While Farel was thus loudly calling for new workers, he was getting rid of the idle and cowardly, promising to all of them fatigue, insult, and persecution: it was with such promises that the reformer levied his soldiers. 'Do not look for idleness, but for labour,'[430] he said; 'only after fatigue will you find repose, and you will not reap until after you have sown at your own cost. A wide door is opened, but no one can enter except those who desire to feed the sheep and not to devour them, and who are determined to reply with kindness to the insults with which they are assailed. Labour and toil await you.[431] I can promise you nothing but trouble.... If you will come with us, know that you are entering into a hard service. You will have to fight not against craven and disheartened adversaries, but against enemies brimful of decision and strength. Be therefore a brave and noble soldier; attack the enemy joyfully, and rush into the hottest of the fight, placing your confidence in God, to whom alone belong the battle and the victory. It is not we who fight, but the Lord.'[432] But Farel called to the battle in vain: the timid recruits would not join the army. He received some little help indeed, but what was that for so great a work? Then his appeals grew louder. In the presence of the gigantic Alps, this humble man rose like them: his language swelled and resembled rather the cry of a soldier struggling in the midst of the enemy's ranks, than the sweet and subtle voice of the Gospel of peace. 'We are in the thick of the fight,' he said; 'the conflict is terrible; we are fighting man to man ... but the Lord giveth the victory to his own.[433] Take up the sword, set the helmet on your head, buckle on the breastplate, hang the shield to your arm, gird your loins; and being thus armed with the panoply of God, rush into the midst of the battle, hurl the darts, throw down the enemy on every side, and put all the army to flight.[434]... But alas! instead of joining the soldiers of Christ, instead of rushing into the Lord's battles, you fear the cross, and the dangers that lie in wait for you. Preferring your own ease, you refuse to come to the assistance of your brethren.... Is that the behaviour of a christian?... The Holy Scriptures declare that the Lord will exact a severe reckoning for such cowardice.... Beware lest you bury the talent you have received.... Call to mind that you must give an account of all those souls, whom tyranny holds captive in its gloomy dungeons. You can set the light before their eyes, you can deliver them from their chains, you must conjure them to throw themselves into the arms of Jesus Christ.... Do not hesitate.... Christ must be preferred to everything. Do not trouble yourself about what your wife wishes and requires, but about what God asks and commands.'[435] More powerful solicitations had never been made; there was a new Paul in the world at this time. At last Farel's earnestness prevailed.