He retraced his steps to Strassburg and Basel; and, at the end of 1526, obtained a preacher’s post at Aigle, then a dependency of Bern. Deeming it wise to suppress his name, he adopted the pseudonym Ursinus, with reference to his protection by Bern. Despite strenuous opposition by the monastic orders, he obtained in 1528 a licence from the authorities to preach anywhere within the canton of Bern. He extended his labours to the cantons of Neuchâtel and Vaud. His vehement missionary addresses were met by mob violence, but he persevered with undaunted zeal. In October 1530 he broke into the church of Neuchâtel with an iconoclastic mob, thus planting the Reformation in that city. In 1532 he visited the Waldenses. On the return journey he halted at Geneva, then at a crisis of political and religious strife. On the 30th of June 1532 the council of two hundred had ordained that in every church and cloister of the city “the pure Gospel” should be preached; against this order the bishop’s vicar led the opposition. Reaching Geneva in October 1532, Farel (described in a contemporary monastic chronicle as “un chétif malheureux prédicant, nommé maistre Guillaume”) at once began to preach in a room of his lodging, and soon attracted “un grand nombre de gens qui estoient advertis de sa venue et déjà infects de son hérésie.” Summoned before the bishop’s vicar, his trial was a scene of insult and clamour, ending in his being violently thrust from the court and bidden to leave the city within three hours. He escaped with difficulty to Orbe by boat. Through the intervention of the government of Bern, liberty of worship was granted on the 28th of March 1533 to the Reformation party in Geneva. Farel, returning, achieved in a couple of years a complete supremacy for his followers. On New Year’s Day 1534 the bishop interdicted all preaching unauthorized by himself, and ordered the burning of all Protestant Bibles. This was the signal for public disputations in which Farel took the leading part on the Reformation side, with the result that by decree of the 27th of August 1535 the mass was suppressed and the reformed religion established. Calvin, on his way to Basel for a life of study, touched at Geneva, and by the importunity of Farel was there detained to become the leader of the Genevan Reformation. The severity of the disciplinary measures which followed procured a reaction under which Farel and Calvin were banished the city in 1538. Farel was called to Neuchâtel in July 1538, but his position there was made untenable, though he remained at his post during a visitation of the plague. When (1541) Calvin was recalled to Geneva, Farel also returned; but in 1542 he went to Metz to support the Reformation there. It is said that when he preached in the Dominican church of Metz, the bells were rung to drown his voice, but his voice outdid the bells, and on the next occasion he had three thousand hearers. His work was checked by the active hostility of the duke of Lorraine, and in 1544 he returned to Neuchâtel. No one was more frequently and confidentially consulted by Calvin. When the trial of Servetus was in progress (1553), Calvin was anxious for Farel’s presence, but he did not arrive till sentence had been passed. He accompanied Servetus to the stake, vainly urging him to a recantation at the last moment. A coolness with Calvin was created by Farel’s marriage, at the age of sixty-nine, with a refugee widow from Rouen, of unsuitable age. By her, six years later, he had one son, who died in infancy. The vigour and fervency of his preaching were unabated by length of years. Calvin’s death, in 1564, affected him deeply. Yet in his last year he revisited Metz, preaching amid great enthusiasm, with all his wonted fire. The effort was too much for him; he left the church exhausted, took to his bed, and died at Metz on the 13th of September 1565.
Farel wrote much, but usually in haste, and for an immediate purpose. He takes no rank as a scientific theologian, being a man of activity rather than of speculation or of much insight. His Sommaire was re-edited from the edition of 1534 by J.G. Baum in 1867. Others of his works (all in French) were his treatise on purgatory (1534), on the Lord’s Prayer (1543), on the Supper (1555). He “was remarkable for boldness and energy both in preaching and prayer” (M. Young, Life of Paleario). As an orator, he was denunciatory rather than suasive; thus while on the one hand he powerfully impressed, on the other hand he stimulated opposition. A monument to him was unveiled at Neuchâtel on the 4th of May 1876.
Lives of Farel are numerous; it may suffice to mention C. Ancillon, Vie de G. Farel (1691); the article in Bayle.; M. Kirchhofer, Das Leben W. Farels (1831-1833); Ch. Schmidt, Études sur Farel (1834); F. Bevan, W. Farel (1893); J.J. Herzog, in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1898).
(A. Go.*)
FAREY, JOHN (1766-1826), English geologist, was born at Woburn in Bedfordshire in 1766. He was educated at Halifax in Yorkshire, and showed such aptitude in mathematics, drawing and surveying, that he was brought under the notice of John Smeaton (1724-1792). In 1792 he was appointed agent to the duke of Bedford for his Woburn estates. After the decease of the duke, Farey in 1802 removed to London, and settled there as a consulting surveyor and geologist. That he was enabled to take this step was due largely to his acquaintance with William Smith (q.v.), who in 1801 had been employed by the duke of Bedford in works of draining and irrigation. The duke, appreciating Smith’s knowledge of the strata, commissioned him in 1802 to explore the margin of the chalk-hills south of Woburn in order to determine the true succession of the strata; and he instructed Farey to accompany him. Farey has remarked that Smith was his “Master and Instructor in Mineral Surveying,” and his subsequent publications show how well he had profited by the teachings he received. Farey prepared the General View of the Agriculture and Minerals of Derbyshire in two vols. (1811-1813) for the Board of Agriculture. In the first of these volumes (1811) he gave an able account of the upper part of the British series of strata, and a masterly exposition of the Carboniferous and other strata of Derbyshire. In this classic work, and in a paper published in the Phil. Mag. vol. li. 1818, p. 173, on “Mr Smith’s Geological Claims stated,” he zealously called attention to the importance of the discoveries of William Smith. Farey died in London on the 6th of January 1826.
See Biographical Notice, by W.S. Mitchell, in Geol. Mag. 1873, P. 25.
FARGO, WILLIAM GEORGE (1818-1881), pioneer American expressman, was born in Pompey, New York, on the 20th of May 1818. From the age of thirteen he had to support himself, obtaining little schooling, and for several years he was a clerk in grocery stores in Syracuse. He became a freight agent for the Auburn & Syracuse railway company at Auburn in 1841, an express messenger between Albany and Buffalo a year later, and in 1843 a resident agent in Buffalo. In 1844 he organized, with Henry Wells (1805-1878) and Daniel Dunning, the first express company (Wells & Co.; after 1845 Livingston & Fargo) to engage in the carrying business west of Buffalo. The lines of this company (which first operated only to Detroit, via Cleveland) were rapidly extended to Chicago, St Louis, and other western points. In March 1850, when through a consolidation of competing lines the American Express Company was organized, Wells became president and Fargo secretary. In 1851, with Wells and others, he organized the firm of Wells, Fargo & Company to conduct an express business between New York and San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama and on the Pacific coast, where it long had a virtual monopoly. In 1861 Wells, Fargo & Co. bought and reorganized the Overland Mail Co., which had been formed in 1857 to carry the United States mails, and of which Fargo had been one of the original promoters. From 1862 to 1866 he was mayor of Buffalo, and from 1868 to his death, in Buffalo, on the 3rd of August 1881, he was president of the American Express Company, with which in 1868 the Merchants Union Express Co. was consolidated. He was a director of the New York Central and of the Northern Pacific railways.