When the debate on the ten theses had been brought to a close, Farel entered the pulpit, in the afternoon of Sunday, October 8, and delivered the closing discourse. We shall allow the orator to speak his own language, although it be not always that of our age, for it is essential that the Reformation should be set before us just as it actually appeared. Farel was struck with the fact that a band of ministers, feeble men and few in number, had been capable, in that conflict of eight days, of filling mighty Catholicism with alarm and vanquishing it. He remembered, too, how when he arrived at Aigle, at Neuchâtel, at Geneva, poor, weak, and contemptible in the eyes of many, he had seen the papacy reel and fall down before the Word of God. ‘What is it then,’ said he, ‘which makes you tremble, you who are a great multitude covering the whole land? What! a poor prophet makes his appearance, alone in the face of so many rich men; unknown and friendless before so many people who have powerful allies; he knows not whither to go, has no one to speak to, while you are all comfortably lodged, you all know one another, and fill the whole world with terror. Of what then are you afraid? The prophet will not strike you, for he is unarmed. When, for one reason or another, a whole city or even a whole people revolts against you, you have no fear at all, and you act even worse than usual.... Whence is this difference? Is one then more than a multitude? The fact is this: With that poor prophet comes the truth, the wonderful truth of God, which is mightier than all men, and which, whenever it encounters enemies, pursues them, confounds them and puts them to flight, while they are unable to make any resistance.’[412] [Sidenote: FAREL’S CLOSING DISCOURSE.]