There remained one question: Where should the communion be held?—'At Baudichon's,' answered one of them. 'No,' said the more prudent; 'not in the city for fear of the opposition of the priests, who are very irritated already.' Upon this Stephen d'Adda said, 'I have a little walled garden near the city gates, where nobody can disturb us.' The place was selected, the day named, and an hour fixed which would permit them to meet without disturbance. It was early in the morning, as it would appear.[633]
=FIRST SACRAMENT AT GENEVA.=
When the day arrived, many persons went out of the city and quietly directed their steps towards D'Adda's garden, situated in a place called Pré l'Evêque, because the bishop had a house there. A table had been prepared in a room or in the open air. The believers as they arrived took their seats in silence on the rude benches, not without fear that the priests should get information of the furtive meeting.[634] Guerin sat down in front of the table. Just at the moment (we are told) when the ceremony was about to begin, the sun rose and illumined with his first rays a scene more imposing in its simplicity than the mountains capped with everlasting snow, above which the star of day was beginning his course. The pious Guerin stood up, and after a prayer he distributed the bread and wine, and all together praised the Lord. The communicants quitted D'Adda's garden full of gratitude towards God.
It was not long, however, before their peace was troubled. Their enemies could not contain themselves, and threatened nothing less than excommunication and imprisonment. There were disputes. The priests shrugged their shoulders at the sight of those paltry assemblies. They said that the reformed, by busying themselves so much about Christ, deprived themselves of the Church; while Olivetan and Guerin maintained that the catholics, by speaking so much of the Church, deprived themselves of Christ. The meeting of a few souls endowed with a lively faith, who came to glorify Jesus Christ, was (they believed) a truer church than the pope, cardinals, and all the pomps of the Vatican. The exasperated priests vented their anger specially on Guerin, and the danger which threatened him was so great, that he had to leave the city. Hurrying quickly away, he took refuge at Yvonand with his friend Froment, from whom he had received so much enlightenment.[635]
Thus Farel, Froment, and Guerin were compelled, one after another, to quit Geneva; but the catholics laboured in vain: 'the reformed met every day in houses or gardens to pray to God, to sing psalms and christian hymns, and to explain Holy Scripture. And the people began to dispute with the priests, and to discuss with them publicly.'[636]
Thus there were two winds blowing in different directions at Geneva—one from the north, the other from the south. They could not fail to come into violent collision and to engender a frightful tempest.
[619] Ruchat, iii. p. 186.
[620] Berne MS., ascribed to Bonivard, Hist. helv. v. 12.
[621] Froment, Gestes, p. 47.—'Domatim conventus habere.'—Turretini MS.
[622] 'In Domonovani Baudichonii ædibus, quæ concionum ordinariarum crypta erant.'—Spanheim, Geneva restit. p. 58.