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The old gentleman would willingly have permitted his son to take up such a life as Bayard's; but it was towards the University of Paris, "that mother of all the sciences, that pure and shining mirror of the faith," that the young man's aspirations were directed. The father at first opposed, but afterwards yielded to his wishes; and, about 1510, William Farel quitted Gap and arrived at Paris.
"And he was therewithal a most exalted Christian In his Ministry he was another Farel, Quo nemo tonuit fortius And the observance which his own People had for him, was also paid him from all sorts of People throughout the Land; but especially from the Ministers of the Country, who would still address him as a Father, a Prophet, a Counsellor, on all occasions."
Such patrons did not lack hot-headed executants of their policy; friendly relations had not ceased between the Reformers and their adversaries; a Jacobin monk, De Roma by name, was conversing one day at Meaux with Farel and his friends; the Reformers expressed the hopes they had in the propagation of the gospel; De Roma all at once stood up, shouting, "Then I and all the rest of the brotherhood will preach a crusade we will stir up the people; and if the king permits the preaching of your gospel, we will have him expelled by his own subjects from his own kingdom."
William Farel heard talk of another young man, his contemporary and neighbor, Peter du Terrail, even now almost famous under the name of Bayard. "Such sons," was said in his hearing, "are as arrows in the hand of a giant; blessed is he who has his quiver full of them!" Young Farel pressed his father to let him go too and make himself a man in the world.
The civil was followed by an ecclesiastical revolution. Protestantism, with the aid of Berne, was legally established . Geneva was a prosperous, gay, and dissolute city. Farel, a popular orator of striking power, unsparing in denunciation, found the people impatient of the restraints that the new religious system which they had adopted laid upon them.
O, lands of Farel and of Calvin, of Zwingle and of Luther! O countries where the trumpet first sounded, marshalling the people to this fearful contest! We have heard the blast rolling still louder down the path of three hundred years, and in our solid muster-march we come, the children of the tenth generation.
By some strange insight, however, Farel penetrated to the higher fitness of the young stranger who stood before him, and he ventured to lay the curse of God upon him and his studies if he refused his aid to the church of Geneva in her time of need. "It was," Calvin said, "as if God had seized me by his awful hand from heaven."
Arrived in Geneva, in the autumn of 1536, he met there his friend, Louis du Tillet, who communicated the fact of his arrival to Farel, then in the very midst of his struggle to promote the Reformation. Farel hastened to see him, and urge upon him the duty of remaining where he was, and undertaking his share of the work of God. Calvin did not at first respond to the call.
A spirit of rebellion against the rule of Calvin and Farel broke forth; but they refused to yield to the wishes of a party animated by a more easy and liberal spirit than themselves, and known in the history of Geneva under the nickname of Libertines; and the consequence was that they were both expelled from the city after less than two years' residence.
He hastily approached the quiet speaker, his face brightened not more by hope than by wondering admiration. "What do you mean? tomorrow? I am waiting, Elizabeth." "Colonel Farel and his lady are going home. He has leave of absence. I have spoken to my father and mother. I have told my mother everything. She knows that I am going to visit your relations as well as hers.
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