From that day Viret took his place in that noble army of heralds of the Word which the Lord was raising among the nations. His part in it was modest but well marked. The college of reformers, as well as the college of the apostles, contained the most different characters. As the sap is everywhere the same in nature, the Spirit of God is everywhere the same in the Church; but everywhere alike each of them produces different flowers and different fruits. The ardent Farel was the St. Peter of the Swiss Reform, the mighty Calvin the St. Paul, and the gentle Viret the St. John. [Sidenote: CONVERSION OF ELIZABETH D'ARNEX.] Farel, Viret, Romain, Hollard, and the other evangelicals waited for the effects of the preaching at Orbe. They saw clearly 'some slight touches and pricks, but few persons had been wounded and pierced to the quick,' and so overwhelmed with the feeling of everlasting death, that they thought of looking for help solely to the grace of Jesus Christ. All of a sudden, and a month only after Farel's arrival, the report of an unexpected conversion filled Orbe with astonishment, and became the subject of general conversation. It was said—and he who repeated it could hardly believe it—that Madame Elizabeth, the wife of the lord of Arnex, the very same who had planned the women's conspiracy and so severely beaten Farel, was entirely changed; that even her husband, who had become bail for Juliani, and had set him at liberty, had changed likewise. The bigots of both sexes could not deny the fact. 'Really,' they said, 'she has become one of the worst lutherans in the city.' Not long after, they made a great noise because at All Saints or some feast of Our Lady, Elizabeth had a large wash or other manual labours at her house.[415] They shook their heads, shrugged their shoulders, and smiled. The evangelicals did not imitate them: they thought, to borrow the language of one of their leaders, that though these iron-hearted people smiled, it was a forced smile,[416] for they felt as if inwardly choking.... They knew that God's word is a hammer, and that there is nothing so hard, so massive, or so hidden in the heart of man that its power cannot reach.... Had not Paul been a persecutor like Elizabeth and Hugonin?