The cathedral of St. Pierre, whose three old towers soar above the city, played a great part in its history, and every Genevan was attached to its stones, though they were now (as it were) broken and scattered, and the divine service was contaminated by mournful profanations. But the greater the desolation, the more did pious men desire to see that august temple purified and the good news proclaimed beneath its vaulted roof. Fourteen canons still belonged to it, established to defend it; but those unhappy clerks, isolated, scared, and conquered before a blow was struck, waited trembling until the tide of Reform, which still kept rising, invaded their sanctuary. They had not long to wait. On Sunday morning, 8th of August, a crowd of reformed Genevans mounted the streets leading to the church, and approached it with the firm intention of replacing the light upon the candlestick. 'When rust has tarnished iron,' said a reformer, 'we endeavor to restore it to its former brightness: must we not, then, cleanse away from the Church of Christ the thick rust which ages of darkness have accumulated on it?'[561] Having entered the noble edifice, the reformers began to ring the great bell to call the people to hear the Gospel. _Clémence_ was tolling the last hour of the Middle Ages, the _De Defunctis_ of images, 'those gods of the priests,' as the huguenots called them. The chapel which contained the arm of St. Anthony, on which men used to swear in serious cases, was to be pulled down; all that mass of waxen hands offered by devotees, and a thousand other relics equally stupid, were to disappear. In that temple, now 'crammed with idols,' God and his Word were henceforward to reign alone. [Sidenote: FAREL IN THE PULPIT.]