the grace which God has given thee.’ The bailiffs, for the purpose of preparing people’s minds, went frequently beforehand with Viret and other ministers into parishes that were to be provided for. They preached and endeavored to make evident the great benefits of the Reformation. But there was many a village in which the curé endeavored to keep the people away from the sermon, excited his friends, who threw stones at those who were hearers, and did the worst they could.[429] [Sidenote: TRIALS OF FABRI.] Farel persevered in his exertions, exhorting and consoling. Fabri, pastor at Thonon, in the Chablais, had to pass through trials of special severity. He wrote to Farel, ‘I cannot tell you how cruel are the crosses which so violent an opposition lays upon me.’ Farel was prompt to offer him consolation, and he shows in his answer how well he had himself learnt to profit by the blows struck at him by the enemies of the Gospel. ‘There is no ground for dejection,’ said he, ‘although so many distresses weigh on you. It is in this way that the Lord teaches us to depend entirely on him, and to call down by our sighing the favor of our heavenly Father, which we are so backward to do.’ At the same time Farel communicated to his friend his own experiences, and made fresh allusion to the case of Caroli and Viret, which appears to have greatly troubled him. ‘I am bidden,’ he said, ‘to call ministers from all quarters, but where to find them I cannot tell. People slight those who are the fittest, and who always breathe Jesus Christ; but they exalt to the skies those who are mere masks, and breathe nothing but arrogance. Some ministers, of too fastidious taste, are unwilling to come into this country; they would rather bury themselves in the tombs of Egypt than eat manna in the desert and be led by the pillar of fire.’[430] At the same time that Farel wrote to Fabri at the foot of the Alps, he wrote also to Hugues, pastor of Gex, at the foot of the Jura. ‘Act with firmness,’ he said to him, ‘but with wisdom and without passion. Put forward weighty proofs drawn from Scripture, and let your words always be accompanied with the moderation of Christ.’[431] He wrote likewise to many others. Calvin began at this time to exercise the functions pertaining to the government of the Church. A minister, Denis Lambert, formerly a monk, but who having been since 1534 pastor in the country of Neuchâtel, had been chosen almoner to the little army which marched in 1534 to the aid of Geneva, and fought the battle of Gingins, had been settled by the Bernese as pastor in the neighborhood of that town. He had remained full of monkery (_moinerie_), and he had a wife of sorry reputation; so that their life and their manners might ruin, but could not build up the Church. Some better ministers, particularly Henry de la Mare, having been preferred to him, he flew into a great rage at a colloquy held at the beginning of December, 1536.