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listen to the new doctrines. After a time this laborer also was forced
to flee; but the truths he taught had taken hold upon the minds of
the people. The Reformation had been planted, and it continued to
strengthen and extend. The preachers returned, and through their
labors the Protestant worship was finally established in Geneva.
The city had already declared for the Reformation, when Calvin,
after various wanderings and vicissitudes, entered its gates. Returning
from a last visit to his birthplace, he was on his way to Basel, when,
finding the direct road occupied by the armies of Charles V., he was
forced to take the circuitous route by Geneva.
In this visit, Farel recognized the hand of God. Though Geneva
had accepted the reformed faith, yet a great work remained to be
accomplished here. It is not as communities but as individuals that
men are converted to God; the work of regeneration must be wrought
in the heart and conscience by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by
the decrees of councils. While the people of Geneva had cast off the
authority of Rome, they were not so ready to renounce the vices that
had flourished under her rule. To establish here the pure principles of
the gospel, and to prepare this people to fill worthily the position to
which Providence seemed calling them, was no light task.
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,
through the press, instruct and build up the churches. But Farel’s
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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 laid hold of him, and fixed him
irrevocably to the place he was so impatient to leave.”
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