The catholics resolved to pay no attention to this. On Christmas day the priest had already sung two masses before the hour appointed for the evangelical preaching; and at the moment when the reformers arrived, he resolutely began high mass 'with loud and long singing,' although there was scarcely anybody to hear it. The reformed waited patiently, but when the service was ended, and just as they were hoping that their turn had come, they were surprised to see the catholics arriving in a crowd. Fabri then wanted to go into the pulpit, but had great difficulty; one pushed him one way, and one another, and all shouted out against him.[557] Order being a little restored, one of the reformers went, as was customary, to take a chalice for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. The priest who had remained in the church, watching what was going on, rushed upon him and snatched the vessel from his hands, crying out, 'Sacrilege! Sacrilege!' The friends of the priests determined to put an end to the service once for all. 'Some of them rushed like raging lions upon the reformed, and hit them with their fists; and one of them struck a governor (probably one of the communal councillors) with a knife; but God,' says the document we quote, 'permitted only his clothes to be pierced.' This did not end the battle. Others, going to a room behind the altar, where they had hidden some large sticks, dealt their blows lustily on all sides. The women rushed into the vineyards, tore up the vine-props, and brought them to as many of their husbands as had neither sticks nor knives. Some of them left the chapel and picked up stones to throw at the minister, who was still in the pulpit, and kill him. From every side they fell upon the poor evangelicals, calling them 'Rascally dogs!' Even the _sautier_ of Boudry, whose duty it was to preserve order, joined in the riot, threw off his official robe, and loudly hooting, struck harder than the rest. The parish priest, who loved the law so much, had suddenly lost his balance. Incensed, and beside himself, stripped to his doublet, and 'bareheaded like a brigand,'[558] he directed the battle. His friends, well provided with arquebuses, bludgeons, knives, and other weapons, seeing that the evangelists had rallied round their pastor, rushed upon them, intending to kill many of them; 'but it was God's will that this wolf should be stopped on the way,' says the official document, 'and be driven back into his den.' The reformed, who parried the blows as well as they could with their hands only, at last succeeded in reaching their houses. They told their relations and friends what had happened, and gave God thanks. 'It is indeed a great miracle,' they said with emotion, 'that there was nobody killed. But the Lord Jesus Christ is a Good Shepherd; he keeps his sheep so well in the midst of the sword, the fire, the lions, and even death itself, that the wolves cannot snatch them out of his hand.' [Sidenote: A PRIEST HEADS THE RIOT.]