Immediately all is calm within the church and without; even the adversaries are silent, and Farel delivers "one of the most effective sermons he had hitherto preached." Their eyes are opened; their emotion increases; their hearts are melted; the most obstinate appear converted; and from every part of the old church these cries resound: "We will follow the Evangelical religion, both we and our children, and in it will we live and die."[1011] [1011] Ibid. [Sidenote: THE IDOLS DESTROYED.] Suddenly a whirlwind, as it were, sweeps over this multitude, and stirs it up like a vast sea. Farel's hearers desire to imitate the pious King Josiah.[1012] "If we take away these idols from before our eyes, will it not be aiding us," said they, "in taking them from our own hearts? Once these idols broken, how many souls among our fellow-citizens, now disturbed and hesitating, will be decided by this striking manifestation of the truth! We must save them as it were by fire."[1013] [1012] 2 Chron. xxxiv. 7. [1013] Choupart MS. This latter motive decides them, and then begins a scene that fills the Romanists with horror, and which must, according to them, bring down the terrible judgment of God on the city. The very spot where this takes place would seem to add to its solemnity. To the north the castle-walls rise above the pointed crags of the gloomy but picturesque valley of the Seyon, and the mountain in front of the castle presents to the eye little more than bare rocks, vines, and black firs. But to the south, beneath the terrace on which this tumultuous scene is passing, extend the wide and tranquil waters of the lake with its fertile and picturesque shores; and in the distance the continuous summits of the higher Alps with their dazzling snows, their immense glaciers, and gigantic peaks, lie before the enraptured eye.