Voyage Home — Paris Work — Work in Different Towns — Sojourn at Clermont-Ferrand — Visit to the Hautes Alpes — Return to Paris

HE bids farewell to America; yet expecting to
return for a longer visit, and a wider range
of work. This he is not to have.

But in quitting the hospitable shores of the West he is not forgetful of the kindness, hospitality, and Christian sympathy he has experienced there. Often, during the brief remaining period of his life, does he cast his eye back, recalling kind names and faces, and desiring further fellowship.

His family were in Edinburgh at this time, and it was suggested that he should join them there, and bring them home. But his first thoughts are of Paris, and his work there. Thus he writes on the 14th of December, when about to sail for Havre: —

“I am very well, and I have no right not to be

tired. Shall the servant be free from the weariness

which the Master often felt? I must go back to Havre. Do you think me very self-willed because I feel it my duty, after serious thought, to return and help Mr. M’All, who is doubtless more tired than I am. I am enjoying excellent health, and do not see the necessity of taking even a fortnight or a week, though to come and see you and my bonnie bairns is a very great temptation. Do not think any more about it. My duty and my place is in Paris, and there I must go.”

On board the Lahvador he thus writes home: —” Our farewell meeting was a very pleasant one. Many of the principal men of New York were there, and were as cordial as they could be. I think they have got interested in France, and in our story of her awakening to a sense of spiritual need, and of her possible resurrection. I feel that the future of that country is more clearly than ever a future in which I must spend my life. My hearing so much from Eeveillaud which I did not know before about the work in the provinces, gives me a deeper interest than ever in the work that is going on. May I return to work with more of the Spirit’s power than I have ever known before.

“I look back upon the twelve weeks which I have spent in the States with very great pleasure, not only because of the great kindness and hospitality which I received, and the friends I met, but because in many ways, and looked at as a whole, the voyage has done me good, enlarged my sympathies, and quickened my life and interest in all that goes on in the world. He that has not travelled misses a great deal.

“I am going to post this (d.v.) in Paris to let you see that I have arrived there. It seems as if you were nearer to me now that only the Channel divides us from one another. I hope I shall not weary; I fear I may; but I commit you and our darlings to the holy keeping of a loving Father, now and for the New Year which shall have begun ere you get this.”

A few days later he writes to his parents. The letter is long and retrospective. But as it gives a vivid resume of his American work and glimpses of American men and scenes, I give the most important parts. It will be seen that wherever he is, France is uppermost in his thoughts; and that while his observant eye takes hold of all that passes before it, he connects all with his great mission. For France he would gladly live and die. The home-ties of nature, carrying him back to his beloved Scotland, to Yarrow, to Edinburgh; above all, to Lochee, are as strong as

* Thus, for instance, he wrote once to his father, when Paris was just decided on: “I love and honour you as my earthly father; and I hope I may add, that your opinions and Christian views have been deeply imbedded in my mind, and that in looking back to my past life, while it is God that has kept me from the infidelity and rationas strong as ever; but the new- formed links which bind him to that France to which he has gone to preach the “glad tidings” of God’s love are, if not stronger, at least more operative; drawing him irresistibly back, not to Edinburgh or Dundee, but to Paris, and Lyons, and Bordeaux. At the same time he looks at everything in connection with art, or literature, or antiquarian research, or philology. In the colleges he takes special interest, and writes of the professors with great warmth.*

He writes concerning France, not merely as one desirous of her amelioration and true enlightenment, but as one who is alive to her growing peril. He has been broucrht face to face with the ouvrier and communist, and he is alarmed at the explosive materials multiplying all around, and becoming intensified in destructive energy. He has been now for some years standing on volcanic crust, which at

alism which has overtaken many of my friends, to you I owe much of my appreciation of our own Scotch theology and our Free Church principles; and a gratitude that can never be displaced remains with me towards you for all you have done for me.”

* Of Yale College he thus writes: “There is a good custom, not only in the theological seminaries, where it is but natural, but also in the colleges, — the students meet together every morning for prayer, which is conducted by the professors in rotation. Even at Harvard (Unitarian) this custom is observed. The professors debated if they should make it optional. But Emerson opposed that most stoutly, and it is still observed.” Our Scotch colleges, except in the theological classes, have given up prayer. Fifty years ago it was different,

T any moment may give way and bury millions. He hears the threatening roar of the pent-up earthquake beneath his feet at Belleville, and he would fain avert the catastrophe which he feels to be at hand. Revolutions, wars, emeutes, barricades, massacres, will do nothing for poor France. She has had enough of these, and they have not quieted her. Republics, monarchies, empires, dictatorships, have been tried without success. Uneasiness and uncertainty still remain. For the moral explosives are still there, and the storage of destructive power is accumulating every day. He has no confidence in any stability that is not from above. Divine appliances are the only remedies. The truth of heaven is the one deliverance; counteracting the social dynamite, and substituting for it the heavenly elements of security and peace. The book of God is her one hope. The leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations.

This is the spirit that breathes through all his letters. This is the spring of the mighty impulse that makes him yearn over France when far away, and that leads him to throw himself with renewed fervour into the mission-work on his return home.

That work continues the same in character as hitherto; only, it increases. Blessing is resting on the workers; and, though few, they are earnest and unwearied. He visits the stations, and is greatly cheered. He has got an additional subject for illustration (America), and he uses it frequently.* His narratives of what he saw and heard are full of interest to the Parisians, though he finds incredulity as to some things, such as the transportation of whole houses from one place to another. Could the Louvre be thus moved? Hardly. Could the Madeleine be wheeled to the Bois? No. What are we to believe? The Chicago fire was the basis of an address, and, more frequently, the Pilgrim Fathers. One day an Englishman cheers him at the close of a meeting by expressing his sympathy and interest; another, a Frenchman, sends up his card, with a request to pray for the dead! “Give me, Lord,” he adds,” such encouragement as thou knowest I need. At the Trocadero, M. Haney. preached on the Mediateur. He did admirably

* Here is a statement as to what he saw at Princeton of the relics of the Swiss lacustrine dwellings, with his inferences thereon. I do not know that he used it at any of his meetings. — “There is (at Princeton) a very complete collection of all sorts of things found in the lacustrine dwellings in Switzerland, — bracelets, hairpins even. Their bread was of roughly-ground wheat, but everything showed a high civilisation. Cloth was woven by them. What a mess modern savants have made of the testimony afforded by these lake dwellings! They say that all nations came through an age of stone, bronze, &c. Why, you may find these ages co-existing at the present day. How can men deduce theories from so irregular a series of facts?”

and was liked.” There are “signs of interest” at Grenelle. “Lord, bless Thy work!” he says.

He then proceeded to Roubaix, Lille, and Croix. After this his diary is blank. He has no time for it. On SOth March he sets off for Scotland, to bring home his family; and on Sabbath, the 8rd of April (1881), his child was baptised in the Grange Church, which event he thus enters : — “Our daughter baptised Isabelle Marie. The Lord our covenant God bless her and keep her. I preached in the afternoon: ‘My words shall not pass away.’”

To Paris he returned without delay, and during this summer worked at the different stations with his usual energy. For some little time past he had been troubled with a rumour which had gone abroad as to the Mission, that the true Gospel was not preached at the Mission stations. Perhaps some one out of ill-will had raised the report, or perhaps some of those who think that no one can preach the Gospel but themselves had suggested it; or it might be that some one had heard a very poor and imperfect address at one of the meetings, and had gone away with the impression that this was a specimen of mission-doctrine and mission-preaching. Now, I have no doubt that some of the addresses are poor enough, and, it may be, mixed with error. But is this wonderful at the commencement of such a strange and difficult work as the Paris Mission? And ought not Christian charity to have made some excuse for imperfection in such a case? Besides, does not the same thing occur frequently both in Scotland and England? I have heard more unsound teaching from some Scottish pulpits than I ever heard at any of those stations. But I should not have thought of condemning the Church that was supposed to be responsible, for these unsound utterances. I write advisedly when I say that more Scriptural teaching I never heard than from some of these Mission pulpits, — pulpits which men may smile at, because constituted of a few boards clumsily nailed together, and coarsely covered with red baize, but from which goes forth, in language that no one can mistake, the glad tidings to the sons of men of God’s free love and free pardon. Rumours of this kind, no doubt, recoil upon their inventors, but they may damage a noble cause. It was this fear that troubled both Mr. M’All and Mr. Dodds.

For larger accounts of the Mission during the spring and summer of this year, I must refer to the Annual Report, and also the Quarterly Record, which Mr. Dodds so well conducted. I mean to be as brief as possible regarding this, and to present only materials which have not appeared before.

The following letters are full of interest, and show that not only in Paris, but outside its walls and far beyond them, a new and unaccountable desire to listen to the Gospel has pervaded the French people. No opposition from bishop, priest, or prefet, though they might in secret malign or grin, and propose the gallows or the stake! All is quiet. The “nest of hornets” may be there, but no hornet stirs. Pascal’s jest, which he poked at the hooded crowns of Paris in his day is now out of date — ‘’ JJn bout de capuchon arme 25,000 moines, — The peak of a cowl sets up in arms 25,000 monks.” These peaks or tips of monkery, like the horns of snails, have been drawn in. Only we must remember they are still there. But I proceed with the extracts. The first two or three are to his parents.

“AuTEUiL, Paris, 2rd February, 1881.” I went out to Versailles on Saturday to see M. Keveillaud and lunch with him, according to an old promise. We walked through the woods at Versailles and through the Soldiers’ Camp at Satory, getting a magnificent view of the whole of Versailles and of its palace. What would Louis XIV. say if he woke up and found that the medal he struck, * Haeresis extincta,’ is no longer true, and that the Protestants are worshipping under the very roof of the room where he signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and that the heretics are about to begin a meeting in the town. We propose adding a station there. M. Reveillaud and others are to help in carrying it on. I came back from Versailles just in time to go to Pantin, outside the fortifications, near Belleville, to a new meet-Work in Diffeient Towns. 279

ing which we have begun there. About four years ago we tried one, but the noise and rowdyism of the inhabitants caused us to retire inside the walls. Now, the meeting is not only crowded but quiet. The men at the head of the municipal offices in Paris must have good memories. When we applied for authorisation the ’ chef ’ of the police said, ‘Oh, that ’s where you tried to begin several years ago; I remember quite well, and you had a great deal of noise; the noise is hzre. still!’ pointing to his head. I spoke to the people about America, though there and elsewhere, when I tell them of the marvels of elevated railways, and moving houses at Chicago, and of lifting up their houses and hotels from the groimd one storey, &c. &c., the graver sort of the attendants look at me very suspiciously, as much as to say that my stay in America has spoilt my reputation for truthfulness. I went yesterday to the school at the Faubourg St. Antoine; there were 250 children, and 110 out of that number repeated the verse which had been given out the week before, — that is 110 had Testaments and brought them with them. That is most encouraging in such a quarter. The Paris gamin is on the whole a very amenable piece of humanity. I had ’s letters this morning, which I was very glad to get, though I don’t always welcome letters. Just now they come in at every post, and in quantities. I don’t know where to begin.”

“RoUBAlx, NoRD, ^ili Marchf 1881.

“At some date in the future, Lille, Croix, Koubaix, Turcoing, shall have become one great city. Lille at present is the principal, and Eoubaix has grown up from having 6000 people to be a town of 80,000. It reminds me of an English town; the people are more busy and less inclined to loiter about, than at Lyons and Bordeaux; indeed, we are here in the north, and most things are changed — accent, character, and life. The streets, especially the j)art of the town where are those of the working- classes, are like parts of an English manufacturing town. On Sunday the people are quiet and go to church, at least in greater numbers than they do in Paris. One of the waiters, who comes from Valenciennes, which is not far from this, complained to me of the dulness and want of gaietyin Koubaix on Sunday. ‘Why was he here then ] ’ * Oh! one must work and gain one’s livelihood!’

“We have opened two rooms, and there was a great crowd on Sunday evening here, a large number of the audience being Catholics. There was no noise, no disapproval of what we said. I took for my text an American saying: “At Boston they ask, What do you Icnovo? at New York, What you have? at Philadelphia, What you are?” It was novel and striking, and their attention was easily kept while I showed them knowledge was vain, that Solomon had said * vanity’ five times in one verse, and that their own Molire was a sad man amidst all the applause and success he met with, that riches were of no use if they wanted peace in their heart. I told them the story of Theodore Hook, and then spoke to them of the one thing that always remained — a character. What are you ] Christ was persecuted, and hated, and crucified, but his character remained unchanged. If they had a good character that was better than riches or science, but then they were weak and sinful, and fell into temptation; they knew that, and nobody could doubt it. How were they to gain a character like Christ’s 1 Well, in plain words, they had immortal souls, and they needed a Saviour, and Christ was that Saviour — far better fitted than any one else to tell them what their souls needed. And thus I got them to the Gospel. Probably not one of the Roman Catholics there had ever seen a Bible; a great many had never heard of such a book, but they have a vague idea of Jesus Christ; and so one has to take common ground and lead them on bit by bit. It’s the true way to evangelise the French; they must not be preached

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to, and they must be interested. They won’t enter the door of a church; but our halls, with their cheerful aspect, the texts on the walls, the friendly welcome, the absence of any mystery — that succeeds.”

“Rue Pierre Guerin, U 24 Mars 1881. “I returned from Roubaix Friday last week, leaving by the 6.13 train in the morning. Our work there has been very encouraging. I never saw anywhere such crowds of respectful, eager working-men, assenting by their presence and conduct to the truths which were being preached. The Protestants of the town are zealous and willing to learn; it often touches me, the way they receive us foreigners — no jealousy or national conceit on their part. They made me give a ‘Conference’ on America in the church; there must have been 600 people present. I spoke without notes for about an hour, and had no difficulty in keeping their attention. On walking home with M. Rogier, we overheard some workmen saying to each other about a house which was being rebuilt in one of the streets: * If that had been in America they would have transported it bodily.’ I had told them about the way in which they remove houses from place to place in Chicago. On Sunday I preached in the ‘Temple’ of Roubaix, and then went to Croix to address the Sunday school of the Episcopal church. There is quite an English colony there of decent, quiet English people. ... I went one day with a Swiss gentleman to see Lille; it is a very strongly fortified town, more so I think than even Strasbourg. It was taken by and belonged to the Spaniards, who have left the traces of their occupation in the buildings of the old town. The Bourse is a wonderful building of its kind, surmounted by a not very beautiful campanile in brick, its architecture being partly Spanish, mixed with Moorish and Norman architecture. The Spanish is peculiar, bizarre and almost grotesque figures ending in spirals or tubes like mermaids — very Spanish faces; the cornucopias all reversed instead of being as usual, mouth upwards; the doors beautiful. The old part of the city must be very much like the southern cities of Europe, at least in Spain. There is also a very valuable collection of paintings — Van Dyck and Eubens and De la Croix; the latter’s * Medea about to Kill her Children’ is a very remarkable painting. The same painter painted * Moses Found by Pharaoh’s Daughter.’ But the most remarkable of all is ‘The Descent from the Cross,’ by Eubens. They are as fresh in colour as if they had been painted a fewmonths ago; but there is no glaring colour.”

In June of this year he wrote a long letter to me regarding mission arrangements, new workers, evangelists, and various contemplated changes. “Our children’s fete, on Monday, 6th (June), was a great success; more than 500; walls hung with specimens of different languages, and drawings of heathen deities. I send you one of them, Pilou-Pilou (the great idol of New Caledonia), which we gave away to the children.” In [this letter, as in others, he speaks with great affection of Mr. Paterson, late minister of the Scotch congregation, and no less warmly of Mr. Campbell, who succeeded him. “We have opened a meeting in Rue Lauriston, near the Arc de Triomphe. It is Mr. Campbell of the Scotch church and his congregation who support it. It is very good of him, and a very evident token of his interest in the work. I like him much. They had a great crowd at Lauriston last night. “We had a good meeting at Versailles last Tuesday. M. Reveillaud spoke with great power. It was evidently a reminiscence of his own conversion. He spoke on the confusion of tongues of Bahel, the restoration of the gift at Pentecost, and then on the Holy Spirit. I never knew of such an impression — the stillness and deep solemn attention on the part of the people — as on that night during his speech. The Spirit was evidently with him. The language was so earnest and personal, yet subdued, coming from a heart which was full of joy and personal experience of the blessedness of the Holy Spirit. I am likely going with him in autumn for ten days to see the French Vaudois district. We are sure to enjoy it.”

In July (30th) he writes to me: “I wish you could have come to Clermont-Ferrand with us. It is at the foot of the Puy de Dome. I am rather weary of this noisy city and its heat, besides having the whole burden of the work on my hands. This is a time of dreadful dearth among the speakers. Nevertheless our meetings are well attended. We opened our thirtieth station in Paris last Thursday at Montreuil-sous-Bois, just outside the fortifications. How the people crowded in — of the thorough ouvrier class. It seems the Maire was there, and all his ’ counseillers municipaux,’ and that they highly approved of it all M. Hirsch is a splendid man, only

twenty-seven years of age, son of a Jewish rabbi in Strasbourg, and a very clear-headed theologian. You would have been glad to hear him at * Rivoli’ Sunday meeting showing the people how the death of Christ was not only a moral but a legal satisfaction. We have had a most interesting incident at Versailles. A young man of the Agricultural College there has been attending our meeting, and showing more than a mere intellectual interest in what is said. He has brought another pupil with him from the same college, who has brought a third. You will not forget to pray for them, that they may be led to decide out and out for Christ. I am exceedingly delighted with M. R^veillaud’s speaking; so direct and powerful and full of entreaty, also so thoroughly Biblical and orthodox. Last Tuesday evening he spoke on ‘the judgment,’ Christ dividing the sheep from the goats. He was very clear on the question of eternal punishment, and most solemnising, I have heard of several most interesting incidents. Our station at Gare d’lvry (I go there every Thursday) is in a very interesting condition. It is a most degraded quarter; yet the people sit, and do not go out and in, but attend, and with the most serious interest.”

In another letter he speaks of his large meetings

Sojourn at Clerni07it-Ferrand. 285

at Ivry — “the roughest characters” — and adds: “I do not know any meeting where such a serious aspect prevails.” In several of our conversations in May, 1882, he spoke of the deep seriousness pervading this meeting. He was very hopeful about it.

Writing to me of an English visitor, he says: — “I think he is a man under the great delusion that the evangelical faith and preaching can be preserved with modern laxity of thought and freeness of criticism. ... I wish they saw the curse that this form of semi-rationalism and a patched-up agreement between infidel criticism and the Gospel has been in France. A good man delivered himself of this dogma the other night at Rivoli: — ‘The truth which has most often re-echoed in this hall is that God is the Father of us all, and that we are all His children.’ Some of us do what we can to neutralise these things, which no Frenchman needs to he told. Some are moderate, but have no firm grasp of saving truth. Yet it often happens that these very men learn in our meetings. I knew of one, very cold and dry, who has received a personal blessing, and whom I have heard since preaching the Gospel with a clearness and force leaving nothing to be desired. ... I think I see in many ways hoiu to preach.’”

He had received a copy of the “Revised Version,” and immediately began to look into it as a Greek scholar. The pressure of work hindered a more minute examination at the time. He thus writes to his parents: —

“AUTEUIL^ ib Juhj, 1881. “I have got the Revised Version, but have been too much taken up with my work and with our own French New Version to examine very carefully the English. Have you noticed how much of the doxology, which has been, I think, too hastily omitted, is in 1 Chron. xxix. 10 and 11? ‘Thine, O Lord, is the power and the glory... Thine is the kingdom.’ It looks like a liturgical ending which our Lord may have sanctioned. I am delighted, however, with the rendering of hitherto untranslated particles in Paul’s Epistles, prepositions, such as in Gal. ii. 21, gave Himself up, Greek, TrapaStSwi; Paul was making a very personal application of Christ’s sacrifice; it is stronger than Tit. ii. 14, who gave Himself for us, diSco/jLi. But our language, full as it is, cannot come up to the expressive Greek of the Apostle; ^irtyvucLs is fuller, more advanced knowledge than yvdcns. I have been struck with St. Paul’s use of the word in his Epistles from Rom. i. 28 onwards. My old friend Ulphilas, though his tongue was almost a barbarous one, succeeded in rendering the word, and differing it from yvucis (kunth) and ufkunthi). It is a great improvement to have but one word in Rom. vii. where we had formerly three — ’ lust, covet, concupiscence,’ which obscured the sense, and the sharpness of the apostle’s experience. I don’t think that the Perfectionists will be the better for this revised chapter, — it looks more and more like a chapter in the apostle’s life after his conversion, and not when he was a Jew or had backslidden. We shall have to give up 1 Tim. iii. 16 (as well as 1 John v. 7); but I never felt that that was to be greatly contended for as *fl”e’ points to p re-existence already. But they have left us * THE Church of God which He hath purchased with His own

Sojottrn at Clermont-Ferrand. 287

blood.’ Vance Smith, the Unitarian reviser, is not pleased with the translation, — a good sign. Do you notice ’ 0 Jerusalem, which kiUethj Matt, xxiii. 37; it is a correct literal GreeJc rendering, but I think we should have been better without it.”

A little further on he writes again to his parents: —

“Gth August, 1881. “We have opened our thirtieth station in Paris near the gate of Montreuil, at Montreuil-sous-Bois, just outside the fortifications and near Vincennes. There was a great crowd of regular ouvrier people — it is a densely peopled quarter — all eyes and ears to see what we were going to do. They listened very quietly, some of them nodding their heads to me and to their neighbours to assent to what was said. The ’ maire ’ and his ’ counseillers municipaux ’ were there, not of a very high social standing; it seems they expressed themsehes as highly gratified. I am not astonished at this; it is only one sign more that France is ready everywhere, at least, to listen to the Gospel, and, perhaps, even more, — determined to hear it. I told the people that we had come to speak to them, not for the reason the little girl gave to her mother when she checked her for talking too much, ‘Oh, laisse-moi parler, maman; 9a fait du bien a la langue.’ I said we were come to drive out wickedness, — telling them the story of the American who lately gained £200 for a prize essay on ‘The easiest Method of exterminating Mice ’ — all he said was ‘Increase the number of cats.’ Miss

R said that was a new way of preaching Dr. Chalmers’

* Expulsive power of a new afl’ection.’ I told them the story also of the infidel who had said at an evangelistic meeting that gas had done more good for the world than Christianity. ‘Oh, then,’ replied the preacher, ’ when you are going to die send for the gasman! ‘This will give you an idea of our unconventional sort of talk. The heat has again been great, but how well the people come out. At Eivoli the other night I had 250, and at Gare d’lvry, 110. You don’t keep up meetings so well as that at home! I have Carlyle’s Keminiscences; what a cantankerous, conceited, self-opinionative being that book has shown him to be. His criticism of Dr. Chalmers is verydefective; he could not appreciate the burning Christian earnestness of the man, much as he talked himself about earnestness, which broad-churchmen have changed into that high, undefined, grandiloquent phrase, ‘the enthusiasm of humanity.’”

In a letter to myself, dated 7th July, 1881, he thus writes: “I had a ’ deporte de la Commune,’ a transported Communist, not ’ deporte de la foi,’ on Sunday evening at Crenelle. He stayed behind to speak to me — much touched and very eager to learn. He had been allowed back to Paris a year ago with the others. I had also a long conversation with a young man, Hatoig, a Basque from Orthez, near Bordeaux, whom I have known for some time. He has been ill, and has gone to his native place to get well; but I think he has found Christ. I have been much interested in him. He said he had believed onachinalement (mechanically) in Christ, but since his illness he had felt he needed a friend to protect him, and he could say that Christ was his Saviour.” Then, when briefly noting this in his diary, he adds, “Deo gratias.”

On the 6th of September he went with his whole family to Clermont-Ferrand for a month’s sojourn. But here was a new field; and while resting he must be working.* That town is the birth-place of Blaise Pascal, whose house is still shown. It is the Roman Nemetumi or Augustonemetum, also named Clarus Mons, celebrated by Pascal’s sister Jaqueline in one of her poems, as a little hill singularly favoured by the sun. Its population is about 30,000. It is a “very clerical town,” writes Mr. Dodds, and processions of the host still go on. The maire is or was a “clerical,” and when a petition was sent to him to prohibit the procession, answered that he would never “prevent le hon Dieu from going out on the streets unless there was a majority against it.”*!*

The town seemed sealed against the mission. Every door was shut. Clericalism and the terror of the priest prevailed. So, after three days, during which he had searched in vain for a hall, Mr. Dodds went for a tour in the Hautes Alpes, leaving Mrs.

* On the 13th of August he wrote to me: “We have a request to open a branch-mission at Clermont-Ferrand, Puy de Dome. I may probably go there in September; holding some meetings and making it my holiday at the same time. It seems living is cheap, and the country lovely. Will you not all come and take your holiday there?”

t Writing from Clermont (on the very day of his arrival), Mr. Dodds says: “I am deep in Huguenot literature. What a martyrroll this country possesses. Scotland has nothing like it. You should get Dr. Baird’s ‘History of the Huguenots.’ He told me that it took him fourteen years’ continuous labour. It is a wonderfully full and accurate book. He was our treasurer in America.”

Dodds and her sister to prosecute the search. They had been told it would be in vain; but they were not to be turned from their purpose. This whole region, now given over to Rome, was once the seat of purest Protestantism, and had been watered with Huguenot blood, and the Puy de Dome, the guardian mountain of the city, had looked down on martyrdoms many and terrible. And shall no effort be made to relight the extinguished lamp? The attempt must be made in good earnest, and made in faith. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes scattered the followers of Christ in 1685, and covered this region with darkness. Let us revoke the revocation and bring back the light!

“But how were we even to find a place of meeting? From shop to shop we wandered, wherever a ticket a louer was to be seen, beginning ambitiously with the thoroughfares and large conspicuous fronts, ending with obscure alleys and low-roofed places where barely fifty people could turn about. Even that, we thought, would be better than nothing. But the shops that were available for others were not available for us. All sorts of excuses were given, generally that the meetings would cause noise, and disturb respectable tenants. Sometimes our hopes were raised by the owners taking a day to reflect, only to be dashed to the ground again: ‘They had consulted their neighbours, and found that it would produce a bad impression.’ It struck us again and again that the loersonal conscience was less Catholic than the collective. If it had not been for ’ the neighbours,’ and the fear of injuring their business, many would have dealt easily with their private scruples. We made

Sojourn at Clemnont-Ferrand, 291

some friends, nevertheless, in going about, and this served as a pretty good advertisement of the future meetings. One family especially, not themselves permitted to sub-let their shop to us, aided us in every way to search for another. The woman had received tracts in one of the exhibitions (not the last) in Paris, while a girl staying in their house had attended reunions at Les Ternes, and had told the rest what a good thing it would be. But still in vain. One seemed to grow dizzy with tramping those streets, narrow as Devonshire lanes, and always coming back to the same point. Once we saw thirty in one day. One man wished to let us his sunk storey, in order, he said, to raise his fellow-townsmen, who were a century behind the age. He himself was a hot republican, and there were 2000 besides himself of ‘advanced men’ in Clermont. Religion he had none; his ideal was to break the power of superstition, but he knew of nothing to put in its place. This was a discovery to us. Two thousand! In this stronghold of Popery! Two thousand who have broken from their old moorings, and are drifting out on the ocean of unbelief. It is high time then that something were done. For these men, and not the true Catholics, are often the first to come to hear the Gospel. They come from curiosity; they come because they vaguely connect the Gospel with liberty; they come because they are not yet Atheists, though they are on the very verge of becoming so. It is curious, however, that this very man in a day or two refused to let us have his room, on account of his mother’s ‘prejudices.

“By this time we had been told, by our friends the Protestant pastors, of the hall which we finally secured. It was doubly retired, being in a dull street, and entered by a passage and court. Our Parisian ideas made us doubt of success in such a place. Yet it was the only one that offered, and it was a large, good room; as it was it would contain 120 persons; by taking down a partition it could be made to contain 180. Still dubious of attracting numbers, and pressed for time, we decided, in an evil hour, to have, the partition.

“By this time we had spent a month in Clermont, and nine days only remained to us. Our hasty proceedings must have somewhat startled the kind old woman who owned the room. She had to move her things; she wished to consult her son-in-law. At last, however, all difficulties yielded, and on Thursday, the 6th of October, we could begin to arrange for a meeting on the 11th. White- washing had to be done, chairs and benches, platform and reading-desk, procured, lamps to be bou”-ht and hung, a harmonium borrowed, handbills and advertisements in local papers to be thought of. It was done, and the place looked bright and clean, by Tuesday afternoon, when we went to hang a few banner-texts, the leavings of our Paris halls. Will no friend send some good texts for Clermont ] We had arranged for three successive meetings to take place, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 11th, 12th 13th, so as to give the thing a fair launch. After that, Mr. Galland promised to come in each Wednesday to carry on the work, in which the pastors also are to help.

“After prayer together, we and Mr. Galland and Mr. Peladan went down that Tuesday evening to the hall, still wondering if peo]3le would dare to come. Instead of that, the room was packed. Some friends who came a few minutes after eight could not get in, and the crowd in the court was every moment increasing. Except for the Protestants, the crowd was mostly of men — many young ouvriers who had arrived ’ full galop ’ from their work, were only half-pleased to find the room already full. Many did not know the object of the meeting. ‘It is the reunion of the Eepublic,’ said one. ‘Whsit have they got to say to us? ’ said another. ‘If you would only be quiet, one might hear something.’ Some, perched on a ladder behind the door, heard the hymns at least well. ‘Wait a little,’ many said, ’ those inside will soon tire of it, and leave their seats for us.’ But they waited in vain, for no one moved from within the hall. There it was all silence and attention. The women among the audience were mostly recognised as Protestant friends; the rest were men. But with what strained curiosity they listened, and how they seemed to enjoy the hymns, beginning with ‘Par ce Chemin Solitaire.’ Our choir, certainly, was not famous, although we had attempted some practising among the people of the Eglise Libre.

“Mr. Dodds then opened with a striking passage from the Sermon on the Mount. The meeting had been announced as a ‘Reunion Morale.^ Here was Gospel morality! How it rang out in contrast to the low code current in the world, the only one many of these people knew; how it seemed to pierce to the joints and marrow, discerning the thought and intents of the heart! I never felt the grand grasp of those precepts as I did that night, listening, as it were, with the ears of these people who heard them perhaps for the first time.

‘” It is difficult in English to give the true sense of Reunion. Morale? Perhaps the best translation would be simply: * A meeting to teach men how to become better.’ Both Mr. Dodds and Mr. Galland explained the object of the meeting somewhat in this strain, appealing to the auditors whether there were not in society, aye, and in the heart of each, corruptions which urgently called for reform. And the only true reform was to be had by coming to this hooli, the Gospel, wherein God speaks to us of the evil and its cure. Mr. Peladan closed with a few kind words, and we thanked God for a success beyond all our expectations.

“Only one thing we regretted — that miserable partition! Could it be pulled down next day? Behind it our old landlady had her kitchen. We not only felt delicacy in disturbing her so abruptly, but remembered the dreadfully unwashed appearance those smoke-begrimed walls would present as a

294 Memoir of Rev. G. T, Dodeis,

background to our fresh whiteness! We waited one night more to see if the crowd were still as great, before deciding on its destruction.

“Next night, hall and court were again overcrowded, and we knew that it was not with a mw audience, for a number of rough voices, to our surprise, took up the chorus of ‘Hold the Fort,’ and altogether the singing was so lusty that we could hardly believe that only on the preceding evening had it been new to almost all. On announcing that any who wished might stay to practise after the meeting, the tears rose to our eyes to see the uncouth and grimy young workmen press forward and stand shouting as if they could never tire, until, about ten, we were forced to send them away. The spoken word may be forgotten — may, perhaps, be hardly understood by those dulled intellects, so different from our sharp Parisian auditors; but will not those melodies drive home to their hearts truths which will never leave them?

“The third night the partition was no longer! and the addition to the hall stood revealed, conspicuous by its blackness and its want of proper seats. These impediments did not in the least interfere with the content of the people in finding that they could get in and hear. The addresses this evening turned chiefly on the inability of man to fulfil God’s law, or even to satisfy his own ideal of right, without God’s help and Christ’s salvation. It was a solemn meeting, and we could not but think there was a response in many hearts. We stayed singing longer and later than ever that evening, and with great regret shook some of these horny hands for the last time. Next evening found us back in Paris.

“And how does the work go on? Was it, as some said, curiosity — the presence of strangers where strangers are not so common as in Paris — that brought the crowds?

“No; as it began, so it goes on. The overcrowding naturally has ceased, but only last week we heard that there were as many people as the enlarged room could hold. Mr. Galland, who passes his Wednesday afternoons at Clermont, finds friends “wherever he goes. A. lad salutes him cordially at the railway station. Mr. Galland replies kindly: ‘But how do you know me, my friend,’ *0h, I have heard you at the meeting often; I know you well.’ Mr. Galland has a happy knack of saying just the right word to everybody — kindly, familiar, almost jovial, as he showers tracts to right and left. Few indeed, will be likely to refuse tracts from livm.

“Within a month, a mother’s meeting has been begun by our friends Mme. and Mdlle. Guignard and Mme. Peladan; the numbers have varied from nine to twelve and fifteen. At the New Year the ladies propose beginning a Sunday school. We are happy to hear that the furor for cantiques has not diminished, as many as eighty frequently remaining after the meeting to practise. The young men particularly enjoy this.”

To this interesting account from the Quarterly Record, I add a private letter, which takes up some details not noticed in the above: —

“The first thing needed was to call for M. Peladan, the pasteur of the little Eglise Libre. His congregation is poor. He was given to despondency. He gave us every help he could, but always with prophecies that it could not succeed. But he did brighten a little before we left. The first day we saw a shop on the principal place, and made up our minds that it would exactly do. But the landlord was away. Mr. Dodds had to leave for a little, and when he came back he found that the salle had been refused. Then began a hunt, and in two days we saw about thirty; always some objection, — ’ it will produce bad effects; ’ and over and over again we were told that the thing would never succeed at Clermont, — the Jesuits had such power. Those who were not held back by their own scruples were afraid of their neighbours. We met kindness, how-

296 Memo 17’ of Rev. G. T. Dodds.

ever, from some people who would gladly have sublet their shop to us, but dared not for the landlord. They helped us in every way to find another. A son and another boy who stayed with them helped us to ransack every corner. At first they were sure of finding, then hope died out. It made one almost giddy to walk round and round these queer old streets so often, and always the same story at the end. Then we thought we would give up. Clermont would have to wait another year.

“The Wesleyan pastor at Thiers is a fine cheery fellow, afraid of nothing, and wishing nothing better than to find an opening in Clermont. His own church in Thiers goes on well, and he has a capitally attended reunion, although it is up two stairs in a dark passage. Forty years ago there was not a Protestant in Thiers. A man there told me that his father was the first converted there. Well, we left Mr, Galland at mid-day on Tuesday, the 4th, little thinking that he, would be coming to ws that day- week by the same train. Yet so it was.

“When we got back it just occurred to us to go and look at a room that had been mentioned to us, but which we feared was too out of the way. We found it in a very 6ZincZ-looking street, and within a court, so that no one could find it who was not seeking it. Still it was a nice room, had been used by the freemasons, and had some painted roses on the panels, — otherwise awfully dirty. A good part of it had been boarded off, and seemed the kitchen of the landlady, a kind old woman. Thai, we thought, we should not need, as the larger part would hold 120. She was willing to let us have it, though a little nervous because her son-in-law was away. However, it was settled; and the menuisier (joiner), pldtrier (plasterer), lampiste (lampmaker), &c., had to be sought for. Chaii-s seemed not much dearer than in Paris; but by putting benches all round the wall, and chairs in the middle, we managed. Then bills and notices had to be printed. There is a poor little dwarf

Sojourn at Clermont- Fe^iand. 297

who lias patiently sat for years in a kiosque Biblique with very small success; he was a great help in distributing the bills. Of course in such a place we could not expect to attract the passers-by, so the advertising was all done beforehand. I had managed to fish out a few people who could sing. ... I got an introduction to a family, and went on a Sabbath afternoon, exactly at the hour when they should have been coming home from church. I found them all, mother, daughter, two boys, father, and visitors, sitting enjoying music, — piano and violin. It did not look encouraging. Yet when I told them my errand they were perfectly delighted, and promised all to come and help. I believe many of the people have a desire for something good, but they stay away from church because they get nothing there. ... Do let us pray that these poor unfed Protestants may be the first to get something for themselves. They do need it.... Well, by Tuesday everything was right — white and clean, lamps, no gas; a few odd texts which had been scorned in Paris were all we could get hold of.... Will anybody do any more? It was rather exciting the first evening, for some said nobody would dare to come. Others said a great many would. The latter were right. The hall was packed, until no more could get in, and the disappointed people made a noise outside. Inside there was perfect quietness; few women, however, came except Protestants. I think the greater number came from curiosity. Those outside said different things; some ’ 0 td la conference de la Republiquey ’ some ‘On raconte la vie de Jesus.’ They waited about, sure that those inside would soon tire of it, and they would get their seats. But not one seat did they get in that way. Of course we sang a lot of the old hymns. Mr. Dodds read a bit of the Sermon on the Mount; and I never felt the words come with such power before. One felt how new they must sound to these ignorant people, so little accustomed to bring their actions into such hih light. He then told them about the

Mission, and its beginning in Paris. Mr. Galland told them why it was that a people had need of ’ la morale,^ and where the only true ’ morale ’ was to be found.... We had intimamated the meetings for three nights running. The next night it was just as full, and a good many must have been the same people; for when I struck up ‘Hold the Fort,’ behold they knew the tune! The third night the partition was down, and the old woman was banished from her kitchen, whose grimy blackness showed in awful contrast to the white-washed part. It was a painful necessity; but I suppose that long ere now that end is as white as the other. The salle now holds 160, at least. The last night, after the meeting was done, we had a long singing practice; and oh, the queer, sooty young fellows that stayed to it, and looked as if they would never tire! I feel these hymns will stay in their minds, and teach them the Gospel, when perhaps they have forgotten all that was said. They are so very ignorant. I never saw so many people who could not read; not only the old people, but boys and girls, never thinking of learning. We came away very much cheered.

“M. L. D.”

Meanwhile Mr. Dodds had been visiting the “High Alps,” and greatly enjoying the change. He wrote at considerable length to his friends at home regarding this tour. But only a part of these most interesting epistolary narratives can be here inserted. The first is to myself:

“Clermont-Ferrand, Put de D6me, France, ^Uh September, 1881.” I greatly enjoyed my tour among the French Vaudois; it was doubly pleasant to have M. Reveillaud with me. If

Visit to the H mites Alpes. 299

God spares liiiii he will do a great work in France yet; and lie is so clearly on the evangelical side — so hearty in his detestation of the slightest tendency to rationalism, so dissatisfied with anything short of conversion — that one may hope that his work will be very thorough. I heard him give a ‘Conference’ at Gap, the ‘Vapincum’ of the Romans. The meeting was held in a cafe; when we entered the people were sitting round tables drinking and smoking. We had a very difficult audience to deal with. Gap is clerical and indifi’erent, and both parties adverse to the Gospel. ‘Don’t say too much about Christ,’ said a municipal councillor to him on entering. But he did say a great deal about Christ, introducing the Gospel most skilfully every”where, and repeating the parable of the Prodigal Son; in fact, while the audience were listening to a bit of history or controversy, they found themselves all at once listening to the GospeL He speaks with great power and force, and sometimes serious invective when he addresses meetings of that kind. The conversations I have had with him convince me that the movement in France is far deeper than many think. He says the French are moutonnier (like sheep) as to character; they go in bands, and each one is afraid to move alone; and no wonder, considering how they have been governed and trained and taught; but if there was a general movement towards Protestantism, the results of sowing the seed would appear.

“We visited Dormilhouse, 1800 metres above the sea, highpitched, for it is more like a camp than a village, on a shelving miniature valley surrounded with mountains unspeakably barren and rude, exposed to constant avalanches in winter — a winter of eight or nine months, during which they live in the stables, eating their food by rations, huddled together with sheep and oxen to get heat, and coming out in the spring-time pale and thin — the sheep sometimes flying as many as a quarter of the whole number, because of the sudden change from

Meinoir of Rev. G, T. Dodds.

starvation and confinement to plenty, and freedom, and ligld. I brought home some pieces of the fain de seigle (rye-bread), the hard bread which is generally made once a-year, sometimes every six months. In every house, after you stoop to enter the door, and when your eyes get accustomed to the dingy, black-smoked walls, and cloudy atmosphere, one notices a thick board with a hollow in it, and a large knife attached at the end of the blade to a hook at the head of the hollow. The hard bread is placed beneath that knife, and cut with lever power. They have eggs, and marmotte, and chamois, and milk, but they are very poor. Every imaginable bit of arable land is cultivated (their plough is most primitive; a woman and ass used to be seen not so long ago drawing it), and protected by stone walls, to support the earth, which would be easily swept away by the rain. Some of these pieces of land are so small that a cow could not turn round in them; they are divided and subdivided by father and son as they leave their heritage to their children. I saw a tree — a large plane tree — of which the wood for burning belonged to three proprietors! The people, I think, import their hats and buttons, the former only sometimes; they manufacture everything else; a sort of linen from a flaxy plant called ‘Chanfrt,’ coats, &c. from the wool of their sheep, and they make their own boots very well indeed. Such is their life; but they are a hardy, intelligent, religious race; Lombards, not Gauls; Goths by descent, and still retaining their ancestors’ character so well as to be unmistakably different from the inhabitants of the same valley lower down, with whom they very often intermarry. We spoke to a good many of them, and were struck with their intelligence. On saying ‘Good-bye’ they all invariably said ‘Dieu vous conduit,’ or ‘Que Dieu vous guide.’ The church they have was once a Roman Catholic one; the font for holy water is still there; but a pulpit replaces the altar, and a large Bible the mass-book. It and

Visit to the Ha2ttes Alpes. 301

the priest’s house are no-w in the hands of the Protestants, for there is not a Roman Catholic in the village. We went into the church — M. Brunei the pastor, the schoolmaster, M. Reveillaucl, and myself — and sang ‘Grand Dieu nous te benissons,’ and Luther’s ‘C’est un rempart que notre Dieu.’ I sketched Felix Neff’s house, or one of his houses, for his was an immense parish. We had dejeuner in the cure’s house, having brought up bread and wine with us. We bought twenty-six eggs from the people and made an omelette; I calculated that I had eaten nine eggs, besides bread — the mountain air had sharpened our appetites. It was a most beautiful day; a sky of the blue called ‘Le roi d’or’ by the French, an Italian blue of intense depth, and airy light, the sharp toothed edges of the peaks fretting it with wonderful distinctness and delicacy. Why do ladies say that green and blue should never go together? I never saw anything more lovely than this deep Italian blue, as it appeared behind and through the green of the trees. We could not have had a finer day. The mountains were covered with numberless scented aromatic and medicinal plants, which perfumed the air as we trod on them; and our path was alive with fleet green and grey lizards, and grasshoppers which wore wings of all colours, some two inches long, and able to take immense leaps, as well as to sing at such a high octave that we had music all the way. We bought a marmotte, which had been shot, from one of the natives on the way home, and ate it next day; it was like a hare, and very good. They get very fat in autumn, and sleep all winter. I saw several eagles flying along the crests of the mountains; it seems they are very abundant there. We had a meeting that evening at Pallons, where we were staying with Pastor Brunei. It was something to speak to the very descendants of the men who, few in number, on the road to Dormilhouse, had guarded the path and defeated their persecutors and would-be assassins by hurling down heavy masses of rock on them, their only weapons being a hammer and iron rod. We also visited a Vaudois cam or grotto — caves almost within caves, and their burying-ground, situated in a most inaccessible position. The rest of our tour was through the rest of the valleys; some are wide and fertile, others grey and bare, and shut in with high, frowning rocks, with a roaring mountain-torrent, all the way below the road on which we drove, sometimes cut out of the solid rock. One of these passes — owe, for many claim to be the pass — is said to have been Hannibal’s. We crossed over to Italy from Abries and by the Col de la Croix, and, after spending the night in the Albergo delli Alpi and hearing Piedmontese patois, we descended by Bobi to La Tour, where we spent Sunday, mostly with the Appias, who had met us at the Albergo. One of the sons read to us a MS. of his father on the Vaudois of Fenestral, a neighbouring valley where there are no Protestants now, the victory of Rome being visible to-day in that the peasants wear a golden cross. We went on Monday to Turin, saw M. Meille, and returned l)y Oulx (the Ocelum of Csesar) and Brianon in the diligence to Gap, and from thence to Clermont.”

The next is to his parents: —

“Clermont, 21th September, 1881. “I arrived here last Thursday morning, travelling almost straight from Turin; that city we left on Tuesday morning at five o’clock; it was still dark when R. and I got into the carriage, and were wheeled away to Oulx, which is on the road to Modena. At Oulx we got out, and went straight on to the diligence for Briangon. We were still on Italian ground, and enjoyed the Alpine scenery, more rich and fertile than the passes on the French side. We were rather hungry, having had nothing on leaving Turin, but the mountain air was invigorating, and a dreaded headache was wafted away. Soon we got

Visit to the Halites Alpes, 303

to Cesanne, and there we landed in rather a dirty albergo, but in these Alpine quarters eggs and bread and wine are very good fare. Then we got on to the diligence again, on the top this time, having been almost stifled in the coupe, but if stifled with dust in that coupe, we were painfully cramped up on the front of the diligence; the top is covered over with an immense hCich, a covering of waterproof; beneath are stowed human beings and luggage, and the three favoured front seats are immediately below the ending of this elegant awning; there we sat twisting our necks, and trying to admire the scenery, perched as it were in the front of a bonnet, and on the brow of the coach. We had picked up a pastor, and made his acquaintance, or rather he had made ours — taken M. R. and myself for professors, but changing his mind when he saw a New Testament in my hand! He was a brother-in-law of young Baridon, near Dormilhouse, the name of a well-known family in that valley, Vaudois to the back-bone, and right stalwart Protestants, not to say decided Christians. So we fraternised with him, and left him only at Briangon. Briancon is very strongly fortified, is indeed the first fort for strength in the ’ valleys; it was strange to find oneself rumbling over two drawbridges, and up a very narrow drive, through an equally narrow, very strong, solid-looking gate, and into the streets of the ancient city, where there is hardly room for two waggons to pass each other. There are very few Protestants in the city, but a teacher is there, and the few families are visited from time to time by an evangelist.

“One sign of the persecutions struck me both painfully and powerfully; in the Italian and French valleys on both sides of the boundary chain of Alps the women wore a cross round their necks; in the valley of Fenestrelle and Agrogna these crucifixes are of pure gold; it is a distinguishing mark of Catholics, handed down from the awful killing time when the vilest men tortured and killed their victims, mostly women and children, in the vilest manner. The people are dull and ignorant; the natural results of Romanism.”

The next is to his brother, looking with a botanical

eye on these Alpine regions: —

“Clermont-Ferrand,

28i/t September, 1881.

“I should have sent the accompanying packets of ferns before this. I thought that your love for these plants was anything but dead, and so I could not resist gathering them during my Alpine journey. I found the Asplenium Germanicum, as you know, a very rare plant, but it was out of reach in the edge of a steep rock. I knocked out some fronds with my umbrella. Had M. Reveillaud not gone on before I should have asked him to let me stand on his shoulders! The Asplenium fontanum was in abundance; I found the specimens at Pallons, near Dormilhouse, the A. septentrionale as we descended the valley from the Col de la Croix to La Tour, the holly in the same place; the ceterach at Pallons; the large plant, however, which I send, was found yesterday; it seems pretty well distributed, though not common, about the Alpine districts.

“I enjoyed my tour amazingly, having reason to do so, both from the country itself, and having such a companion. We addressed meetings here and there, but not many; the most interesting after St. Laurentz was at Pallons, where we had the descendants of the Vaudois to listen to us, — such splendid men in every way. Not handsome, certainly, but with a physique that one might envy, — splendid chamois-hunters; they can climb on the steep rocks like goats. We picked up friends everywhere, and where we least expected; sometimes people speculated who we might be, and we who they were, and in the end imparted our experiences to each other, which were a little amusing. The Vaudois Church seems to be verv

Visit to the Hautes Alpes. 305

prosperous. We arrived at La Tour just after their synodey the valley is very fruitful, j)eaclies and grapes in great abundance, but the Italian Government should be ashamed of its roads. We attended a Sunday school at La Tour, very large and very well conducted. R and I spoke to the children, who understand French, Italian, and Piedmontese, which is a midway dialect; there is yet a patois spoken in the villages and up the valley, even to the French Alps. The service at La Tour was in French. We stopped a few minutes at Bobi, on the way to La Tour, and saw the pastor; he showed us his church, and its steeple standing apart from it on a rock behind the church; the Vaudois were forbidden to build their steeple above a certain height, but as this would never have been seen in the valley, the church hiding it, they built it on a rock, thus evading the law, while keeping the steeple the appointed height. It was also forbidden to pastors to sleep anywhere beyond a certain radius. One pastor detained beyond the limit spent the night on a chair, this not being a bed, thus evading the law! They have complete liberty now; indeed since 1848 they have had most of these restrictions taken away, and seem to have influence everywhere, the king being very fond of his Vaudois.

“I must close, as I am leaving for St. Etienne. I am afraid we are not going to get a salle at Clermont at present because of clericalism and indifferentism.”

He visited several places in the neighbourhood of Clermont, among others a village called Bechon, and held a meeting at one o’clock in a low-roofed, earthenfloored, miserable room, half workshop and half house. The people flocked in, sitting on boards, on wine-tubs, — children squatting on the floor, with their little hands joined together before them. Mr. Dodds addressed them on, “Follow the Lamb,” “suiver I’agneau,”

I add only one letter more concerning these interesting villages and towns of Auvergne, dated 5th October, 1881 : —

“I have just been visiting St. Etienne and Thiers. St. E. is very unlike a French town, and very like an English or Scotch manufacturing or mining town. There are great coal mines, which are only being opened up now, and the place has sprung up and become a considerable town from being only a village, in a very short time. We have three stations there, and it is about the finest field for mission work I ever saw. It was quite a sight to see the rows of grimy, blackhaired and black-visaged workmen sitting listening eagerly to the Gospel, and sometimes expressing openly their satisfaction. They did not receive the meetings very cordially everywhere, and in one salle I saw a tendency to disturb us; but that very soon goes down. The children’s meetings were the quietest of the kind I have seen, except in one or two of our salles at Paris. ... I spent from Saturday to Tuesday morning at Thiers, an hour and a-half s rail from this.

“Thiers is a most picturesque French town, lying scattered all along the steep sides of the valley of the Durole, wdth the rushing river of that name driving, in its passage through a narrow channel, many mills, almost all of them for making knives. The whole town seems to be a coutelkrie, though there are one or two xaper mills for Bank-note paper.... On Sunday I preached in the morning, and in the evening went to M. Galland’s meeting, through such narrow streets, very old, and with exquisite pieces of carving above the doors and imder the archways! There were above eighty people, mostly Catholics, gathered together in a very stuffy, low-Visit to the Hatites Alpes. 307

roofed room in a third storey. Those, therefore, who come must be very determined to hear the Gospel, for they have to climb lip two very steep staircases. I spoke to them of the ‘Chemin qui mene aiix cieux,’’ showing them that it was neither by suffering (for then animals would have the same right), nor by good works, nor by letting things just go on, but by Christ’s merits that we are saved.

“On Monday Mary arrived from Clermont at half-past seven o’clock in the morning, and we went out to hold a meeting at mid-day in a village a few months ago wholly Catholic; the priests are, however, in bad odour there. M. Galland got there by means of a colporteur, who told them he would bring a good Republican to see them, and so bit by bit M. Galland worked his way in, and when I went out I found a people most willing to hear the Gospel. It was a very strange sight. We had only one or two chairs; the people stood, some of them all over the room and in the place where the fire should have been lighted, the chimney was so high and broad; some sat on the wine-tubs used for the vintage; some were poking their heads in at the door; and children were promiscuously scattered about, two little creatures squatting on the earthen floor and clasping their hands, quite a picture to look at. I spoke to them, and then we sung and had a prayer, and thereafter there was a scramble for tracts.

“We drove home quickly, for I had to give a lecture on America in the evening, which was well attended. The adjoint of the mayor was there, who came up to felicitate me on what he called the Parisianisin of my French. I got into a talk with him, for the poor man said in answer to my question, ‘Yes, I am adjoint,’ and alas! ‘incredule’ also. He was a Deist, and his religion, ‘Do to others as you would be done by.’ I asked him if he had ever tried to preach that to his neighbours. He said ‘No; ’ and I told him that only showed the sterility of his faith; that there never had existed a nation or even a tribe of Deists, and that Christianihj was the true missionary religion. His almost last words to me were, * I am disgusted with life.’

“Poor man, he knew well French literature, but Christ was only greater in degree than Mirabeau or Pascal; and yet this is the natural result of the teaching of the Church of Kome. I have got a salle: it costs 160 francs {£Q) a-year! It was a Freemasons’ Hall recently. I never have met with such obstacles anywhere as here. Clericalism and indifference and fear, even when the priests are hated. However, I hope to manage to hold three meetings before I leave, Friday 14th.”

On the 14th of October he returned from Clermont to Paris to begin his winter’s work. He had greatly enjoyed his stay in Auvergne, and his visits to the different places in that province. His work at Clermont prospered much during his short sojourn there, and it is still carried on. A fire has been kindled which is not likely to go out. But it needs constant fanning, as well as fuel, and the men to do this are not easily found. The ground has been broken up; but the sowing, the watering, and the “giving of the increase,” are what we now anxiously look for. Some Oberlin, some Felix Neff, some man of zeal and endurance, fearless and full of faith: this is what the country of the Huguenots needs. It has all the materials for a noble and successful mission.