its accomplishment upon themselves. The calm and moderate influence of the precursors of the Reform was succeeded by the heroic and holy revolutionary work of the Reformers; and the revolution they effected consisted in overthrowing the usurping power to re-establish the legitimate authority. "To everything there is a season," says the Preacher, "and a time to every purpose under heaven: a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to break down, and a time to build up."[848] Of all Reformers, those who carried the aggressive spirit to its highest degree were the men who came from France, and more especially Farel, whose labours we have now to consider. [848] Eccles. iii. 1, 2, 3. Never were such mighty effects accomplished by so puny a force. In the government of God we pass in an instant from the greatest to the least of things. We now quit the haughty Charles V. and all that court of princes over which he presides, to follow the steps of a schoolmaster; and we leave the palaces of Augsburg to take our seats in the lowly cottages of Switzerland. The Rhone, after issuing near St. Gothard from the mountains of the Furka, from beneath an immense sea of eternal ice, rolls its noisy waters through a rugged valley separating the two great chains of the Alps; then issuing from the gorge of St. Maurice, it wanders through a more smiling and fertile country. The sublime Dent du Midi on the south, the proud Dent de Morcles on the north, picturesquely situated opposite each other, point out from afar to the traveller's eye the beginning of this latter basin. On the tops of these mountains are vast glaciers and threatening peaks, near which the shepherds in the midst of summer lead their numerous flocks to pasture; while in the plain, the flowers and fruits of southern climes grow luxuriantly, and the laurel blooms beside the most exquisite grapes. [Sidenote: THE SCHOOLMASTER.] At the opening of one of the lateral valleys that lead into the Northern Alps, on the banks of the Grande Eau that falls in thunder from the glaciers of the Diablerets, is situated the small town of Aigle, one of the most southern in Switzerland. For about fifty years it had belonged to Berne, with the four parishes (_mandemens_) which are under its jurisdiction, namely, Aigle, Bex, Ollon, and the chalets scattered in the lofty valleys of the Ormonds. It is in this country that the second epoch of the Swiss Reformation was destined to begin.