THE FRENCH AT BASLE—ENCOURAGED BY THE SWISS. The exertions of the friends of the Gospel in France were paralyzed. The men in power were beginning to show their hostility to Christianity; Margaret was growing alarmed; terrible news would soon be coming across the Alps and plunging the nation into mourning, filling it with one thought only—of saving the king, of saving France. But if the Christians of Lyons were checked in their labours, were there not soldiers Farel, Anemond, Esch, Toussaint, and their friends formed an evangelical society in Switzerland with the view of rescuing their country from its spiritual darkness. Intelligence reached them from every quarter, that there was an increasing thirst for God's Word in France; FEARS AND DIVISIONS. The French were the first to suggest conciliatory advances. "Why," wrote they from Strasburg, "is not Bucer or some other learned man sent to Luther? The longer we wait the greater will these dissensions become." Their fears grew stronger every day. France—the conversion of France, thenceforth exclusively occupied the hearts of these generous men whom history, that has inscribed on her pages the names of so many individuals vainly puffed up with their own glory, has for three centuries passed over in silence. Thrown on a foreign TRANSLATION AND PRINTING AT BASLE. But these Frenchmen were not merely men of prayer: never has the evangelical army contained combatants more ready to sacrifice their lives in the day of battle. They felt the importance of scattering the Holy Scriptures and pious books in their country, still overshadowed with the gloom of superstition. A spirit of inquiry was breathing over the whole kingdom: it seemed necessary on all sides to spread the sails to the wind. Anemond, ever prompt in action, and Michael Bentin, a refugee like himself, resolved to unite their zeal, their talents, their resources, and their labours. Bentin wished to establish a printing press at Basle, and the chevalier, to profit by the little German he knew, to translate the best works of the Reformers into French. "Oh," said they, rejoicing in their plans, "would to God that France were filled with evangelical volumes, so that everywhere, in the cottages of the poor, in the palaces of the nobles, in cloisters and presbyteries, nay, in the inmost sanctuary of the heart, a powerful testimony might be borne to the grace of Jesus Christ!" TRACTS DISTRIBUTED IN FRANCE. Funds were necessary for such an undertaking, and the refugees had nothing. Vaugris was then at Basle; on his departure Anemond gave him a letter for the brethren of Lyons, many of whom abounded in the riches of this world, and who, although oppressed, were faithful to the Gospel; he requested them to send him some assistance; It does not appear that the chevalier's project was realized, but the work was done by others. The presses of Basle were constantly occupied in printing French works; they were forwarded to Farel, and by him introduced into France with unceasing activity. One of the first writings sent by this Religious Tract Society was Luther's Explanation of the Lord's Prayer. "We are retailing the Pater at four deniers of Basle each," wrote Vaugris to Farel, "but we sell them wholesale at the rate of two florins the two hundred, which comes to something less." Anemond sent to Farel from Basle all the useful books that appeared or that arrived from Germany; at one time a work on the appointment of Gospel ministers, at another a treatise on the education of children. THE NEW TESTAMENT—COLPORTAGE. But it was especially God's Word that the evangelical merchant of Lyons was calling for in the name of his fellow-countrymen. These people of the sixteenth century, so hungering for intellectual food, were to receive in their own tongue those ancient monuments of the first ages of the world, in which the new breath of primitive humanity respires, and those holy oracles of the Gospel times in which shines forth the fulness of the revelation of Christ. Vaugris Lefevre had already published at Meaux, but in detached portions, the books of the New Testament in French. Vaugris wished for some one to revise it thoroughly, and to superintend a complete edition. Lefevre undertook to do so, and he published it, as we have already seen, on the 12th of October 1524. An uncle of Vaugris, named Conrard, also a refugee at Basle, immediately procured a copy. The Chevalier Coct happening to be at a friend's house on the 18th of November, there saw the book, and was filled with joy. "Lose no time in reprinting it," said he, "for I doubt not a great number will be called for." Thus was the Word of God offered to France in opposition to the traditions of the Church, which Rome still continues to present to her. "How can we distinguish what is of man in your traditions, and what is of God," said the reformers, "except by the Scriptures of God? The maxims of the Fathers, the decretals of the pontiffs, cannot be the rule of our faith. They show us what was the opinion of these old doctors; but the Word alone teaches us what is the judgment of God. We must submit everything to the rule of Scripture." Such were the principal means by which these writings were circulated. Farel and his friends consigned the books to certain pedlars or colporteurs, simple and pious men, who, laden with their precious burden, passed from town to town, from village to village, and from house to house, in Franche ComtÉ, Lorraine, Burgundy, and the adjoining provinces, knocking at every door. They procured the books at a low rate, "that they might be the more eager to sell them." |