12. The French Reformation. 225
lost.“ We too are ready,” said the witnesses for the truth,“ to meet death cheerfully, setting our eyes on the life that is to come.” 328
During the persecution at Meaux, the teachers of the reformed faith were deprived of their license to preach, and they departed to other fields. Lefevre after a time made his way to Germany. Farel returned to his native town in eastern France, to spread the light in the home of his childhood. Already tidings had been received of what was going on at Meaux, and the truth, which he taught with fearless zeal, found listeners. Soon the authorities were roused to silence him, and he was banished from the city. Though he could no longer labor publicly, he traversed the plains and villages, teaching in private dwellings and in secluded meadows, and finding shelter in the forests and among the rocky caverns which had been his haunts in boyhood. God was preparing him for greater trials.“ The crosses, persecutions, and machinations of Satan, of which I was forewarned, have not been wanting,” he said;“ they are even much severer than I could have borne of myself; but God is my Father; He has provided and always will provide me the strength which I require.” 329
As in apostolic days, persecution had“ fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” 330 Driven from Paris and Meaux,“ they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.” 331 And thus the light found its way into many of the remote provinces of France.
God was still preparing workers to extend His cause. In one of the schools of Paris was a thoughtful, quiet youth, already giving evidence of a powerful and penetrating mind, and no less marked for the blamelessness of his life than for intellectual ardor and religious devotion. His genius and application soon made him
328 D ' Aubigné,“ History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin,” b. 2, ch. 16. 329 D ' Aubigné, b. 12, ch. 9.
330 Phil. 1:12. 331 Acts 8:4.