“Hear, Father, hear Thy faint afflicted flock
Cry to Thee from the desert and the rock;
While those who persecute Thy children, hold
Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold.”
ONE day, Isabeau took back the kerchiefs, the stomachers, and the jabots Elene had helped her to embroider, to the shop for which she worked, and returned, her usually grave face shining with joy.
“Oh, what has happened?” cried Elene, startled at the change in her.
“Nothing good, depend upon it,” said poor Mere Durand. “Nothing good ever happens to us.”
“Wrong for once, mother dear,” Isabeau said, turning to her. “You will be as glad as anyone to hear—we are to have an Assembly.”
“Well, at least, thanks to Providence for that,” said the old woman, as if admitting generously that, once in a way, some good might come from that quarter.
“Mother will be as eager about it and as keen to go as anyone,” her daughter remarked, when she left the room.
“But is she strong enough?” Elene asked, doubtfully.
“That indeed I doubt. I fear it is a risk. But I do not dare to withhold from her such a joy and privilege, if even she would consent to be left behind.”
The joy and privilege of attending an Assembly, at which every person present, man, woman, or child, was liable to be shot down without mercy; or at least, to be consigned, the men to the galleys, the women to cruel and, perpetual imprisonment! Precious—indeed we can hardly realize how precious—was the word of the Lord to these His suffering children, who, though He fed them with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction, could yet thank Him that He fulfilled His promise, “Thy teachers shall be no more removed out of thy sight, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers.”
Elene asked eagerly where the gathering was to be.
“Oh, a long way off. We must cross the river, and walk through fields and pasture-land till we come to a certain glen, which is the place of meeting. It will take us three hours’ good walking. We shall have to set out before seven, for ten o’clock is the hour appointed, next Monday night.”
“‘Tis well there will be moonlight.”
“Those who arrange these things for us try to choose nights when we will have the moon.”
“But should the night be dark or rainy, what then?”
“We trust in God, and go all the same. That is, most of us go. But it is very rarely we have the opportunity in these parts.”
“Do the Catholics notice nothing?”
“We go very quietly, singly, or by twos and threes. But as soon as we reach a solitary place we join in little companies and go on together. And, when it is safe, we sing together softly. Always, when we draw near the chosen spot, we hear the sound of singing: those who have arrived the first raise a psalm to guide and hearten the others.”
“But is it safe?”
“Just as safe as aught else. There are always sentinels posted to give the alarm if needful. Last time, some of our people fell in with a couple of Catholics who were taking a night journey on business of their own. They did not want to harm them, but they durst not let them go. So they brought them on with them, and made them listen, will they or nil they, to a right good sermon. Then they took an oath of them never to reveal the matter. And the men were staunch, and did us no ill, only saying to all who questioned them that they had had a misadventure.”
“Have you heard who is coming to preach to us?” Elene asked, with keen interest. “Is it really a pastor? Only once have I seen one since I can remember.”
“He is a pastor, so he can give us the Holy Supper. A young man, and not learned, they say—save in the Holy Scriptures. His name is Portal. He was a poor peasant lad in the Cevennes, who could not even read or write. But when M. Brousson was in France for the first time—ah, you know that name?”
“Indeed I do; my father told me of the great lawyer, the defender of our brethren, who returned again from his exile once—twice—to help and comfort us.”
“Nay, three times. He is in the country now. But in what part I cannot tell.”
“Oh, if he would but come to us! I have never seen him; I hope I shall, some day.”
“So do I. Yet it is not the servant we go to meet, but the Master.”
“I know,” said Elene, softly. “And this M. Portal?”
“Henri Portal, the peasant boy of the Cevennes, heard M. Brousson preach. He received the word with joy, and laid his whole heart at the feet of the preacher. He followed him from place to place, serving him like a son, bearing his messages to the faithful, and distributing amongst them the prayers and exhortations he wrote for them. In the meantime M. Brousson was teaching him. In the caverns and solitary places where they had to hide, he taught him to read and write; taught him also such other elements of human learning as he thought needful. Most of all, he taught him the Holy Scriptures. Happening one day to hear him pray, and say a few words to a little company, he saw in him gifts God might use in His service. He sent him from him to teach, and soon learned that God was blessing his words. When Henri came back again to minister to him in his life of toil and peril, M. Brousson said, ‘No, my son; God has called thee to higher work. Go thou and preach the Kingdom of God.’ I think Henri prayed him, even with tears, to let him stay; but M. Brousson would not. So he went; and to the great gain, as I have heard, of God’s children under the Cross. And afterward he was rightly and lawfully ordained by the laying on of hands—M. Brousson’s and another pastor’s.”
“I shall like to hear that man preach.”
The evening, so eagerly anticipated, came at last. To avoid observation, Isabeau went first to the house of her employer with some work she was returning, having arranged to go to the Assembly by a different path from that which Elene and her mother were to take, and to meet them, bringing food and a lantern, at a place agreed upon, beyond the bridge. The fact that the town was now unfortified lessened their danger, and so did the temper of the townspeople, many of whom were themselves “New Catholics,” and others friendly, or at least indifferent.
The evening proved dark and cloudy. The summer days of Languedoc are not as long as those of England, and, summer though it was, a chill wind blew from the mountains on the east. Elene was wrapped in one of the long black cloaks, usually worn by the Huguenot women, though not exclusively by them, which Isabeau had lent her. She stepped bravely along the rough way, her heart beating high with hope and courage. There was in her the true spiritual hunger of the child of God for His Word, but there was also the delicious thrill of a new and soul-stirring experience. Everything conspired to awaken it—the hour, the mystery, the precautions, the peril even. When they left the town, crossed the bridge, and came into a winding path that sloped upwards through fields and vineyards, this feeling grew upon her. Nor was it checked by the talk of her companion, who poured into her ears a succession of terrible stories of the deeds done by the soldiers when they succeeded in surprising an Assembly. These stories fanned instead of quenched the fire of her enthusiasm. She was in the mood that night to dare anything, to suffer anything, for her Faith.
So indeed was her companion. But she soon complained of fatigue; and when they went on and on without meeting Isabeau or anyone else, she became alarmed, and bluntly accused mademoiselle of having lost her way. Even the traditional respect of the peasant for the lady could not restrain her complaints and reproaches.
Elene bore them the more patiently because she feared they were not undeserved. Might she not have forgotten something, or misunderstood the particular directions Isabeau had given her? And it was so dark, and now, moreover, beginning to rain! What if they missed the Assembly after all? And poor old Mere Durand was so tired already! Elene said to her, at last, “There is shelter yonder, under that hedge. I pray you sit down there and rest. I will go up that little hill and see if there is any sign of our friends. Meanwhile, if Isabeau comes, you will see her.”
Mere Durand remonstrated, fearing mademoiselle would lose herself. And indeed Elene, after going some distance, began to fear the same, and thought of retracing her footsteps, when the glimmer of a light attracted her. It was some distance off, towards the right, and it was moving.
Full of hope, she went towards it. This led her off the path and down the slope. Then the light was close at hand. A man was carrying it, and another walked beside him. But a brook, rather wide, ran between her and them. They saw her and stopped. The one not carrying the light asked courteously, “Can we be of any use, mademoiselle?”
Then Elene, as Isabeau had directed her, said “Qui va?”
In return, the man—or, as she saw when they came close, the young lad—gave the watchword of the night, “La parole de Dieu.”
“Then you are friends,” Elene said, much relieved. “I am glad indeed, for I need your help.”
“Permit me, mademoiselle,” said the youth, stretching out his hand to help her over the brook. She drew back, however; she did not want to cross. At that moment the man with the torch so moved it that it showed to each the face of the other. Elene saw a tall, slight, handsome lad, with fine, clear-cut features, dark eyes, curling brown hair, and alert, eager look.
He on his part saw a face, grave and refined, like some he had been wont to see long, long ago, but very pale and worn—not like that of an equal in age. In the yellow torchlight it did not look young at all to him. None the less readily, he leaped the brook and again proffered his help, with a grace worthy of –Gaspard de Montausier!
The older man followed, and they went back to where Mere Durand was waiting for Elene.
The torch now waved aloft by Gaspard caught the eye of Isabeau, who, in fact, was not far off, with the band of pilgrims whom she had joined—all anxiously looking for the missing ones. Soon they were all joyfully united, and walked on in company—Gaspard ahead with those who lit the way, Tardif insisting on giving his arm to Mere Durand, little guessing that the object of his eager search walked just before him with her daughter.
He liked old women of Mere Durand’s stamp; they had often shown him kindness perhaps having a secret admiration for a bold outlaw. So he felt it a pleasure to support her over the toilsome paths with his strong arm, and cheer her on when she began to complain of the length and roughness of the way. Presently she stumbled over a stone, and bewailed herself bitterly.
“Courage, mademoiselle,” said Tardif, as he held her up, “that’s one stone the less, anyway, between you and the Assembly.” Then, remembering he had adopted the rôle of a Huguenot, he thought himself bound to keep it up by some pious observation, and said: “Consider, for your comfort, what a good work you are doing, and how you will be rewarded for it.”
Whereupon Mere Durand stopped her moanings, to answer with righteous severity “Our own good works, monsieur, are not what we poor sinners ought to be thinking of, as you very well know.”
Tardif knew nothing of the kind; but as she had called herself “a poor sinner,” he felt there was room for a compliment; “and I can’t be wrong there with a woman,” he thought. “I am sure,” he said, “that mademoiselle is not a poor sinner, but a person of irreproachable life and manners. And even if there were any little frailties, the work we are about now would merit their pardon.”
Happily, Mere Durand did not hear the last sentence distinctly, but she caught the one word “merit,” and her Protestant soul was stirred within her. “Who dares to speak of merit with us worms of the dust?” she began indignantly, when a brisk voice beside them interrupted, “Ho, Mere Durand, is that you?”
The newcomer, whom Tardif blessed in his soul, was one of a group which had just joined their party. He was an old friend, and Mere Durand took her hand from Tardif’s arm to greet him. Tardif slipped away in the darkness to rejoin Gaspard, thanking his luck and saying to himself, “‘Tis well I got off! If I had tried a little more of their talk, she might have taken me for a spy. Queer folk these Huguenots! one knows not what to be at with them. If they like to call themselves worms of the dust, ‘tis not my affair. Save for Gaspard; if they put such a name upon him, a gentleman born, they shall reckon for it with me. Worms of the dust, forsooth I while the great king of France, with his millions at his back, bids them just say their prayers in Latin instead of French, and they stand up before him and answer ‘No!’”
If Tardif had understood, he might have added, “That is the kind of ‘no’ that shakes the world.”
Elene, meanwhile, reeked little what was the road, or whom they met. The night was so dark, she scarcely even saw who walked beside her in the ever-thickening throng—only she felt the hand of Isabeau in hers. Her feet were weary indeed, but she felt as if soul and body stood wholly apart, and the one had no power at all to touch the other. “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up to the house of the Lord,” her heart kept singing to itself. And presently she became conscious, with a new thrill of joy, that all around her, they were singing too.
Far enough now from the haunts of man to sing the praises of God without fear, the crowd was lifting up its voice in grand old Huguenot psalms, rolling to the clouded skies such words as these:
“We’ll crowd Thy gates with thankful songs,
High as the heaven our voices raise;
And earth, with her ten thousand tongues,
Shall fill Thy courts with sounding praise.”
At last they reached the place of meeting, a secluded valley amidst lonely pasture-lands, where the few inhabitants were favorable to the Cause. It seemed, as they approached, as if the stars, invisible in the sky, had come down to the earth instead, for many torches of pine wood, swaying to and fro in the hands that held them, shed a flickering light over the mass of heads. To Elene it seemed as if every inch of standing-room must be filled already. But the crowd, with the magic of sympathy, quickly shook itself into order. The courteous strangers found seats for Elene and her companions on a rising ground, where they could see and hear, and remained beside them.
A rude platform, made of trunks of trees laid together, had been erected in the midst, and zealous hands were hastily draping it with black, which the women eagerly pulled off their aprons to supply. More people were arriving every minute, and crowding into every spot within earshot of the platform. And all the time the singing went on. Psalm after psalm was started, none knew or cared by whom, but all united in the sacred strains, and sent them rolling upwards to the throne of God.
At last a young man in peasant garb mounted the platform. A hush of expectation fell upon the crowd, a hush so deep that Elene clearly heard her young neighbor’s excited whisper— “It is—it is—the servant of M. Beauclaise.”
“Chut!” said the older man imperatively.
There was a movement in the crowd. Those who had room to kneel, knelt; the rest stood up in their places, with hands reverently clasped. Then the young pastor’s loud clear voice rang out. “O Eternel!” he cried, using the Huguenot rendering of the Hebrew “Jehovah.” And at that one word Elene broke down utterly and sobbed. For, thus uttered, it brought back to her the sad changes of earth; she heard again the voice of her father, as he offered the proscribed worship within closed doors at home. Then, with a great effort, she grasped herself again, to join in the passionate prayer that followed. These oppressed and tortured people cried with full hearts to God. Yet not for vengeance, not mainly for deliverance even: they suffered, but they thought more of their sins than of their sufferings. What they implored, with tense and absorbing earnestness, was not so much the rest from persecution, as the peace He could give them in it, the sense of His pardon, the shining of His countenance, the gift of His sanctifying Spirit.
After the prayer, the people still knelt, or stood with heads reverently bowed, while the pastor recited the ten commandments and the solemn confession of sin. Then, still kneeling, they all chanted, low and softly, the opening verses of the 5th Psalm.
The sermon followed. The text was from the Song of Solomon—that book so perplexing to the learned, yet so precious in all ages to suffering souls, with whom is the secret of the Lord. “I sleep, but my heart waketh; it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh.” The young Cevennol peasant whom a living fear of God and a passionate love of God’s servant had transformed into a saint and a hero, poured forth a torrent of untaught, untutored eloquence, which carried all his hearers with him. Or rather, it was his theme that swept both them and him away upon a mighty tide of emotion. That theme was not Protestantism, not liberty, not a creed, not a doctrine, not a cause, not even a principle. One brief word can tell it all—it was Christ. He was the Beloved of the soul. It was His voice each one of them had heard, through the sleep of sloth, of fear, of indifference. He it was who was knocking at each heart, and each heart was responding to the knock. For these children of sorrow were “athirst for God, even for the living God” that God who reveals Himself in the face of Jesus Christ. There, as ever and as everywhere—whether in grand cathedral or humble meeting house, on mountains or in deserts, or in dens and caves of the earth—He, when He is lifted up, draws all men unto Him.
For two full hours that sermon lasted, yet no one seemed to grow weary, or even to think it long; when we pay dearly for anything we like to get good measure.
Then there was more singing, followed by a stir about the platform, and a movement amongst the audience, some of whom were trying to press through the throng and come forward.
Elene rose as if to join them, but Isabeau held her back.
“Wait,” she said. “It is not time yet for you. You have taken the Holy Supper before, have you not?”
“Yes, once,” Elene whispered. At the remembrance of the hallowed scene—when they had the rare privilege of a visit from a pastor—her tears fell quickly.
“And you have not since in any way denied the Faith? This is for new communicants or for penitents.”
Elene sat down again, and noticed, as she did so that the youth beside her was on his feet—was moving through the crowd with bowed head and reverent air. His companion had not stirred. She thought she distinguished that young voice amongst the others as one by one the penitents renewed their vows, and the newcomers also “enrolled themselves as faithful soldiers, ready to follow everywhere their Divine Captain”; and she put up a special prayer that he might be found faithful.
Then followed the blessing and the distribution of the sacred symbols, of which almost the whole assembly partook reverently, many of them with tears.
Of course a long time was occupied in this way. Such Assemblies usually lasted three or four hours, and this was not one of the shortest. Even when all was over, the people were slow to disperse. Crowds pressed round the preacher, every one eager to have a word from him, even if only a word of greeting.
“Shall we go too?” Elene whispered to Isabeau.
“I think not, m’amie: there are too many. The pastor will be kept for hours talking to one and another. They ought to remember he has a long way to go, and must be very tired.” After a pause she added, “Can you see the two men who helped you so kindly anywhere in the crowd? Perhaps, if they happen to have no food with them, we might ask them to share ours.”
But the strangers had disappeared in the throng, and neither Elene, Isabeau, nor her mother could see anything of them—the rather as most of the torches were out now, and it was very dark.
When, after a brief interval for food and rest, the long homeward march was begun, Isabeau asked Elene anxiously, “Are you tired, dear?” For she thought the severe and prolonged exertion might well be too much for the delicately reared young lady.
They were just emerging from the valley and reentering the open country. The clouds had cleared away, but the moon, upon which they had reckoned so vainly, had recently set. Instead, the glorious company of stars shone out, resplendent in the clear luminous air of that southern clime. Through eyes that were full of happy tears Elene looked up to them. “How could I be tired?” she said. “Think, if it were my dear father who is now beyond you stars, whom God allowed to come back and sit beside me and talk to me just for one brief hour—could I be tired then, or wish the time were gone? And this was better. For One greater and dearer has come to us. And He will stay. But I cannot speak of it.”
Elene’s experience was not singular. Many a heart, in those proscribed assemblies, was thus uplifted out of sorrow and fear into mysterious and ineffable joy. It was no doubt in testimony to this that the sermons of Portal’s master and inspirer were published in a foreign land under the title of Manna of the Desert. The true Manna, however, was not the sermons, but the joy—that “joy, strange and solemn, mysterious even to its possessor,” which has been given—ay, a thousand times over—not in forbidden assemblies alone, but in dungeons and on scaffolds—in every possible scene of earthly desolation and suffering. And so it is given still, as of old, “in the desert.”
The Israelites, who gathered and ate it, yet knew not what it was. They called it Man hu (what is it?), for it was a mystery. Thus it is with the “Hidden Manna,” the joy God gives His children in the midst of suffering. Moreover, in the old symbolic history we read that as soon as the Israelites crossed the Jordan and ate of the new corn of the land, the manna ceased, and forever. Henceforth they had the grapes of Eshcol, the wheat, and the oil, and the wine, the milk and the honey of the good land; but never more, through all their generations, did they taste of the manna of the desert. Did those who remembered it strange mystic sweetness ever long for it amidst all the luxuries of Canaan? Do the host that have gone before us, “the spirits of just men made perfect,” eves cast a longing thought, amidst all the joys of heaven, to the one joy they can never taste again—the joy they had in the furnace of affliction, when Christ Himself walked with them there?
We cannot doubt, at least, that they remember it and that He remembers it too. Was not a golden vessel, filled with the manna of the desert, laid up within the very Ark of the Covenant itself, as a “memorial” unto all generations? Dare we say that in the very heart of Christ Himself, who is the true Ark, there lies enshrined forever the remembrance of that ineffable communion which those who partook of His sufferings had with Him in the desert of their tribulation?