Geneva when the placards of the 'general pardon' of God had been stuck up: it now took the second step.[504] 'There was a great sensation in the city,' said Froment. Some of the hearers, returning to their families or their friends, astonished them by saying that henceforth their master should be neither M. La Baume, nor M. Medicis or even M. St. Peter, 'but the Lord Jesus Christ alone.' The astonishment was still greater in the political and ecclesiastical bodies. Hitherto they had only had to deal with the heroes of liberal emancipation; now they were in presence of the champions of the religious movement. 'This thing having come to the notice of the council, canons, and priests of the city, they were suddenly troubled and disturbed.'[505] The monks were either astounded or very angry, while the nuns of St. Claire were quite alarmed at 'this wretched preacher, who was beginning to speak secretly at his quarters, in a room, seeking to infect the people with his heresy.'[506] All of them foresaw that this act would have innumerable and fatal consequences. [Sidenote: FAREL'S SECOND LECTURE.] There was soon a second meeting. Many of those who had not been at the first wished to be present at this; and from the city, the Molard, and the Rhone bridge, many citizens took their way towards the Tour Perce. There were no women among them, but the men filled every corner of the room, anxious to hear the Gospel. As Farel on the former occasion had spoken particularly of scripture, he now addressed the huguenots on the subject of living grace. He showed them that it was not the pardon of the Church, but the pardon of God, that saves. Those prelates and masters who, puffed out with magnificent titles, were continually recommending pious works, were (he said) building the temple of God with straw and stubble, instead of bringing together the living stones of which scripture speaks. He maintained that when the priests spoke so much of penance, vows, masses, fasts, aves, macerations, flagellations, indulgences, pilgrimages, invocations to the Virgin and the saints, they hardly left Jesus Christ the hundredth part of the work of redemption. Farel and Saunier repeated strongly that pardon resides wholly in the Saviour, and not in part only, 'at which those who heard him took great pleasure.' Some meditated as they went away on what they had heard, and that silent conversation of the soul speaking with its God began in the quiet chamber of many a house. 'By this means a goodly number of Genevans received a knowledge of the Gospel.'[507] Some of them—Baudichon de la Maison-Neuve and Claude Salomon amongst others—earnestly besought Farel to come and explain the Scriptures in their own houses.