One July day in 1532, when Farel was at Grandson, as we have seen, in conference with other ministers, he was told that two individuals, whose foreign look indicated that they came from a distance, desired to speak with him. Two barbes, one from Calabria, named George, the other Martin Gonin, a Piedmontese, entered the room. After saluting the evangelicals in the name of their brethren, they told them that the demand that had been addressed to them to separate entirely from Rome had caused division among them. 'Come,' they said to the ministers assembled at Grandson, 'come to the synod and explain your views on this important point. After that we must come to an understanding about the means of propagating over the world the doctrine of the Gospel which is common to both of us.' No message could be more agreeable to Farel; and as these two points were continually occupying his thoughts, he determined to comply with the request of the Waldensian brethren. His fellow-countryman, the pious Saunier, wished to share his dangers. The members of the conference and the evangelicals of Grandson gazed with respect upon these ancient witnesses of the truth, arriving among them from the farther slopes of the Alps and the extremity of Italy, where they would have had no idea of going to look for brethren. They crowded round them and gave them a welcome, overflowing with love for them as they thought of the long fidelity and cruel sufferings of their ancestors. They listened with interest to the story of the persecutions endured by their fathers, and the heroism with which the Waldenses had endured them. They were all ears when they were told how the barbes and their flocks were suddenly attacked by armed bands in their snowy mountains during the festival of Christmas in the year 1400; how men, women, and children had been compelled to flee over the rugged rocks, and how many of them had perished of cold and hunger, or had fallen by the sword. In one place the bodies of fourscore little children were found frozen to death in the stiffened arms of their mothers who had died with them.... In another place thousands of fugitives who had taken refuge in deep caverns (1488) had been suffocated by the fires which their cruel persecutors had kindled at the entrance of their hiding-place.[460] Would not the Reformation regard these martyrs as its precursors? Was it not a privilege for it thus to unite with the witnesses who had given glory to Jesus Christ since the first ages of the Church? [Sidenote: FAREL'S DANGEROUS JOURNEY.]