The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 220

not 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.”—D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time
of Calvin, b. 2, ch. 16.
During the persecution of 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.”—D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth
Century, b. 12, ch. 9.
As in apostolic days, persecution had “fallen out rather unto the
furtherance of the gospel.” Philippians 1:12. Driven from Paris and
Meaux, “they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the
word.” Acts 8:4. 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 the pride of
the college, and it was confidently anticipated that John Calvin would
become

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