At night Froment left his hiding-place and returned to Perrin's, where he assembled a few friends and told them that he thought it was his duty to leave the city on account of these 'raging tempests.' Chautemps, Perrin, Levet, and Guerin were much distressed, but they confessed that the violence of his enemies rendered the evangelist's longer stay in Geneva useless. Claude Magnin offered to accompany him, and when the night came Froment bade his brethren farewell. Proceeding cautiously, he quitted the city, crossed the Pays de Vaud, and arrived at the village of Yvonand, where he rested from his Genevese battles.
Froment was not one of those eminent men who play a part because of their great character, and whose influence is continually on the increase. His ministry at Geneva during part of the winter 1532-33 was the heroic period of his life, after which he seldom appears but in the second or third rank: he was eclipsed by teachers who were superior to him. In the briefness of his ministry he resembles those heavenly bodies which attract all eyes for a few weeks, and then disappear; but he resembles them also by the influence which the people ascribe to their ephemeral passage. Froment's stay in Geneva shook the Romish traditions, secured the Holy Scriptures from oblivion, began to shed a few rays of light in the city, and laid the first foundations of the Church. Ere long the Word of God was carried thither in greater fulness by Farel and Calvin: the sun poured out all its light, and a solid majestic edifice was built on the foundations laid by the poor schoolmaster.
[604] Froment, Gestes, p. 22.
[605] Ibid.
[606] Ibid.
[607] These particulars, this prayer, and the first sermon that followed it have been recorded by Froment himself in his Gestes de Genève published by M. Revillod, pp. 22-42.
[608] The plague was then pretty frequent at Geneva.
[609] Matth. xxiv. 23.
[610] Matth. xxiii. 14; Mark xii. 38; Luke xx. 46.
[611] Micah iii. 3.