Chapter 2.
Twelve Years of Exile.
THE command of Louis XIV. that the Protestants should not quit France, proved a fruitless one. A steady stream of these persecuted people, which all efforts of the government were ineffectual to check, poured out daily from her coasts. Night and day, at every point, guards were on the watch to capture the fugitives, who, through God’s mercy, constantly evaded their vigilance. By various disguises, they baffled the enemy. Some assumed the pilgrim garb; others appeared as servants in livery, or in soldiers’ uniforms’ others as sportsmen, carrying guns on their shoulders; some drove cattle along the road; and high-born, delicately nurtured ladies clothed in rags, begged for coppers as they passed onwards; others, who had never before walked a mile on foot, now, attired in peasants’ costumes, would trundle wheelbarrows, or carry heavy burdens on their backs, as they journeyed hundreds of miles to the land of their deliverance.
So, through untold dangers and difficulties the undaunted Protestants contrived to make their escape into countries, where they could again worship God according to their conscience. Among the number of fugitives, al the age of one and twenty, was Jacques Roger. Tearing himself away from his loved family, who were unable or unwilling to brave the manifold dangers of such a journey, the young man turned his back on the home of his child hood, and sought refuge in a foreign land. Flight, for those who were poor, was encompassed with far more perils, than for those whose wealth enabled them at times to procure some little alleviations for the hardships of the way, and who, often at enormous prices, hired guides to lead them to the frontier. In the darkness of the night, the poor would set forth on unknown roads, wending their way by by-paths and dangerous mountain tracks; at sunrise hiding themselves in some cave, or in the depths of some forest, until the darkness of the night again favored their progress. Thus, through snow, frost, wind, and rain, wintry tempests often howling round them, the way-worn travelers pressed forward in the sheltering darkness, terror of their pitiless foes urging on their weary steps.
Happily for Jacques his journey, though replete with danger, was comparatively a short one, Languedoc not being far from the borders of France. By night-journeys he made his way as rapidly as possible to the nearest frontier, and joyfully found his “own company” in Switzerland. Thus, God, “who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,” detached this young man from his family, and placed him amongst Christians, who, by their more perfect knowledge of the Word, and by the example of their piety and zeal, greatly built him up in his holy faith, and so aided in preparing him for the life-work that lay before him.
The twelve years which Roger spent among the Christians of Switzerland and Germany, like the forty years of probation passed by Moses on the back side of the desert, were eminently qualified to arouse in him a deep sense of the low estate of the Church of God in his beloved country, and to fire him with intense longing to spend his life in self-sacrificing devotion to the Saviour.
No doubt a season of training, it may be of longer or of shorter duration, must thus be gone through by each servant of God, before the more active and public service is entered upon. A most important period in the life of such, and yet possibly not fully recognized at the time, is the season of sitting at the feet of Jesus, before testifying in the world of the Saviour’s redeeming power, just as with the one who was delivered from the legion of devils, or a three year’s in Arabia, as in the case of Paul, before the full preaching of the faith that once he destroyed. The Master, who knows to what work He will put each one that willingly offers himself to serve, makes no mistakes in preparing His instruments. Blessed it is, when, like Jacques Roger, His people yield to the molding of His hand, and can then be brought forth as “vessels meet for the Master’s use,” “workmen that need not be ashamed.”
During Roger’s long years of exile, he never lost sight of his poor, suffering brethren in France. His thoughts were ever with them, and over and over again he lived in memory through the sorrowful scenes he had witnessed in his youth, until it became his one desire to find himself once more in the battle-field, sharing the afflictions of the people of God, and seeking in his more matured Christianity to raise their spiritual tone. What could be done to rescue them from merging into the false religion around them, and to restore Protestantism in France? Over this question he pondered deeply, and at length concluded that this purpose would be affected by organizing synods, and consistories, and thus establishing the systematized order, which he saw with admiration in the churches of Germany and Switzerland. How far the conclusion he arrived at was of God, is more than doubtful; but He, who saw the true desire of His servant for His glory, surely valued the zeal and devotion which prompted him.
With these projects in his mind, he consulted his revered friend, the pious Pictet of Geneva, who greatly encouraged him to return to his native land, whither he believed the voice of God was calling him. But ‘ere recounting Jacques Roger’s labors for Christ in France, we will glance rapidly over the history of the church in that country during the twelve years of his absence.
The blow, which had finally deprived the Protestants of all their religious privilege’s, at first completely stunned them, and for some months after the revocation of the edict of Nantes they seemed utterly paralyzed. Their pastors exiled, their temples gone, themselves under the utmost ban of the law, they felt, in the depth of their misery, that all possibility of meeting together for worship was at an end. But the first shock over, by slow degrees their courage revived, and they began to strengthen themselves in the Lord their God. In little knots of ten or twelve they crept together again, and, fearing discovery, chose the most solitary places they could find. On some desolate moor, or lonely mountain side, in a deserted quarry, deep cavern, or thick forest, these persecuted Christians would assemble to worship God, and to remember the Lord’s death in the breaking of bread. These gatherings were held at irregular intervals, the better to baffle discovery. The evening before the meetings, notice as to the locality and hour was secretly sent round to all the Protestants in the neighborhood. They were generally held at night, for greater safety, the young men of the congregation lighting up the scene with lanterns, which they would suspend from the boughs of the trees, when the meeting took place in a wood. Sentinels were stationed on the hill tops around, to signal any approach of the enemy, and on the first alarm the assembly would rapidly and noiselessly disperse in various directions.
How simple and how intensely real such worship must have been, the Holy Spirit their Leader, the starry vault of heaven the only temple, and the worshippers having ever the thought that there was but one step between themselves and entrance there! How far more sublime was such worship than that of more prosperous days, when they were patronized by the world, and possessed the grandeur of consecrated edifices. They were now cast completely on the Lord, and, from necessity, driven to meet, as the early Christians did, simply in His name, and in the power of the Holy Ghost. Though apparently begun in such weakness the “Church of the Desert,” as it was called from the desert places in which it was first gathered, was really stronger in the Lord, and more according to His mind, in these times of evident weakness, than when, in later years, the little assemblies of a dozen people grew to hundreds or even thousands, and a systematized church order was in full operation.
Church discipline was rigorously enforced in these early days, the purity of the Lord’s table being zealously guarded. No one was allowed to take the Lord’s supper who had not been previously carefully examined by the elders as to his faith and walk. If the examination proved satisfactory, a little leaden medal was given to the applicant, on one side of which was stamped an open Bible, bearing the text, “Fear not, little flock”; on the other, a shepherd feeding his sheep. Others had a communion cup on one side, and a cross on the other, signifying the persecution they must expect in the path of discipleship. These tokens each communicant placed on the table before partaking of the bread and wine. Any who, in a weak moment, had, from terror of Rome, so far yielded as to attend the mass, were kept outside until their repentance was fully proved, though they might with tears implore to be allowed to take their place at the table.
So many precautions were taken to evade discovery, and, so much mystery surrounded these gatherings, that naturally the first one mentioned in history is the first that was surprised by the enemy. Towards the end of the year 1686, the authorities were warned that the Protestants assembled nightly to read the Bible, to sing and to pray. The armed troops swept down upon them, and several arrests were made; some of the captives were immediately executed, others sent to the galleys for life; even the Roman Catholics of the neighborhood were severely treated, for not having prevented the meetings, or given notice of them.
A touching instance of filial devotion is told of this time. A youth, hearing that his aged father was condemned to the galleys for life threw himself at the feet of the magistrate, imploring to be allowed to take his place. To test his resolution the magistrate replied that his father was condemned to death, to which the son nobly answered that he was none the less ready to suffer in his place. Even the hard-hearted authorities were so moved by this example of filial piety, that they commuted the terrible punishment of the galleys to that of service in the king’s army.
Two years later, the courage of the Reformed had much increased, and full daylight found in Poitou, bands of from five hundred to fifteen hundred, assembling for field-preaching. Words would fail to describe the joy and emotion of the Huguenots at again thus openly gathering together―the eagerness with which all availed themselves of the opportunity — the avidity with which they drank in the divine truths brought before them. “One sees these poor people coming together in crowds,” writes an eye-witness; “women bring their little children; the doors of all their houses are shut, and none remain at home.”
Of course these large assemblies could no longer court the same privacy as the smaller ones had done. The enemy would frequently surprise them, and fire on them, “as on a flight of pigeons.” No resistance was offered, the people being wholly unarmed; vast numbers were therefore easily massacred; sometimes from three to four hundred old people, women and children, would be left dead on the spot.
It is awful to read, that commonly, in passing through the wood’s where these preaching’s were held, dead bodies would be seen strewing the ground at every few paces while corpses hung from the trees, under which but shortly before had risen glad songs of praise to God. The preachers, regarded by the Roman Catholics as the ringleaders of the movement, would be captured and led away to trial, quickly followed by martyrdom at the stake, or the living death of the galleys. Any women who were made prisoners were also treated with cruel severity; they were generally condemned to be flogged, and branded with the fleur-de-lis, and were frequently thrown into prison, to languish there for many years. The most painful trial to the hearts of the Christian parents of the upper ranks was the seizure of their children, to be placed in convents under the instruction of the Jesuits, where they were carefully taught in all the heresies of Rome, which the parents were opposing with their life-blood. This Satanic device succeeded where all others failed, and ultimately brought back to Rome most of the aristocratic Huguenot families of France.
Persecution, however, could no longer discourage the noble “Church of the Desert.” Bravely she held her ground, and pressed undauntedly forward. The very day following the most barbarous executions, the faithful would again meet in large numbers, bold in their confidence in their God. He, who often uses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, used these simple peasants, strong in faith, and bent on obeying Him rather than man, to frustrate the designs of the most powerful monarch of the day.
Louis the Great, whose authority in his kingdom none other dare question, now found his most stringent laws determinedly disregarded and boldly infringed upon, and himself set at naught in his old age, by the very subjects whom he had proved in his younger days to be the most submissive.
To give in detail each event of these years would be but to needlessly repeat the same story of cruelty and bloodshed, which at length led to the outbreak, known as the war of the Camisards. This, the last armed struggle of the Huguenots for their religion in France, was a rising among the peasantry of Vivarais and Languedoc, led on by some dauntless spirits of their own class, whom they considered as prophets. Driven desperate by cruelty and oppression, stung to the quick by injustice and barbarity, this naturally peaceful people rose in a mass of about ten thousand, and formed themselves into irregular troops against the army of the king. They knew nothing of war, were wholly unprovided with arms, excepting those that they seized from the enemy. They had, however, the great advantage of being thoroughly acquainted with the mountain fastnesses of their own country, and were thus able to prove themselves very formidable to the regular troops, who were often double their number, making terrible havoc among them.
There are passages in this guerilla warfare which read more like pages from a romance than the usual prose of history.
Begun professedly in the Lord’s sacred name, this was in reality a fight for liberty more than for Christianity, and, during the four years in which the war raged fiercely, the holy Name by which the rebels were called, was much dishonored, and their own stained by acts of violence and bloodshed. It is a relief to find that those, who had taken the lead for God among the people, stood aloof from this remarkable movement.
At this distance of time, and in the calm of the peaceful days in which, through God’s great mercy, our lot is cast, it is not difficult for the Christian to see how great was the failure of the Huguenots at the epoch of which we write. And yet, while in the light of Scripture we cannot but condemn this recourse to arms of those who were called to suffer in fellowship with Him, whose kingdom is not of this world, we can pass judgment but very humbly on men who had for long endured so patiently, and whose hearts had been made sore by outrages on their wives and helpless little ones. If not spiritual, it was at least natural that the strong arms, made stronger by love for suffering ones, and by passionate opposition to the unjust and cruel rule to which they had for many years submitted, now grasped the sword, the club, the home-made weapon of war, and rushed madly upon the enemy.
“They that take the sword shall perish by the sword” is the solemn warning of Scripture, and the Protestants proved, as ever we must do, that God is true to His word. Although by the fury of this onslaught they gained some amelioration of their temporal condition from the intimidated Government, yet the poor “Church of the Desert” suffered much spiritually by this unholy movement. In sympathy with the Camisard leaders, fanatic preachers arose, many of them young girls, styling themselves prophetesses, who spurred on the warriors in wild, prophetic language, borrowed from those Scriptures which, in another dispensation, encouraged the earthly people of God to fight for God-given land against nations whom He would judge. The Christians, thus taken off Christian ground by their very teachers, deteriorated rapidly in spiritual tone and power, and the more willingly gave hearing to those who, far from feeding their souls, simply fostered their passions, by inciting them to still further rebellion against the powers that, though acting so wickedly, yet were ordained of God.