THE FRENCH AT BASLE—ENCOURAGED BY THE SWISS.
The exertions of the friends of the Gospel in France were paralyzed. The men in power were beginning to show their hostility to Christianity; Margaret was growing alarmed; terrible news would soon be coming across the Alps and plunging the nation into mourning, filling it with one thought only—of saving the king, of saving France. But if the Christians of Lyons were checked in their labours, were there not soldiers at Basle who had escaped from the battle and who were ready to begin the fight again. The exiles from France have never forgotten her. Driven from their country for nearly three centuries by the fanaticism of Rome, their latest descendants have been seen carrying to the cities and fields of their ancestors those treasures of which the pope still deprives them.[995] At the very moment when the soldiers of Christ in France were mournfully laying down their arms, the refugees at Basle were preparing for the combat. As they saw the monarchy of Saint Louis and of Charlemagne falling from the hands of Francis I., shall they not feel urged to lay hold of a kingdom which cannot be moved.[996]
Farel, Anemond, Esch, Toussaint, and their friends formed an evangelical society in Switzerland with the view of rescuing their country from its spiritual darkness. Intelligence reached them from every quarter, that there was an increasing thirst for God's Word in France;[997] it was desirable to take advantage of this, and to water and sow while it was yet seedtime. Œcolampadius, Zwingle, and Oswald Myconius, were continually exhorting them to do this, giving the right hand of fellowship, and communicating to them a portion of their own faith. In January 1525, the Swiss schoolmaster wrote to the French chevalier: "Banished as you are from your country by the tyranny of Antichrist, even your presence among us proves that you have acted boldly in the cause of the Gospel. The tyranny of christian bishops will at length induce the people to look upon them as deceivers. Stand firm; the time is not far distant when we shall enter the haven of repose, whether we be struck down by our tyrants, or they themselves be struck down;[998] all then will be well for us, provided we have been faithful to Christ Jesus."
FEARS AND DIVISIONS.
These encouragements were of great value to the French refugees; but a blow inflicted by these very Christians of Switzerland and Germany, who sought to cheer them, cruelly wrung their hearts. Recently escaped from the scaffold or the burning pile, they saw with dismay the evangelical Christians on the other side of the Rhine disturbing the repose they enjoyed by their lamentable differences. The discussions on the Lord's Supper had begun. Deeply moved and agitated, feeling strongly the necessity of brotherly unity, the French would have made every sacrifice to conciliate these divided sentiments. This became their leading idea. At the epoch of the Reformation, none had greater need than they of christian unity; of this Calvin was afterwards a proof. "Would to God that I might purchase peace, concord, and union in Jesus Christ at the cost of my life, which in truth is of little worth," said Peter Toussaint.[999] The French, whose discernment was correct and prompt, saw immediately that these rising dissensions would check the work of the Reformation. "All things would go on more prosperously than many persons imagine, if we were but agreed among ourselves. Numbers would gladly come to the light; but when they see these divisions among the learned, they stand hesitating and confused."[1000]
The French were the first to suggest conciliatory advances. "Why," wrote they from Strasburg, "is not Bucer or some other learned man sent to Luther? The longer we wait the greater will these dissensions become." Their fears grew stronger every day.[1001] At length, finding all their exertions of no avail, these Christians mournfully turned their eyes away from Germany, and fixed them solely upon France.
France—the conversion of France, thenceforth exclusively occupied the hearts of these generous men whom history, that has inscribed on her pages the names of so many individuals vainly puffed up with their own glory, has for three centuries passed over in silence. Thrown on a foreign land, they fell on their knees, and daily, in silence and obscurity, invoked God in behalf of the country of their forefathers.[1002] Prayer was the power by which the Gospel spread through the kingdom, and the great instrument by which the conquests of the Reformation were gained.
TRANSLATION AND PRINTING AT BASLE.
But these Frenchmen were not merely men of prayer: never has the evangelical army contained combatants more ready to sacrifice their lives in the day of battle. They felt the importance of scattering the Holy Scriptures and pious books in their country, still overshadowed with the gloom of superstition. A spirit of inquiry was breathing over the whole kingdom: it seemed necessary on all sides to spread the sails to the wind. Anemond, ever prompt in action, and Michael Bentin, a refugee like himself, resolved to unite their zeal, their talents, their resources, and their labours. Bentin wished to establish a printing press at Basle, and the chevalier, to profit by the little German he knew, to translate the best works of the Reformers into French. "Oh," said they, rejoicing in their plans, "would to God that France were filled with evangelical volumes, so that everywhere, in the cottages of the poor, in the palaces of the nobles, in cloisters and presbyteries, nay, in the inmost sanctuary of the heart, a powerful testimony might be borne to the grace of Jesus Christ!"[1003]
TRACTS DISTRIBUTED IN FRANCE.