“There shall no tempest bloom,
No scorching noontide heat;
There shall be no more snow,
No weary wandering feet.
So we lift our trusting eyes
From the bills our fathers trod
To the quiet resting of the skies,
To the Sabbath of our God.”
TWO years have passed away since the Church of the Desert mourned over the grave of her fair and favorite son, Majal-Désubas, filling the glens and hamlets of the Cévennes and the Vivarais with “a long wail of anguish.” It is a bright Sabbath morning, near the end of May, 1748. So genial is the sunshine, so balmy the air, even in the high altitude of the mountain cottage which was once the home of the elder, Paul Plans, that its inmates leave the door open, to enjoy more thoroughly the pleasant influences around theta. Their occupation is serious, yet they fear no interruption. The solitude without is absolute. Their refuge is the secret place of the hills.
An aged woman and two children kneel in silence beside one who repeats in a clear sweet voice, a prayer used by the proscribed Protestants of France in their private Sabbath worship. “Oh, great God,” Annette Meniet prays, “whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, but who hast promised to be wherever two or three are gathered together in Thy name, Thou seest us assembled in this house to offer to thee our religious homage, to adore. Thy greatness, and to implore Thy compassion. We mourn in secret to be deprived of our public services, and no longer to hear in our temples the voice of Thy servants. But, far from murmuring against Thy providence, we acknowledge that Thou mightest in Thy justice overwhelm us with Thy most severe judgments; therefore, in the midst of Thy chastenings we adore Thy goodness, yet we entreat of Thee to have pity upon us. We are without a temple, but fill this house with Thy presence, We are without a pastor, but be Thyself our Pastor. Instruct us in the truths of Thy gospel. We are about to read and meditate upon Thy Word. Imprint it on our hearts. Make us to learn in it to know Thee―both what Thou art and what we are; what Thou hast done for our salvation, and what we ought to do for Thy service; the virtues that are acceptable to Thee, and the vices Thou dost forbid; the punishments with which Thou dost threaten the impenitent, the lukewarm, the, timid, the fearful, and the profane, and the glorious recompense Thou dost promise the faithful. Make us to go forth from this little exercise more holy, more zealous for Thy glory, and for Thy truth, more detached from the world„ more religious observers of Thy Commandments. Hear us, for Thy Son’s sake.”
If these and other equally beautiful words of prayer and praise, had but come to us from Christians of the Third Century, holding their proscribed worship in the Catacombs, instead of from nameless peasants of the. Eighteenth, keeping the same faith upon the mountains of Languedoc, they would excite universal admiration and enthusiasm. But when will the Churches of the Reformation learn to estimate and to use aright their boundless wealth of inspiring memories, and their truly magnificent martyrologies?
Before the prayer was ended, all but Annette were aware of a shadow thrown across the floor of the cottage by an approaching figure. Little Claude, the first to rise from his knees, ran to the door, and was immediately caught in the arms of a tall, sunburnt, handsome young man. René Plans was now an accredited agent and messenger of the Desert Church of the Hautes Cévennes. He was in his nineteenth year, but he looked much older. His dark curling hair, his keen intelligent eye, his slight, well-knit muscular frame, betokened health and energy; and if already he enjoyed, as he probably did, the perilous distinction of having his “signalement” in the hands of the police, he was no doubt favorably described therein as “joli homme.”
Annette’s hand was placed in his, with the full trust of tried friendship. Madeleine’s greeting was like hers; but his strong fingers closed over that small white hand with more of protecting tenderness. He used greater ceremony towards Madame Larachette, raising her hand to his lips.
His quick eye took note of changes in them all; for it was more than a year since his last brief visit to the cottage which had been the home of his childhood. Madame Larachette’s health was restored, but her face wore a strained, excited look, too plainly indicating jarred and shattered nerves. Claude was growing quickly into a healthy, happy mountain boy; apparently cast by nature in a strong mold, but kept gentle by the influence of a gentle mother. Madeleine’s sweet face wore a dreamy, thoughtful air; and her eyes, deep and blue as the Cévennol sky, shone with a perilous luster. A child’s religion, stimulated by excitement, or ripened by suffering into precocious maturity, is like a bud unfolded too early; a thousand subtle dangers await it. Many a strange legend of the infant prophets and prophetesses of the Camisard war still lingered in the mountains of Languedoc; and amongst Madeleine’s own kindred there had been a prophetess of local celebrity, Marie Désubas. Easily might the sensitive, highly-strung nature of the imaginative child have been roused to Similar fanaticism by constant brooding over her father’s captivity, her uncle’s martyrdom, and the wrongs of her people. But a vise and tender mother was at hand to guide, control, and direct; and it was due to her that Madeleine’s grave and thoughtful childhood was ripening quietly and safely into a pure and lovely maidenhood.
Annette Meniet looked frail and worn, and the hand that held René’s was transparent. Her life was too full, not of thought only, but of toil. She performed, with Madeleine’s assistance, all the duties of the ménage, waited upon Madame Larachette, taught her children, and ministered in various ways to the villagers of Trou. Moreover, every spare moment of the day, and much of the night, was spent in labor for her captive husband, that cold and hunger might not be added to the affliction of his bonds; for although the Church ministered nobly to the confessors at the galleys, they were many, and her resources small. So Annette, like the Cévennol peasants amongst whom she lived now, carded and spun the wool which, woven into coarse cloth, formed almost the only export of the district. Many a weary hour of toil was lightened by the thought that the livres thus earned meant, for her husband, wholesome food instead of beans or black bread, a warm vest beneath the meager red serge jacket of the forçat, occasional deliverance from his galling fetters, perhaps even the luxury of a “strapontin,” or narrow mattress, upon which to rest his weary frame.
She had passed through her hour of dejection and despondency; and no one, not even Madeleine, had known half its bitterness. Now she was “on the other side.” There was no time for tears, nor much desire to shed them now. That cry of the heart, for “the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still,” was changing into a deep, mysterious, ever-present sense of communion with her sainted dead. Strong, silent influences were drawing her unawares towards the unseen shore―the home whither he had gone before. All who knew her said, “She need not mourn; she will soon see him” ―him whose name they all breathed “softly, like the household name of one whom God hath taken.”
Yet she herself did not think this. She would have been surprised to hear it. She would have prayed for life, and that earnestly. For in her heart there was a dream, a half-formed wish, that could scarcely yet be called a purpose. The face she most desired to see again was not the fair face of the martyred brother, now shining in the light of God.
After the first greetings and inquires were over, Madame Larachette remarked, with a glance at René’s dusty, travel-stained apparel, “I do not call it an honest practice, or one tending to the edification of the faithful, for a godly young man, a messenger of the Church and a candidate for the ministry, to run to and fro, and make his journeys on the Lord’s day.”
“You are right, madame,” René answered. “But I am now upon an errand of mercy; so I confess, and without penitence, that I have traveled all night, and that I intend to go on to Genouilhac as soon as I have told my tidings, and breakfasted with you.”
“What? Will you not even go and see your sister?” For young Brissac and Jeannette were married now, and lived in the village, with the parents of Jacques.
“I may see her for a moment,” René said; “but I must not tarry.”
“Is anything amiss with―our friends?” Annette questioned, anxiously.
“With our friends at Toulon, nothing, dear madame. They are in good health, and God be thanked, of good cheer also. On account of the war, the galleys are kept armed and equipped, and sometimes they make voyages; but M. Meniet’s galley, ‘Le Victorieux,’ has not as yet been engaged in active service.”
“Tell us all you know of him, dear René,” said Annette, eagerly, and with changing color.
René hesitated a moment. Little Claude, standing at his knee, was listening, open-eared, and with large eyes full of wonder, to the tidings of his father, the galley slave. Was it well that the child should hear all? It was well. He would but honor that father the more for weakness which made manifest in him the strength of Christ.
“Dear mother,” he said, gently, “I will not hide from you aught of what M. Meniet has told me. He says all this came upon him first as a fearful, unexpected, stunning blow. Never once had he dreamed such a lot might be his. ‘I followed Christ at a distance,’ he said to me. ‘I thought to live in ease and comfort, and to die among my own people―but they compelled me to bear his cross.’ And the cross was heavy. During the first days of imprisonment at Vernoux, he had well-nigh fainted beneath it. But God, who comforteth them that are cast down, comforted him by what he calls ‘that blessed journey to Montpellier.’ Even yet he can scarcely speak of it; nor can I. You can guess how one, already almost in heaven, ministered tenderly to his suffering brother, whose lot, he always said, was far more painful than his own. And then, like the prophet of old when he saw his master taken up, M. Meniet felt as though he too could do wonders in the same strength. The hardships of the long march with the ‘chain’ of convicts to Toulon―(mother, I need not describe them; you already know too much) were all endured in this brave and cheerful spirit. But the clouds returned after the rain. The first weeks on the galley were hard to bear. ‘It was not the bodily suffering,’ he said. ‘The iron that entered into my soul was the companionship of degraded criminals―the oaths, the blasphemies with which the benches resounded.’ He could not use the coarse fare given him; his health failed; he longed for death, and thought it not far distant. But God had not forsaken him. Not all at once, but gradually, He sent him help from the Sanctuary, and strengthened him out of Zion. Some of our friends provided wholesome food for the body, and words of comfort for the sinking heart. His health improved, he became inured to the hardships of his lot, and custom enabled him to withdraw his mind from the sights and rounds around him. When I first saw him he was growing used to handle the oar. The comité of his galley is called a hard man; yet while raining blows on all the rest, he never strikes a Huguenot; for he says that, if they must go to hell, it is only fair to allow them as much comfort as they can have in this world.”
Annette’s murmured “Thank God” came from depths of pain and patience, only to be fathomed by those who know all she knew of the horrors often endured by the Protestant galley slaves.
René resumed, more cheerfully, “M. Meniet has recently been made ‘vogue.’”
“What is that?” asked Claude, whose attention had never flagged.
“Captain of his oar. He sits on the top bench, and has therefore the longest pull; but he is allowed many small indulgences, such as leave to go on shore, and to buy his own provisions and those of his companions. You may be sure, madame, that his strength is quite restored, or he could not keep the post.”
“God be praised for his mercy and his truth shown to his suffering servant,” Annette said, gently. “But René, you did not deny that you had heavy tidings. Whence are they?”
“From the forests of Gabre, whence heavy tidings have so often come to us of late.”
Annette grew pale. “The pastor―the brave young Grenier de Barmont?” she questioned, with breathless anxiety.
“Safe still, thank God; and still ministering, with undiminished zeal to all the churches of Foix. Doubtless the prayers of his father, Christ’s noble confessor at the galleys, are heard in his behalf. But a young man, who was acting as his messenger, has been arrested lately, and proves to be a friend of ours―Jean Desjours.”
Every one started. Madame Larachette was the first to speak.
“And what brought him there?” she asked, very naturally.
“The hope of finding concealment and occupation in the manufactories of our brethren, the glass makers of Foix. He was arrested under a feigned name; but, unfortunately he thought it right to confess all when examined by the Intendant of Auch, who has had him transferred to Montpellier, to the jurisdiction of M. Lenain. But he is absent now, so that there must be at least some delay.”
“And what, think you, will be―the end?” asked Annette, very anxiously.
“I cannot tell, mother. I fear the worst,” René answered, sadly.
Annette was greatly moved. “Oh, René! can nothing be done for him? —nothing?” she murmured, with quivering lips.
“Dear mother, I mean to try. That is the secret of my haste today. I must go to Genouilhac, and see Pasteur Roux. His permission gained, I will ride night and day to Montpellier, seek out M. de Chantal, and implore him to use his influence with the Intendant, and save a brave man from suffering for―what he at least will account―a very generous and pardonable error.”
“How will you get a horse?” asked Claude, much interested.
“M. Brissac will gladly lend one for such a service.”
“Then,” said Annette, rising, “you must take food at once. I ought to have thought of it before.”
“I have interrupted your worship,” said René.
“Mercy before sacrifice, my son.”
While she set bread, meat, and wine upon the table Madeleine whispered a word to Claude.
“Look, René,” said the child; “I can run to the village, and ask M. Brissac for the horse for you. He will send it to the rye-field comer, where the path strikes off for Genouilhac, and that will save you two or three miles.”
“An excellent plan!” cried René, well pleased. “Brave boy, Claude! Run thy quickest, my son.”
Madeleine fetched his cap, and his mother cautioned him not to tell his errand to any save the Brissacs. He was gone in a moment, and René was enabled by this arrangement to enjoy at his leisure the refreshment he greatly needed. Annette would have had him indulge in an hour’s sleep; but of this he would not hear. He ate and drank with the keen appetite of youth and health, then joined his friends in a brief prayer, took an affectionate farewell of them, and started on his journey.
“Am I too late?” he asked anxiously as he rode along by rye field and chestnut grove.