form a close battalion, in the centre of which they place the reformer. They succeed in making their way through the opposing crowd, and at last place the minister in the pulpit without any harm befalling him.[1010]
Immediately all is calm within the church and without; even the adversaries are silent, and Farel delivers "one of the most effective sermons he had hitherto preached." Their eyes are opened; their emotion increases; their hearts are melted; the most obstinate appear converted; and from every part of the old church these cries resound: "We will follow the Evangelical religion, both we and our children, and in it will we live and die."[1011]
THE IDOLS DESTROYED.
Suddenly a whirlwind, as it were, sweeps over this multitude, and stirs it up like a vast sea. Farel's hearers desire to imitate the pious King Josiah.[1012] "If we take away these idols from before our eyes, will it not be aiding us," said they, "in taking them from our own hearts? Once these idols broken, how many souls among our fellow-citizens, now disturbed and hesitating, will be decided by this striking manifestation of the truth! We must save them as it were by fire."[1013]
This latter motive decides them, and then begins a scene that fills the Romanists with horror, and which must, according to them, bring down the terrible judgment of God on the city.
The very spot where this takes place would seem to add to its solemnity. To the north the castle-walls rise above the pointed crags of the gloomy but picturesque valley of the Seyon, and the mountain in front of the castle presents to the eye little more than bare rocks, vines, and black firs. But to the south, beneath the terrace on which this tumultuous scene is passing, extend the wide and tranquil waters of the lake with its fertile and picturesque shores; and in the distance the continuous summits of the higher Alps with their dazzling snows, their immense glaciers, and gigantic peaks, lie before the enraptured eye.