The huguenots having opened the letters that Farel presented, found that the bearer was William Farel, preacher of the Gospel, and that their Bernese friends invited them to hear him speak. This was great news. No name was better known than Farel's in the districts bathed by the lakes of Geneva, Morat, Bienne, and Neuchatel. The huguenots, delighted to see him, looked attentively at him, and some of them reflected on such an unexpected incident, which religious and political motives rendered most important in their eyes. Friends of the Reformation had often told them that the independence of Geneva would never be secure until the dominion of the bishop and the pope had given place to that of the Gospel, and now the Gospel was knocking at their doors in the person of Farel. Was it not he who had filled Aigle, Morat, Neuchatel, Valengin, Orbe, and Grandson with the evangelical doctrine? Political men hoped that at his voice the temporal dominion of the church would fall, and the phantoms of the middle ages, which still entangled liberty, would flee away in alarm to distant hiding-places. Religious men, who had found pleasure in the words of Am Thun, of Olivetan, and of the Gospel more especially, expected that this great preacher would make the light of heaven to shine in their hearts. All, therefore, expressed themselves ready to hear him,[497] and Farel, saying he should be happy to see them at his inn, took his leave. [Sidenote: HUGUENOTS GO TO HEAR FAREL.] The news of the reformer's arrival spread through the city in a moment.[498] 'Let us go and hear him,' said the huguenots; 'it is the man they call _the scourge of the little priests_.'[499] But the nuns, bigots, and friars were filled with anger. 'A shabby little preacher,' said the sisters of St. Claire; 'one Master William, a native of Gap in Dauphiny, has just arrived in the city.'[500] Every one prepared for the morrow.