In the winter of 1526-1527, a foreign schoolmaster, named Ursinus, arrived in this humble district. He was a man of middle stature, with red beard and quick eyes, and who, to a voice of thunder (says Beza), united the feelings of a hero: his modest lessons were intermingled with new and strange doctrines. The benefices being abandoned by their titularies to ignorant curates, the people, who were naturally of rude and turbulent habits, had remained without any cultivation. Thus did this stranger, who was no other than Farel, meet with new obstacles at every step. Whilst Lefevre and most of his friends had quitted Strasburg to re-enter France, after the deliverance of Francis I., Farel had turned his steps towards Switzerland; and on the very first day of his journey, he received a lesson that he frequently recalled to mind. He was on foot, accompanied by a single friend. Night had closed around them, the rain fell in torrents, and the travellers, in despair of finding their road, had sat down midway, drenched with rain.[849] "Ah!" said Farel, "God, by showing me my helplessness in these little things, has willed to teach me what I am in the greatest, without Jesus Christ!" At last Farel, springing up, plunged into the marshes, waded through the waters, crossed vineyards, fields, hills, forests, and valleys, and at length reached his destination, covered with mud and soaked to the skin. [849] Gravabat nox, opprimebat pluvia......coegit viæ difficultas in media sedere via sub pluvia. (Farel to Capito and Bucer; Neuchatel, MS.) [Sidenote: FAREL'S STUDIES.] In this night of desolation, Farel had received a new baptism. His natural energy had been quelled; he became, for some time at least, wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove; and, as not unfrequently happens to men of such disposition, he at first overstepped his aim. Believing that he was following the example of the Apostles, he sought, in the words of Œcolampadius, "to circumvent by pious frauds the old serpent that was hissing around him."[850] He represented himself to be a schoolmaster, and waited until a door should be opened to him to appear as a Reformer.[851] [850] Piis artibus et apostolicis versatiis ad circumveniendum illum opus est. Œcol. to Farel, 27th December, 1526. Neuchatel MS.)] [851] Ubi ostium patuerit, tunc adversariis liberius obsistetur. (Ibid.)