a few years before, from Rouen, in order to escape persecution. She kept house for Farel in Neufchatel, where the daughter had ceased to be regarded as very young. His choice fell upon the daughter; and, after his hand was pledged, he wrote to Calvin, as the latter had done to him when he was about to be married to the worthy Idelette de Bures. "I am dumb with astonishment," wrote Calvin, and then proceeded to give him all needed advice. The affair became more public in the parish than Farel expected. It was very strange, the people thought, for they had looked forward to his funeral rather than to the festivities of a wedding. They had become so accustomed to look upon the venerable missionary, daring all the dangers of the field, single-handed, that they quite forgot his bold, eccentric and romantic nature; nor did they fathom the depths of tenderness that lay in solemn silence within his heart. The banns were thrice published, and, committing his betrothed to the care of a French refugee, he set out upon a visit to the churches. His object was to bring the Lutherans in closer union with the reformed, and to gain help for Pruntrut. He returned and was married the 20th of December.

These solemn men had their wit as well as their wisdom; if not we should fail to understand their lively and cheerful natures. Calvin wrote at once to the clergy and elders of Neufchatel, pleasantly asking them to pardon this little escapade in their aged pastor, on the score of thirty-six years of faithful service. A son was born to Farel, six years afterwards, but he did not long survive his father.

But these new ties could not keep Farel at home, and he left the fireside for the field. He was soon at Strasburg, engaging assistance for the Protestants of Metz, to whom he had given many anxious thoughts. His efforts promised to be successful

in securing to them freedom of public worship. Then he was travelling again on behalf of the Waldenses. On his return he found letters from France, urging him to send back the exiled preachers to the hundreds of churches that had lately abolished the mass, and were longing for faithful pastors. The whole of France seemed on the point of becoming Protestant. As a specimen of these letters we quote from one written by Beaulieu then, (1561,) at Geneva.

"I cannot tell you how much grace God is bestowing upon our church, (in France.) There are men here from various places, as from Lyons, Nismes, Gap, Orleans and Poitiers, anxious to obtain new labourers for these portions of the new harvest. From Tournon especially was the application made, and that in obedience to the urgent wish of the bishop. There are five hundred parishes in these parts which have discontinued the mass, but are still without ministers. The poor people are famishing, but there is no one to give them the bread of heaven. It is extraordinary how many hearers there are of Calvin's lectures; I believe there are more than a thousand daily. Viret is labouring for Nismes. I have heard men say that if from four to six thousand preachers were sent forth places would be found for them." The Admiral Coligny was appointed by Catharine of France to number these churches, and he reported two thousand one hundred and fifty. A glorious church was rising in France, to be almost drowned in the blood of the saints massacred on St. Bartholemew's day.

A special invitation came to Farel from Gap, his native district. Fabri went to Vienne, and he set out with a brother preacher for Dauphiny. Often had he lamented that he must live an exile from his native land, and with what emotions did he now look onward to the home of his fathers, after an absence

of forty years! His relatives were not the only attraction, although that had its power. His father was dead, and so also must have been his mother. His brothers had been won to the gospel: three of them were exiles for their religion; one other, John, was as bold an expounder of the truth as himself; and a nephew, Carmel, had been preaching in Paris, where a large reformed church was gathering. His brother-in-law, the noble Honorat Riquetti, has lately been found to be "one of the ancestors of Mirabeau," the talented and terrible Mirabeau of the French revolution, whose family name was Riquetti. D'Aubigne says,—“There are certainly few names we might be more surprised at seeing brought together than those of Farel and Mirabeau; and yet between these two Frenchmen there were at least two points of contact-the power of their eloquence and the boldness of their reforms."

Farel arrived at Gap in November, and was received with joy and veneration, as the man whom God had honoured in leading thousands from darkness to light. Multitudes thronged to hear his first sermon, so that the church could not hold them, and he was heard with profound and uninterrupted attention. The councillors had requested the bishop's vicar to prevent any disturbance, and he kept his word. As Farel did not wish to be reproached for acting secretly, he went on the same Sunday to the vice-mayor, along with the king's advocate and the chief senator. He was told that all such meetings were forbidden under pain of death, and was asked by whose authority he had come. He held up the commission of his Lord, and said that since that edict had been published such meetings had been held at Lyons and other places, and that certain ministers had preached before the king. The vice-mayor requested him to refrain from preaching until the governor and the parliament of Grenoble

had been duly informed of his intentions. Farel exhorted him to listen to the gospel, which must condemn those who opposed it, and would save all who embraced it. He was honourably conducted back to his inn, and on that evening baptized a child.

The next evening all public meetings and the use of the churches were forbidden to the reformed party. But one meeting was held on the following morning. As Farel was coming out of church, a servant of the vice-mayor handed him the order in trembling haste. In the afternoon the friends met for prayer, and resolved to continue steadfast in the faith for which so many had been martyrs. They demanded of the vice-mayor a written statement of his proceedings, in order to make an appeal to the king and his cabinet.

From a dusty corner some one has lately drawn an old copy of the "annals of the Capuchins" of Gap. These friars gave no little space to the visit of the aged reformer, and their story is tinged with the colour of their strong prejudices. It runs, that Farel, already an old man, wishing to preach in his native province, before God summoned him from the world, went and took up his quarters in a corn-mill at the gates of his native town-they do not mean Fareau but Gap-and then he "dogmatized" the peasants from a French Bible which he explained "in his own fashion." Ere long he began to preach in the very heart of the town in the chapel of St. Columba. The magistrate forbade his preaching, and the parliament of Grenoble wished "to have him burnt." Farel refused to obey, and upon this the vice-mayor, a zealous catholic, along with several policemen, went to the chapel where Farel was preaching. The door

was shut; they knocked but nobody answered; they broke in and found a considerable throng; no one turned his head; all were listening greedily to the preacher's words. The officers

went straight to the pulpit; Farel was seized, and with "the crime" (the Bible) in his hands, he was led through the crowd and shut up in prison. But the followers of the new doctrine were already to be found among every class of people-in the workman's garret, in the tradesman's shop, in the noble's castle, and sometimes even in the bishop's palace. During the night the 'reformers, either by force or by strategem, took the brave old man out of the prison, carried him to the walls, and let him down, by a basket, into the fields. "Accomplices" were waiting for him, and he escaped with their help.

By another version, however, we are told that the old preacher felt his youth renewed, when he saw a harvest, upon his native soil, all ripe for the reapers. He made no personal attack upon the priests, who were more anxious to get their tythes and tribute than to preach. He persuaded his hearers to give up festivals, holidays, masses, indulgentes and the like. It grieved him to leave a field where there were so many encouragements. He entreated Calvin to send a preacher to take charge of the growing congregation, until he could find a suitable minister or return himself; for he could not now remain, as duty called him to his own post. He met the friends of the good cause at Grenoble, where many still remembered Sebville, and he addressed them in the house of a merchant, leaving a deep impression. His companion, Pichou, remained behind to preach in that town.

Not long after his return home Farel had cheering news from the much persecuted church at Gap, for the brethren kept their pledges of faithfulness. Fabri and Viret were labouring in that region with great success. The plague broke out fearfully at Lyons, and extended to other places, but they took advantage of it to let the gospel win its way by its consola