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The Great Controversy
the gospel and to prepare this people to fill worthily the position to
which Providence seemed calling them were not light tasks.
Farel was confident that he had found in Calvin one whom he
could unite with himself in this work. In the name of God he solemnly
adjured the young evangelist to remain and labor here. Calvin drew
back in alarm. Timid and peace-loving, he shrank from contact with
the bold, independent, and even violent spirit of the Genevese. The
feebleness of his health, together with his studious habits, led him
to seek retirement. Believing that by his pen he could best serve the
cause of reform, he desired to find a quiet retreat for study, and there,
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through the press, instruct and build up the churches. But Farel’s
solemn admonition came to him as a call from Heaven, and he dared
not refuse. It seemed to him, he said, “that the hand of God was
stretched down from heaven, that it lay hold of him, and fixed him
irrevocably to the place he was so impatient to leave.”—D’Aubigne,
History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, b. 9, ch.
17.
At this time great perils surrounded the Protestant cause. The
anathemas of the pope thundered against Geneva, and mighty nations
threatened it with destruction. How was this little city to resist the
powerful hierarchy that had so often forced kings and emperors to
submission? How could it stand against the armies of the world’s great
conquerors?
Throughout Christendom, Protestantism was menaced by
formidable foes. The first triumphs of the Reformation past, Rome
summoned new forces, hoping to accomplish its destruction. At this
time the order of the Jesuits was created, the most cruel, unscrupulous,
and powerful of all the champions of popery. Cut off from earthly ties
and human interests, dead to the claims of natural affection, reason
and conscience wholly silenced, they knew no rule, no tie, but that of
their order, and no duty but to extend its power. (See Appendix.) The
gospel of Christ had enabled its adherents to meet danger and endure
suffering, undismayed by cold, hunger, toil, and poverty, to uphold
the banner of truth in face of the rack, the dungeon, and the stake. To
combat these forces, Jesuitism inspired its followers with a fanaticism
that enabled them to endure like dangers, and to oppose to the power
of truth all the weapons of deception. There was no crime too great
for them to commit, no deception too base for them to practice, no