The three friends formed a plan, and combined their efforts to spread true piety around them. Egidius and de la Fuente divided between them the work of preaching. Their manner of speaking differed. While Egidius had much openness of heart, de la Fuente had much openness of intellect. In the discourses of Egidius there was more fire; more light in those of de la Fuente. The former took souls captive; the latter enlightened understandings, and obtained, says a historian,[54] as much and even more applause than his master. This means doubtless that his influence was still more powerful. Vargas had undertaken another department, that of practical exegesis. At first he explained in the church the Gospel according to St. Matthew, as Zwingli had done at Zurich; and afterwards the Psalms.[55] These three evangelists spoke with a sacred authority, and with admirable unity. 'What harmony,' people said, 'prevails between Egidius, Constantine, and Vargas!' But nobody suspected that the word spoken by these three powerful teachers was the evangelical doctrine then being preached by Luther, Farel, and the other reformers. There was no more reference to them in the discourses of the Spaniards than if they had not existed. All those souls which thirsted for the truth would have been alarmed at the names of these men, heretics in their eyes; but they were attracted by the words full of grace and truth which were those of John, Peter, and Paul, nay, rather of Jesus himself. The sheep entered into the fold in which were already those who were elsewhere called by Melanchthon and by Calvin, without in the least suspecting the fact. Their strong but invisible bond of union was Christ, whose grace operated silently but with the same efficacy on the banks of the Elbe, the Rhone, and the Guadalquivir.