(Mother of God, pray for us!)
The Council, fearing a disturbance, would not let them enter, and they had to be content with going to Our Lady of Grace, near the Arve bridge. As the poor people had eaten nothing on the road, and were exhausted, the syndics sent them bread; and after taking some refreshments, the assemblage turned homewards. Many Genevese, anxious to see them close, went out of the city, and collected on their road, and as the Savoyards passed before them singing Mare de Dy, pryy pou nous! the bantering huguenots answered to the same tune: Frare Farel, pregy toujours! Brother Farel, preach forever![[543]]
All was not over: the story of the apparition of the Virgin and of her commandment having reached as far as the capital of the Chablais, the heights of Cologny were soon crowned by a numerous and compact procession, in appearance more formidable than the first: it was the men of Thonon and the adjoining places, who, carrying banners, crosses, and relics, were descending the hill with a firm step. The stalwart pilgrims boldly passed the gates of the city, the huguenots, who were listening to Farel, not being there to prevent them; and on reaching the Bourg de Four, halted before the church of St. Claire. The alarm spread immediately: some citizens entering the auditory where Farel was preaching, announced this Romish invasion. The reformer did not disturb himself; but some of his hearers, the fiery Perrin, the energetic Goulaz, and others, went out, and, charging the head of the procession, drove back at the point of the sword the Savoyards who had entered Geneva as if it were a village of the Chablais. The startled pilgrims threw away their banners with affright, and fled from the city. Froment supposes that as the enemy from within had not had time to join with those from without, the plot had failed; but we rather believe that these devout pilgrims calculated only on their litanies in their war against the Lutherans. Those processions, those banners of the Virgin, those paltry relics, inspired the reformed with a still deeper disgust for Roman-catholicism: even the pomps of St. Pierre’s touched them little more than the fetichism of the Savoyards. They were beginning to understand that public worship ought not to be a spectacle, and that to burden the Church with a multitude of rites is to rob her of the presence of Christ.
The Images Destroyed.
The audacity displayed by these catholic bands emboldened some of the huguenots. If Savoyards came to strengthen their faith in Geneva, ought they to hesitate to show theirs? Some hot-headed members of the Reform permitted themselves to be carried away to the committal of reprehensible acts. Whenever they went to the Franciscan cloister, the first object that struck their eyes was the image of St. Anthony of Padua, a miracle-monger of the thirteenth century, having eight other saints on each side of it. These pious figures, ranged over the convent gate, irritated the huguenots. It was vain to tell them that pictures are the books of the ignorant: the reformers answered that if the catholic prelates left the duty of teaching the people to idols, they would prefer remaining at home in their chairs. ‘If you had not taken the Bible from the Church,’ said the huguenots, ‘you would have had no necessity to hang up your paintings.’ Accordingly, between eleven and twelve o’clock one Saturday night, nine men carrying a ladder approached the convent, raised it silently against the porch, and then, with hammers and chisels, began to destroy the images. They cut off the head and limbs of the saint, leaving only his trunk; they did the same to the others, and threw the fragments into the well of St. Clair. The night passed without any disturbance, but in the morning there was a great uproar in the city. ‘What a piteous sight!’ said the devout assembled before the porch of St. Francis. The iconoclasts, who were discovered after a little time, were punished, but the images were not restored.
‘Alas!’ said the Friburgers, ‘Geneva is about to pull down the altars of the Romish faith!’—‘It is,’ answered the Bernese, ‘because upon these very altars the bishop desired to burn the venerable charters of her people, and has sprinkled them with the blood of her most illustrious citizens.’[[544]]... Sensuous worship no longer pleased the Genevans. Those labored pictures, those sculptured angels, those dazzling decorations, that charm of ceremonies and edifices, those shafts and pediments, those unintelligible chants, those intoxicating perfumes, those mechanical performances of the priests, with their gold and lace—all these things disgusted them exceedingly. Since God is a spirit, they said, those who worship him must worship him in spirit, by the inward faith of the heart, by purity of conscience, and by offering themselves to God to do his will.
The hour had come when this spiritual worship was to be really celebrated in Geneva: the Feast of Pentecost had arrived. On that day a large crowd had assembled in the Great Auditory. It was not only such as Vandel, Chautemps, Roset, Levet, with their wives and friends, who resorted thither, but new hearers were added to the old ones. Farel preached with fervor. He was accustomed to say that ‘God sends rain upon one city when he pleases, while another city has not a single drop;’ and therefore he conjured ‘all hearts thirsting with desire for the preaching of the Gospel’[[545]] to pray that the Spirit might be given them. We have not his Whitsunday sermon, he preached extempore; but we know that he ended it by giving glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the only true God, and that his discourse bore good fruit. Several circumstances had prepared his audience. The plot of the bishop and the duke which God had frustrated, the nomination of the huguenot syndics, the rupture with Friburg, Maisonneuve’s imprisonment—all these events had stirred their hearts, had cleft them as the ploughshare cleaves the earth, and opened them to the seed from heaven. What now shone before the eyes of those who filled the Grand Auditory ‘were not the petty flames of human candles, but Christ, the great sun of righteousness, as if at noonday.’[[546]] While the priests were chanting words that sounded only in the air, the voice of the reformer had penetrated to the very bottom of men’s hearts. The proof was soon visible.
Bernard’s CONVERSION.
When the sermon was over, Farel prepared to celebrate the Lord’s Supper publicly, according to the Gospel form, and, standing with his brethren Viret and Froment before a table, he gave thanks, took the bread, broke it, and said: ‘Take, eat;’ and then, lifting up the cup, he added: ‘This is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for the remission of sins.’ The believers were beginning to draw near to receive the communion of the Lord,[[547]] when an unexpected circumstance fixed their attention. A priest of noble stature, wearing his sacerdotal robes, left the place where he had been sitting among the congregation, and approached the table. It was Louis Bernard, one of the twelve habilités of the cathedral, possessor of a wealthy benefice, and brother of him who had been touched at the time of Farel’s first preaching. Was he going to say mass? did he want to dispute with Farel? or had he been converted? All were anxious to see what would happen. The priest went up to the table, and then, to the general surprise, he took off his sacerdotal vestments, flung away cope, alb, and stole, and said aloud: ‘I throw off the old man, and declare myself a prisoner to the Gospel of the Lord.’[[548]] Then, turning to the reformers and their friends, he said: ‘Brethren, I will live and die with you for Jesus Christ’s sake.’ All imagined they saw a miracle;[[549]] their hearts were touched. Farel received Bernard like a brother; he broke bread with him, gave him the cup, and, eating of the same morsel, the two adversaries thus signified that they would in future love one another ‘with a sincere and pure affection.’ The priest was not the only person who threw off the foul robes of his ancient life, and put on the white robe of the Lord. Many Genevans from that day began to think and live differently from their fathers; but Louis Bernard was a striking type of that transformation, and the crowd, as they quitted the church, could not keep their eyes off him. They saw him returning full of peace and joy to his father’s house, wearing a Spanish cape instead of the usual priest’s hood. All the evangelicals,—‘men, women, and children,—went with great joy to greet him and make their reverence.’[[550]]
Another circumstance, quite as extraordinary, still further increased the beauty of this festival. During the rejoicings of that first evangelical Pentecost, a knight of Rhodes came to Geneva in search of liberty of faith. A knight of Rhodes was a strange visitor in that city. It was known confusedly that those warlike monks, instituted to defend the pilgrims in the Holy Land, had been expelled from Jerusalem by Soliman, and had finally settled in Malta. But why should this one come to Geneva? The ex-knight, whose name was Pierre Gaudet, related how, being born at St. Cloud, near Paris, he had heard the Gospel, and that, having chosen for his glory the cross of the Son of God, he held the world in contempt. The scandal he had thus occasioned had forced him to flee. Having an uncle living about a league from Geneva—the commander of Compesières—he had taken refuge with him; but feeling the need of Christian communion, he had come to his brethren that he might enjoy it. The huguenots received him like a friend. That city which had seen in Berthelier and Lévrier the martyrs of liberty, was to have in Gaudet the first martyr of the Gospel.[[551]]