In my grandmother's room, at the bottom of the cupboard where she kept
“The History of the Bible,” with the terrible pictures illustrating the
visions of Revelation, she had also several other precious relics. In
particular there was an old silver-clasped psalm book. It was extremely
tiny, like a toy-book, and in its day it must have been a marvel of the
printer's skill. It had been made in miniature thus they told me, so
that it could be easily hidden; at the time of the persecutions our
ancestors had often carried it about with them, concealed in their
clothing. There was also, in a paste-board box, a bundle of letters
written on parchment and marked Leyden or Amsterdam. Those written
between the years 1702 and 1710 were secured by a large wax seal stamped
with a count's coronet.
They were letters of our Huguenot ancestors, who, at the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes, had quitted their country, their home and their
dear ones, rather than abjure their faith. The letters had been written
to an old grandfather, a man too aged to go the way of the exile, who
was able, for some inexplicable reason, to remain unmolested in his
retreat upon the Island of Oleron. The letters testified to the fact
that the exiles had been submissive and respectful towards him to a
degree unknown in our day; the wanderers wrote asking his advice or his
consent before undertaking anything,--they even asked whether they might
wear a certain wig which was fashionable in Amsterdam at that time. They
spoke of their troubles, but without murmuring over them, with a truly
Christian resignation; their goods had been confiscated; they were
obliged to follow uncongenial trades in order to maintain themselves;
and they hoped, they said, with the aid of God always to make enough to
keep their children from starving.
Together with the respect that these letters inspired, they had also
the charm of age; it was a novel experience to enter into the life of
a bygone time, to know the inmost thoughts of those who had lived a
century and a half before me. And as I read them I was filled with
indignation against the Roman Church and Papal Rome, sovereign during
the many past centuries.--Surely it was she who was designated, in my
opinion at any rate, in that wonderful prophecy contained in Revelation:
“And the beast is a City, and its seven heads are Seven Hills on which
the woman sitteth.”
My grandmother, always so austere and upright looking in her black
clothes, a type of a Huguenot woman, had been fearful for her own safety
during the Restoration, and although she never spoke of it, we felt that
she must have very depressing memories of that time.
And upon the Island, in the shade of a bit of woodland that was
encircled by a wall, I had seen the place where slept those of my
ancestors who had been excluded from the cemeteries because they had
died in the Protestant faith.
How could I be anything but faithful with such a past? And it is certain
that had the Inquisition been revived in my childhood, I would have
suffered martyrdom joyfully, like one filled to overflowing with the
spirit of God.
My faith was a faith that kept watch upon the theological errors of the
time, and I did not know the resignation felt by my ancestors; in spite
of my distaste for reading I often plunged into books of religious
controversy; I knew by heart the many passages from the Fathers and the
decisions of the first councils; I could have discussed the dogmas of
the church like a doctor of divinity, and I considered my arguments
against the papacy very shrewd.
But notwithstanding my fervor a distaste for all of these religious
things would often take possession of me; sometimes at church especially
where the gray light fell upon me and chilled me I felt it most. The
awful tediousness of some of the Sunday sermons; the emptiness of the
prayers, written in advance and spoken with conventional unctuous voice,
and gestures to suit; and the apathy of the people who, dressed out in
their best, came to listen,--how early I divined its hollowness,--and
how deep was my disappointment, and how cruel the disillusionment--oh!
the disheartening formalism of it all! The very appearance of the church
disconcerted me: it was a new cityfied one, meant to be pretty without,
however, meaning to be too much so; I especially recall certain little
efforts at wall decoration which I held in the greatest abomination,
and shuddered when I looked at. It was that disgust in little which
I experienced in so great a degree when later I attended those Paris
churches that strive so for elegance, where one is met at the door by
ushers whose shoulders are tricked out with knots of ribbon. . . .
Oh! for the congregation of Cevennes! Oh! for the preachers of the
wilderness!
Such little things as I have mentioned did not shake my faith which
seemed as solid as a house built upon a rock; but doubtless they made
the first imperceptible crevice through which, drop by drop, oozed the
melting ice-cold water.
Where I still knew true meditation, and felt the deep sweet peace one
should feel in the house of God was in an old church in the village of
St. Pierre Oleron; my great grandfather Samuel had, at the time of
the persecutions, worshipped and prayed there, and my mother had also
attended it during her girlhood days. . . . I also loved those little
country churches to which we sometimes went on Sunday in the summer
time: they were generally old and had simple whitewashed walls. They
were built any where and every where, in a corner of a wheat field with
wild flowers growing all about them; or in more retired places, in the
centre of some enclosure at the far end of an avenue of old trees. The
Catholics have nothing, in my opinion, which surpasses in religious
charm these humble little sanctuaries of our Protestant ancestors--not
even do their most exquisite stone chapels hidden away in the depth
of the Breton woods, that at a later time I learned to admire so much,
touch me so deeply.
I still held fast to my determination to become a minister; it still
seemed to me that that was my duty. I had pledged myself, in my prayers
I had given my word to God. How could I therefore break my vow?
But when my young mind busied itself with thoughts of the future, more
and more veiled from me by an impenetrable darkness, my preference was
for a church which should be a little isolated from the noisy world, for
one where the faith of my congregation should ever remain simple, for
one receiving its consecration from a long past of prayers and sincerest
worship.
It would be in the Island of Oleron perhaps!
Yes; there, surrounded upon every side by the memories of my Huguenot
ancestors, I could look forward without dread, indeed with much
contentment, to a life dedicated to the service of the Lord.