It is very true, as we have said, that the cities where he preached were not large capitals; but Derbe, Lystra, and Berea where St. Paul preached, were little towns like Orbe, Neuchâtel, and Geneva. Most assuredly the Acts of the Reformation are not the Acts of the Apostles; there is all the difference between them which exists between the foundation of Christianity and its reformation; but notwithstanding the inferiority of the sixteenth century, the labours of the reformers have a claim upon the interest of all those who love to contemplate the humble origin of the new destinies of mankind. Is there, after the establishment of Christianity, anything greater than its Reformation? Have not those weak movements which began in the petty spheres in which Farel and Calvin lived, gone on widening from age to age? Are they not the origin of that new religious transformation which, notwithstanding the declamations and the triumphant cries of unbelievers, is now going on in every nation of the earth? The source of the Rhone is but a thread of water which would pass unnoticed elsewhere; but the traveller who stands at the foot of the huge glaciers which separate the mountains of the Furka and the Grimsel, cannot look unmoved at that little stream, which, issuing imperceptibly from the earth, is to become a mighty river. The thought of what it is to be inspires the friend of nature and of history in this sublime solitude with emotions more profound than those excited by its copious and monotonous waters at Lyons, Beaucaire, or Avignon. It is for this reason we dwell longer upon the origin of the Reformation. [Sidenote: PREPARATIONS FOR VICTORY.] A general who desires to capture an important city, first makes sure of his position and occupies the surrounding country: and so Farel, desirous of winning Geneva to the gospel, first set about enlightening the neighbouring people. His operations were not strategic certainly; he thought only of converting souls; and yet his labours in the Vaudois towns and villages admirably prepared the way for his successes among the huguenots. We have already seen what he did at Aigle, Neuchâtel, and elsewhere;[377] we must now follow him into other parts of that picturesque country, enclosed between the pointed citadels of the Alps and the undulating lines of the Jura, whose waters flow—some by the lake of Neuchâtel, the Aar and the Rhine to the North Sea, others by the lake of Geneva and the Rhone to the Mediterranean: a symbol of the spiritual waters which, issuing from the same hills, were soon to bear light and life to the peoples of the north and of the south. [Sidenote: FABRI JOINS FAREL.]