Fragments of History, New and Old

THE Italian Government has thrown a new bridge across the Tiber the other day, under the very eye of the Pope, but without asking his leave. The like has not been done for a thousand years and more. The Pontifex Maximus has evidently lost his hold of the old river, as well as of the old city. The king opened the bridge in March last, and no Pope was there; nor bishop, nor cardinal, nor priest. It is the first of five which are to be built; the Pontifex looking down on them helplessly from the Vatican, and nobody asking how he looks or what he says.

The French Government has done something even better and more daring than this. It has authorised the opening of twenty-three places of evangelical service in Paris, without asking permission of Pope or bishop. And no judgment has fallen on the Republic for so doing. Religious liberty is not fully legalised yet in France; but it makes progress. To a large extent the Word of the Lord has free course and is glorified. Paris is certainly listening to the Gospel; no man forbidding, and not a few rejoicing. The priesthood has done its best to identify Protestantism with atheism and communism, but things are understood now better than they were; and the French Government has at last learned that Protestantism is the friend of order and peace and Even the police of Paris have had this truth forced upon them by the events of the last eight years. They are not likely to forget the

* “I have several times heard the fear expressed that the hostility to Roman Catholicism and her ministers, so manifest among the masses, may, after attacking superstition, direct itself against Christianity itself and against vital religion. I will not say that, to some extent, this fear is not justified. Yes, it is unhappily only too true, with many fanatical or unenlightened persons, that the hatred which they have conceived against Komanism, imagining it to represent Christianity, has thrown them into complete scepticism, and led them to cast off all forms of religion. It is, however, a remarkable fact that Romish priests, whatever aversion they have Inspired towards themselves and the religion they profess, have not succeeded, if we may so express it, in rendering Christ and His Gospel unpopular, even among the class to which we have just referred. The people dimly realise that these priests are the unfaithful depositaries of a sacred trust. The greatest adversaries of the clergy in our country districts quote, rightly or wrongly, what they know of the Gospel (very little, alas!) in order to condemn their priests by its judgments. These same persons never mention the name of Christ without respect, and one could hardly call them ungodly.” — M. RiiVEiLLAUD, in The Catholic Presbyterian.

lesson taught them by the quiet of Belleville, since evangelical truth found its way into that fierce faubourg, and its poor denizens began to read their Bibles and sing of the love of Christ.

Many of the imprisoned or exiled communists may now be coming back to their homes, in consequence of the late amnesty granted by Government. They were men, like ourselves, though misguided, and exasperated to deeds of violence. Their return to their wives and children and neighbours is an event not to be lost sight of; and they are doubtless wiser men than when they fired the Tuileries and shot the priests. But what will they find on their return? Not the same Belleville at all. Instead of the priest, the pastor; and instead of the inflammatory, seditious placard, the “conference” bills announcing that some English friends have come to speak to them of the love of Christ.

What does all this mean? Can they believe their own eyes? Is this the faubourg of the Commune? Are these the streets, once smelling with petroleum, and red with blood, and resounding with the cry of massacre? There is a change. And the people too are changed. They are quiet and orderly. No revolutionary shouts are heard. It is still “liberty, equality, and fraternity” that they speak of; but it is not the same kind of liberty and equality and fraternity. How are they to

understand all this? And what can have wrought

the change? It cannot be the Church that has

done this; for the priests are not to be seen, and

Protestant pastors from England walk up and down

the steep streets, and are recognised by their old

comrades as friends.

Here is a liberated communist entering his own

house. Wife and children are still there; but there

are strange books and tracts lying about, — Bibles and

gospels and hymnals. He sits down. The children

gather round him and begin to sing. It is not the

Marseillaise, nor any such song of wild liberty. It is

something softer, sweeter, and, till this hour, unheard

by him, —

“0 merveilleuse histoire

De Christ, mon Eedemptenr,
Qui, du.haut de sa gloire.
Descend pour moi pecheur!”

What is this “history,” and who is this ‘’ Redeemer,” and what does a ‘’ sinner” mean? The words, the tune, the young voices that sing, are irresistible. The listener never heard such news before. Are they true? And has he, a poor communist, just come from banishment or out of prison, anything to do with such love as this?

Or perhaps the little ones, still gathered round their strange-looking father, or brother, and gazing up into his face, begin, —

“Reviens, reviens,
Enfant, parmi les tiens!
Tu cheniines dans Tombre,
Et ta route est bien sombre;
O paiiTe enfant perdu
ReT.ens, oh, reviens, reviens!”

He comes under a new influence, as he listens and learns. The words fall on him like a spell, which he feels, but cannot explain. He does not yet comprehend the wondrous truths; but he yields to the power of the scene and the song: they calm and they please. He must learn more about this story of sin and love, human sin and Divine love, that has so changed Belleville. The punishment through which he has passed has only hardened and soured him; but these hymns now sounding through his old dwelling, they win him from all thoughts of revenge, and make his heart soft as a child’s. Again the little voices begin; and he listens, —

“0 bonlieur, 6 grace;

Voici le Sauveur!
II souffre a la place

Du pauvre pecheur.
Chantons sa victoire,

]&levons la voix;
Celebrons la gloire

De sa sainte croix.”

The “cross! “He sees no cross in their hands, or hanging round their necks, or placed against the walls of his house. Yet they sing of the cross. What cross? Not the old” crucifix,” which the priests blessed, which the women kissed, which the dying hugged, and the children knelt before. There is not a crucifix in the house. What “cross “do they mean when they sing of the ‘’ glory of the holy cross “? He has all this yet to learn.

Shall we sing you just another “cantique,” father? Yes, as many as you like. I could listen all the day long.

“Viens, ame qui pleures

Viens a ton Sauveur;
Dans les tristes lieures

Dis-lui ta doiileur,
Dis tout bas ta plainte

Au Seigneur Jesus,
Parle-lui sans crainte

Et ne pleure plus,”

Sorrow and tears! Yes; communist as he is, he is a man with a human heart, and he has known these. In his dark cell he has wept warm tears; and now, as soon as he returns to his dwelling he hears a voice, as from heaven, telling him what to do with these, — take them to Jesus.

He had heard nothing of all this in prison; he had seen nothing of Belleville since he was led off in chains, eight years ago, to be tried for treason or for murder; he is released from his fetters; he comes back to his old haunts; the streets and houses are the same; but somehow there is a wondrous difference everywhere. Is he to come under the new influence, or to be just what he was?

He has a history to learn, a blank to fill up in his memory; and he begins to question others as to how all this came about, and to ask himself if it is no prison-dream, — one of the many which so often cheated him in his chains?

When he went to prison he believed nothing; and he knew that the greater part of his fellow-citizens had, like himself, no creed. No God, no Christ, no Bible, no life beyond death, — were the four articles which he would have subscribed, if he would affix his name to anything in the shape of faith or no faith. He finds matters changed.

Death an eternal sleep, and religion an imposture of the priesthood he would subscribe to. For more than a century these had been the watchwords of France, or at least of Paris; and he is surprised to find them not so popular as they used to be. He had despised the Church, not merely as a delusion and an oppression; but because its officials, high and low, made their livelihood by professing a belief which they had not, and ministering at an altar at which in secret they mocked. He had hated the priests because they had been feasting when the citizens were starving; drinking the finest wines when the thousands about them had only the water of the puddle or the sewer to drink. He finds now springing up among his old comrades a religion in which there is no insincerity, nor self-pampering. The old religion, he thought, was crushed, when the priests were shot at Haxo, and the archbishop in his dungeon. But here is a new religion beginning to supplant it; and what is more remarkable, — here is faith venturing to raise its head, — faith which the goddess of reason had long since destroyed.

And the faith which he finds is evidently real. It may be fanaticism, but it is not superstition; it may be foolishness, but it is not hypocrisy. The men who say they believe arc simple and earnest. They make no gain by their creed, and they do not lord it over others, but are gentle and loving. They speak to one another of that which no priest nor bishop ever spoke, — the love of Christ, and the free pardon of sin. Their pastors, too, are affable and kind, taking no money from the flock, but gladly giving, and helping, and comforting. Their churches, too, are not cathedrals, gaudy with tinselled splendour, and ministered in by men dressed in the cast-off clothes of Pagan Rome; but simple rooms, enlarged by the removal of partitions; — at the best, halls, of moderate size; with no stained windows, nor marble statues, nor gilded rails, nor fretted roof, nor oaken stalls, nor groined arches, nor massive pillars, nor mosaic floors; — most of them old shops whitewashed and brushed up for the occasion; — which, in the simplicity of their furniture speak of the simplicity of the worship, and, in the bold calico placards with their bright texts all over the clean walls, make known beyond mistake the creed here taught, — the sin of man and the grace of God: — death through sin, and life through the Sinbearer, the Son of God.-^’^

The priesthood is still in existence; but it is in abeyance, — the priests are nowhere, the pastor is everywhere. Yet the word ‘’Protestantism” is never heard; — can this be Protestantism? What does “the Gospel” mean? What does “evangelical” mean? What are these ‘’ reunions,’’ these “conferences,”

* Some have been heard condemning such room-gatherings or shop-meetings as dishonouring to religion. With them the “dim religious light” and the “long-drawn aisle” is everything, and these bright rooms with their white walls and outshining texts are not only poor but discreditable. These complaints are not new, either in France or in England. In the life of the famous William Grimshaw we are told that when that zealous clergyman began his cottage meetings, he was denounced by the neighbouring clergy as doing that which was” a dishonour to God and tending to bring religion into contempt “{Life, p. 53). which the Government so pleasantly recognise, and countenance without limit? No angry men mount the platform to stir up the passions of the people, by reminding them of their poverty and bondage, of the inequality of ranks, and the arrogance of the rich. The speaker does not declaim against priests, or masses, or processions, or fetes. He preaches what he calls “good news;” and these good news seem somehow most wonderfully to melt and yet to calm the audience; they are all about a love of which he had never heard before, of which no priest had ever spoken; and about a joy which he had not even so much as imagined could exist in connection with religion at all. He hears the words “free pardon,” — what does that mean? He hears of the “deliverance of the captive,” — what does that mean? And as he listens to the simple prayers, he says, Surely this man does believe in a God, and has a Father in heaven, to whom he speaks, and who speaks to him. And that Book from which he reads, and which he calls the Word of God, — how simple, how loving, yet how searching are all its utterances! He will inquire into these things which so many of his old companions have adopted. What if they are all true? Perhaps there is a God, and a Christ, and a Bible, and a state of endless joy or sorrow.

He goes up to one of these evangelists or pastors and asks if lie really believes all he preaches?

‘’ I do,” says the earnest man.

“You seem to do so certainly, but as the priests do not believe what they say, I thought you might be only assuming the earnestness which you show.”

“I believe every word that I have spoken.”

“And is all that you have said really true?”

“I am assured that it is; for I have read it from the Book of Him who cannot lie.”

“You are aware that the priests do not believe?”

‘’ I am; but what difference does that make to you or me?”

‘’ None; only I thought you did not know
this.”

“I know it too well. A friend of mine called for a church-dignitary whom he knew, and some such conversation as the following took place: —

“‘Now that we are alone,’ said the man of office, ’ let us speak freely. Forget that you are a pastor, and I’ll forget that I am a priest.’

‘’’What then?’

“‘Oh! you know I believe nothing, and you believe nothing; we preach only to deceive the people.’

“‘Pardon me; it is not so: I believe from the heart all I say; do you really not? ‘” ‘I am ashamed of myself, said the prelate sadly, and with downcast face.

‘’ So you see, my good friend,” resumed the pastor to the communist, ‘’ I know the priesthood well. But their unbelief does not shake my faith. I do believe the glad tidings that I preach; and in believing them I have been made inexpressibly happy; and I want you to be the same.”

Thus the poor communist is made somewhat to understand that during these years of his imprisonment or exile strange things have been doing and strange words spoken in Paris. The elements of storm have almost disappeared. It would not be easy to get up a revolution in Belleville now; and besides, if all that he sees and hears is true, there is no need of one. These pastors with their new doctrines are doing what barricades and petroleum could not effect. They are changing the face of society; producing liberty; and bringing all classes of the community together as brethren. There is a battle still; but it is not the old one between unbelief and credulity, — that is, between atheism and Rome; it is between unbelief and faith; — the new faith, if it is to be called so, the faith which has a great deal to say for itself, even to a communist.

And then there is this Bible which everybody is reading. How has it come to supplant Voltaire, and to take such hold of men’s minds? Where did it come from, and how has it penetrated into the homes of Belleville, so that even the children read it, and grey-headed infidels are not ashamed to listen?

And the police, — how is it that they are so civil at all these meetings, — coming not as spies, but as friends and protectors? In former days every gathering was either altogether prohibited or closely watched, and all names taken down and reported to Government. Ask them, and they will tell you how this new religion has lightened their work, and quieted one district after another; they will tell you how their superiors are interested in all that is going on, and every functionary of Government sustains them in their protection of these new pastors. They will tell you that twice over has the chief pastor received public thanks for his labours; and two medals of honour from two of the great public societies of the city,”’

*” I should not do justice to this subject were I not to speak of the disposition shown by those now in power. The Ministry, as you know, is almost half Protestant numericallj’-, and more than half in spirit and in politics. You know, also, what a careful distinction the leader of the Republican party, M. Gambetta, made between the different Churches in his speech at Romans, when putting the question of the agreement existing between the Churches and the State. The prefects, too, are inspired with this liberal spirit, and although liberty for religious meetings is not yet written in our laws, they make no difficulty in granting the necessary authorisations for meet-How has all this come to pass? he asks in amazement. He is not long in getting an answer. He learns that a stranger came to Paris from England some years since; spoke lovingly to the people, and won their hearts; put into their hands books which he called gospels; opened halls of instruction, and taught both young and old to sing those hymns to which he has been listening.

It is of this stranger and his work that I have undertaken to write; and he who reads what follows will see how closely these introductory remarks bear upon my narrative.

In August, 1871, Mr. M’All visited Paris; in January, 1872, he commenced his first meeting in Belleville; and now, in 1879, he has twenty-three stations in Paris, and four in Lyons. The work has prospered beyond all thought; and the sphere has been widening year after year.

ings and lectures. At the time that my pamphlet (“La Question Religieuse “) was condemned in Rome, it obtained from the Minister of the Interior the colportage stamp — that is to say, authority to be freely distributed by booksellers and colporteurs. In a word, Protestantism has never found a more favourable opportunity for propagandism. With such liberty for going about, speaking, circulating Bibles and controversial pamphlets, united to the living faith which animated them, what would not the reformers of the sixteenth century have accomplished! And what shall not we, their unworthy descendants, accomplish, if we raise again the old standard and hold by the glorious traditions of their zeal and activity I” - M. Reveillaud, in TJie Catholic Presbyterian.

His first visit was for recreation, his second was the inauguration of earnest work. He did not know, when he went to refresh himself after the fatigues of pastoral duty in England, that it was to receive a call to labour in France that he had gone. While he was purposing one thing, God was preparing another. Hadleigh with its 4000 inhabitants was to be exchanged for Paris with its two millions; and the four days’ sojourn in the French capital, as a passing traveller, was to be the providential link in the accomplishment of this exchange.

It is on our journeys that God so often meets us, and gives ns new directions, or entrusts us unexpectedly with a new commission: deranging all former plans, and sending us on an errand, perhaps the very last that we could have expected to be sent upon. Of many others besides Paul it may be told how they had seen the Lord in the way, and that He had spoken to them (Acts ix. 7). Of the peculiar turns and changes in a good man’s life, this is the only true account that can be given, — ‘’ Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him” (Gen. xxxii. 1).

Out of such a ‘’ seeing “and such a” meeting “the present work arose. The things in it called by us ‘’ accidents” were parts of God’s purpose of favour to a city where Atheism and Romanism had hitherto held unquestioned sway; where crime and lust and ungodliness overflowed in every faubourg and street.

Paris was about the unlikeliest place for such a mission, and the last town in Europe for which blessing might have been expected. Moralists regarded it as the focus, or rather arsenal, of wickedness and desperate outrage. Statesmen spoke of it as the crater of a great volcano. Apocalyptic interpreters pointed it out as the likeliest scene of the vials of Divine vengeance. Christian men mourned over it as hopeless and inaccessible to the Gospel, — wholly given to pleasure and frivolity.

To appreciate the enterprise, one must remember the nature of the field entered on. The enormous obstructions can only be properly understood by those who have lived in, and known the city, or studied the histories of the French Revolution, in which the state of the people, — moral, social, and political, — is described, as a sort of necessary introduction to the story of the revolution-crimes. The first three books of Carlyle’s History may be most instructively read in connection with, — I had almost said as a preface to, — the story of the M’AU Mission; and any one who has dipped into that strange romance, “The Mysteries of Paris,” by Eugene Sue, will not wonder that we should speak of that metropolis as the most hopeless and inaccessible of all mission-fields. A chapter of any of the above works, placed side by side with one of Mr. M’All’s reports, will give a reader some idea of how much faith and Christian bravery were required, to attempt or even to project such an enterprise.

But the truth is, in all great works God never leaves it with man to project the scheme, or to forecast the issues. He leads the chosen man to the entrance; and without telling him whether the work is great or little, easy or arduous, He says, — “There is thy work, do it: form no ambitious plans, nor get up some great organisations, but do the work before thee, asking no questions. The rest will follow: the work is mine, not thine; be not careful about the means or the issue.”

The hopelessness of religious work in Paris was the sad but settled conviction of some of our most devoted Christian men: of those especially who knew it best and remembered its past history. It was the city which had quenched the Reformation with blood in the days of Calvin. It was the centre of the St. Bartholomew massacre, and of the revolution which at the close of last century horrified Europe with its atrocities. It was the city of the Guises and the Bourbons, the city of Robespierre and Danton, the city which of all others seemed most to have fought against God, — against Christ and His Gospel. No wonder that men despaired of it. Can any good thing come out of Paris? Can any good thing get into it?

Yet in the annals of that Capital there are many scenes of brightness, and names of holy zeal. It was the city of Margaret of Navarre, sister of Francis I., and friend of Calvin; of her who for so long shielded the Reformation and held fellowship with the Reformers, and who, when wearied with Paris, St. Germaine, and Fontainebleau, thus wrote: —

“Adieu! pomps, vanities, adieu,
No longer commune I with you.
Other pleasures seek I none
But my Bridegroom’s love alone;
Honour, riches, all my store
Is in Jesus evermore.
For the fleeting and the vain
Shall I give the eternal gain?
Adieu! Adieu!”

It was the city, too, of the noble Berquin, in whom the Protestants had hoped to see the Reformer of France, who was hurried to the burning pile lest the king should revoke the sentence; of Joubert, the martyr; of Marot, the sweet singer; and Toussain, the young prebendary of Metz; and Nicholas Doullon, who was burnt alive in front of Notre Dame, refusing to “apologise to the Virgin” for not giving her

Fragmejits of History New mid Old. 19

divine honours; and De la Tour, who, being charged with having sowed Lutheran errors not only in Paris, but in Edinburgh, where he had been with the Duke of Albany, was burnt at the pig-market; and the poor nameless Christaudin of Meaux, who suffered on the Greve of Paris; and the peasant of Rieux, Denis by name, who, after the efforts of his torturers to make him deny his Lord had proved vain, was condemned to the hurdle, the stake, the flame; and Stephen Renier, the cordelier, who died confessing Christ in the fire; and Jonas, the learned schoolmaster of Annonay, who, with twenty-five fellow-witnesses, was sent to starve in prison by the Archbishop of Vienne. It was the city of the high-born Coligny, whose grey hairs could not save him from the poniard of Besme and the kicks of Guise; of Cond, and Rouillard, andTeligny, and of a host of brave, pious, learned men, some of whom were spared, but most of whom perished by the sword of assassins, instigated to their desperate work of murder by the princes of the realm, and by the bishops and priests of Rome.

These are some specimens of French martyrdom which, amid much that is unhopeful, bid us hope for the land where Christ had witnesses of old, so many, so bold, so true.

I had thought of giving some further examples of the “noble army of martyrs” in France, to interest and to cheer the Christian friends connected with the present Mission; but this would lead me too far aside from my main purpose. I have written enough to show what a storehouse of noble names and noble deeds the religious history of that land contains.

There is another portion of church history which I should much have liked to take up in connection with our .present hopes and fears for France. I mean the relation in which it stood with reference to other countries at the time of the Reformation. A reader of French history is greatly struck with this, and wonders as he sees what a centre Paris was at that time for the preachers of the truth, and what a helping hand oftentimes France held out to the persecuted of other countries, even in the midst of her own sufferings. “God is not unrighteous to forget her work and labour of love, in that she ministered to the saints,” and received those who were cast out by the hostile Romanism of Europe.

Not only Germany, Bohemia, and Switzerland; but Spain, Italy, and England received help from her, and were by her helped in return.

Let me give a specimen of what I mean, in a page or two, which I would call “A Scottish Chapter of Old French History.” It will interest, I think, the friends of the ‘’ M’All Mission,” especially when they remember that the head of that mission is himself a Scot by descent.

Scotland and France were at one time special friends. Nor was it the Reformation that broke the relationship, but the brutal violence of the Guises and the subserviency of Mary Queen of Scots to their plots for the overthrow of Scottish liberty.

Even the bloodshed of St. Bartholomew’s day did not wholly detach Protestant Scotland from her ancient ally; for long afterwards we find the intercourse between the two countries maintained: and the Presbyterian ministers of the North, banished by James VI. from their native land, took refuge in France, and preached the Gospel there.

One notable instance of this I select, as showing not only the intimacy between the two nations, but the religious bond between French and Scottish Protestantism.

John Welsh, minister of Ayr, with five companions, fled to France to escape the anger of the Scottish king. On the 7th of November, 1606, early in the morning, they set sail from Leith, on the sands of which, in the dark of a wintry storm, friends from many parts had gathered together, to pray, to sing the 23rd Psalm, and to bid farewell. They set sail for the south of France, and landed at Bordeaux.

2 2 The White Fields of Frajzce.

Within fourteen weeks after his arrival, Welsh was able to preach in French, and was called to exercise his ministry, first at Nerac, then at Jonsack, and then at Saint Jean d’Angely, where he remained about sixteen years, much to the comfort and benefit of the Reformed Church of France; though he himself was ill at ease, and writes home to his friends of his discomforts; while the records of the Synod of St. Maisant in 1609 show that his ecclesiastical superiors sometimes drew the bridle too tightly for his free northern spirit.

Tradition says that though he made such progress in French speaking, he sometimes forgot his rules and accents. When expounding scripture or stating doctrine his language was exact. But when he proceeded to the warmth of exhortation and appeal, he was apt “to neglect the accuracy of the French construction.” Some excellent young Frenchmen endeavoured to set him right, “which he took in very good part,” arranging with them that they were to watch him carefully, and at the least grammatical impropriety, give him a sign of his deviation by standing up. How often these careful friends had to rise we are not told. But we are informed that he took the utmost possible care, “not only to deliver good matter, but to recommend it in neat expression.” His anxiety to produce perfect French is an example to our modern Scotch and English workers in the mission-field. Politeness may keep a foreigner from smiling at our idioms, but not the less is the effect of the address marred by inaccuracy. It would appear that 270 years ago, the young men of France were a little particular, perhaps fastidious. It is not less so now.

While he preached to the peasantry of France in their villages, he preached also before the University of Saumur, ‘’with boldness and authority,” and was called frequently to address an auditory in which there were “persons of great quality.” It was on one of these occasions that Boyd of Trochrig asked how he could be so bold in such circumstances, and received the memorable answer, that in preaching the Word of God he was “so filled with dread of God that he had no fear of man at all.”

While he was minister in one of the French villages, a friar came to his house asking to be lodged for the night. He was kindly entertained, and had a bedroom assigned to him adjoining that of the minister. Happening to awake during the night, he heard a continuous whispering, which troubled him not a little, ascribing it to evil spirits haunting the Protestant house. Walking abroad next day, a peasant saluted him and asked him how he did.

“Where lodged you last night?”

“With the Huguenot minister,” said the friar.

“What sort of entertainment had you?” asked
the peasant.

‘’Very bad. I always believed that these Huguenot houses were haunted; but I never proved it till last night. There was a continual whisper in the room next mine; and I am sure it was the devil and the minister talkino; together.”

“You are far mistaken,” said the peasant; “it was the minister at his night-prayers.”

“What! does the minister pray?”

“Yes, more than any man in France; and if you will stay another night, you may make sure.”

The friar returned to the Huguenot h ouse and begged lodging for another night, which was at once granted. “Before dinner,” says the old narrative, “Mr. Welsh came down from his chamber and made his family exercise according to his wont. He sang a psalm; he read a portion of Scripture, commenting on it; and then prayed.” The friar looked and listened with astonishment. Dinner was then served, and the friar was kindly entertaiued; the good Huguenot minister asking no questions and entering on no disputes. The evening came, and with it the “evening exercise,” quite like that of the morning, to the friar’s yet greater wonder. They supped and went to bed. But the friar was resolved to keep awake and hear the strange sounds which he had heard the night before. He then went and put his ear to the door to satisfy himself as to what the sound really was. “Then,” writes the old biographer, “he heard not only the sound but the very words; and in these words communications between man and God such as he had never believed to be in this world.” The day broke, and Mr. Welsh came out of his room. The friar went to him, bewailed his ignorance, and asked instruction. Kindly did the minister receive him; bidding him welcome in the name of God, and showinsf him the true ligjht which had been so long hidden from him. That light entered his soul, and in it he walked till his dying hour.

Louis XII. made war upon the Protestants, to extirpate the faith; and besieged the town of Rochelle. Encouraged by the Scotch Huguenots, the citizens resisted to the utmost, and by their bravery secured honourable terms when at last induced to yield. Welsh seems to have been the leading spirit in the siege; and when the king entered the city, Welsh preached as before, without asking permission, to the great offence of the court. While the sermon was proceeding the king sent the Duke d’Espernon to fetch him out of the pulpit into his presence. The duke went with his guard; as be entered, Welsh commanded the people to give way and set a seat for him. The duke sat down and listened gravely to the end, when he ordered Welsh to accompany him to the king, which he did willingly. The king, in anger, asked why he had not interrupted the minister. “Never man spake like this man,” was the reply; ‘’ but here he is to answer for himself.”

The offender was brought in; and as soon as he entered, kneeled down to ask Divine wisdom.

‘’ How dare you preach here,” said the king; “seeing it is against the laws of France that any man should preach within the verge of the court?”

“Sire,” said the brave Scotchman, “if you would do the right thing you would come and hear me preach; nay, and cause all France to come and hear me; for I preach not as these men do whom you are in the wont of hearing.”

“How?” said the king.

‘’ I preach that you must be saved by the merits of Christ, not by your own. I preach, too, that as you are King of France, you are not under the authority of man. These men who are about you would make you subject to the Pope of Rome, which I will never do.”

“■ Eh, bien, vous seriez mon ministre,” said the well-pleased monarch.

Welsh was favourably dismissed, instead of being punished; and the king left the city in peace.

Soon after Welsh left France for London, where he died, after having for sixteen years sowed, in many places throughout France, the seed of everlasting life.

This link between France and Scotland was only one out of many that could be exhibited; but if it tend to draw Scottish eyes and hearts to the great work now goino on in a land which was once our ally when England was our foe, I shall not have given the narrative in vain.

France is not hopeless; Paris is not inaccessible to the Gospel. The priesthood of other ages have done their worst to darken and enslave; their hands are feeble now; they hate, but they cannot imprison, or strangle, or burn, or assassinate.

Carlyle, in his mystical narrative of the Revolution, calls the Pope ‘’the Supreme Quack.” It would have been well for France had he been no more than this. He was the supreme wrong-doer and spoiler. What a land might she have been had he let her alone, and not drenched her in innocent blood, and shut out the Bible from her millions.

That same writer adds, “The first of all gospels is this, that a lie cannot endure for ever.” Of this we are not so sure. It may at least endure long enough

28 The White Fields of Fr mice.

to ruin a nation; and though he tells us that “a lie cannot be believed,” we know how it has been believed, and also that it is written, “God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.” But when he writes that “in the huge mass of evil, as it rolls and swells, there is some good working imprisoned, working towards deliverance and triumjDh,” we gladly accept the dictum in measure, only we prefer to put it in another form, — that “where sin has abounded, there grace did much more abound.”

Germany is sinking into scepticism. Is France emerging from it? We do not hear indeed that “a great company of the priests have become obedient to the faith; “but there are indications that some of the French apostles of unbelief are in earnest, asking,” What is truth? “They are beginning to feel the sorrows of negativism; and are coming to the conclusion that the absence of truth is a wrong to their souls: that, as all unbelief is the belief of a lie, they have, while boasting that they believed nothing, been believing a thousand lies.’”’

*” Our people do not become Protestants, because it is not the custom, because they fear to be peculiar, because they dread what may be said in their district or village; doubtless, also, because strong conviction would be necessary, and they have only a vague sympathy. But when a Catholic comes out of his Church and attaches himself to a Protestant congregation, though some of his

Clericalism is not in the ascendant in France. Its frantic efforts to convulse the nation in order to win a victory for itself have failed. The intrigues of the priesthood have been unveiled and baffled. Plots and miracles, effrontery and cunning, have missed their aim. Legitimacy, Orleanism, and Imperialism have done their worst. The reaction has been a feeble thing. Old dynasties, like broken columns, will not resuscitate. Still less will old religions. These have no resurrection. They crumble, or rather rot; and, from their corruption, send up foul growths; but they themselves rise not again. True religions have often revived; the false never.

It is this that makes the present efforts for evangelising France so momentous and so critical. Now is the moment for the Gospel to strike in and do its work. Souls, tired of atheism, contemptuous of Popery, sick of pleasure, are asking. Who will show us any good? God is answering the cry of the weary and the empty, and sending to them that

neighbours may perhaps censure him, the majority will approve, and feel a secret desire to follow his example. It is most certain that prominent political men, like Messrs. Turquet Malezieux, Jules Favre, Paul Bouchard, &c,, who have formally adhered to Protestantism, have not found the sympathies of their electors diminished * because of their abjuration of Roman Catholicism. On the contrary, the last elections proved that the confidence of their constituents had increased.” — M. Eeveillaud.

which alone can refresh and fill, — the glad tidings of His own free love manifested in the cross of His Son, the Christ of God. After a whole century of political and religious unrest, the cry for rest is coming up, and the gospel of rest is now meeting this cry.

These homely halls, in which that gospel is preached, suit far better the present work of proclaiming rest to the weary, than any large and splendid structure could do. The sorrows of a spirit, seeking peace, what have they to do with the artificial and the garish? Cathedral gloom represents no divine idea; while the clear pleasant light of these unadorned rooms is of itself cheery and comforting. Architects and painters have been in all ages the corrupters of heavenly truths. The false creed or cult they have beautified; the true creed they have distorted and degraded. But here neither Greek nor Gothic art intrudes. The halls and the hymns and the company suit each other well; and even beauty-loving Paris will not deem this homeliness out of place, nor think that some Madeleine or Notre Dame would have comported better with the message or the messenger.

There was an artist who painted the first supper; but he painted the cups so exquisitely that the gazer’s eye rested on them, and not on the Master.

Seeing this, he brushed off the cups, that ‘’ Jesus only “might be seen. Many a church and many a sermon have been to the audience what these cups were. Instead of ‘’producing religious feeling,” they have hid or obscured the Lord.

Paris is now having a new lesson taught her, — that sculpture and painting, that temples and cathedrals, that processions and fetes are not religion; that portraits and statues and crucifixes and relics and madonnas are not Christ; nay, that they lead the heart away from Him; and that there is such a thing as acceptable devotion without an altar, or an image, or an earthly priest, — yes, such a thing as “worshipping Him who is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth;” — a truth which the nations of Europe have yet to learn.