“The bride eyes not her garment,
But her dear bridegroom’s face;
I will not look on glory,
But on my King of grace:
Not on the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced hand;
The Lamb is all the glory
Of Immanuel’s land.”
IT was a simple, pure, laborious life that the Cévennol peasants led in those days. If the English poet had sought out their lonely mountain huts he would scarcely have given utterance to the complaint that “plain living and high thinking are no more.” Yet they rarely felt the bitter extremities of hunger. They had few luxuries, except the assembly, the prêche, and the chanted psalm (costly ones, it is true, for them); but they had always enough and to spare of rye bread, or chestnuts boiled in milk, whilst famine after famine swept like desolating floods over the fertile plains of their native land. Literally, the persecuted Cévennol “dwelt on high; his place of defense was the munition of rocks: bread was given him, and his water was sure.”
The pleasant hum of the bees came in through the open door of the Elder’s cottage, as it used to do long ago at the farmhouse of Mazel; for Annette had brought a colony of these busy little workers from her old home, and was very skillful and successful in their management. Farther off, the tinkle of the sheep bells from the hills was faintly heard. Within, Madame Larachette sat in her armchair, carding wool; Annette was at the spinning wheel, and Madeleine moved about preparing supper. The young girl’s brown hair looked golden in the evening light; but it would have been well if she had borrowed also some of the roses from the sunset clouds, for her cheek was pale and her face anxious. She stepped very softly from place to place; for the busy whir of her mother’s wheel had ceased, and Annette was leaning back in her chair, overcome by the brief fitful slumber of weariness. And while she slumbered, a look of rest that Madeleine loved to see stole over her worn features. Their expression was not sad―there was no pain, no trouble there; but it was that of one who had borne the burden and heat of the day―a long, hard day of toil and care.
Suddenly a clear, sweet, childish voice came ringing up the path, and filling the evening air with many a birdlike trill and quaver:
“A robe of glory splendid
I shall with joy put on,
When the battle here has ended
And the victory is won.”
So much of little Claude’s song had reached his sister’s ears ere she could hasten to the open door and silence him by a gesture.
And thus Annette was awakened from a happy dream of a crystal sea, flushed rose-red by the sunset sky, and of one tall, stately ship, with white glistening sails, lying becalmed on its bosom. Unconsciously she murmured half aloud the words which had suggested the dream, and which her slumbering fancy had warped from their literal meaning, “The glorious Lord shall be unto her a place of broad rivers and streams, wherein shall go no galley with oars.” It was a trait that mingled in all Annette’s visions of the happy land, there shall go “no galley with oars.” But presently awakening fully to the things around her, she inquired, “Is that Claude?―I am glad he has come home so early.”
Claude bounded in, kissed his mother, and put into her hand a little bag of silver. He had been trusted, for the first time, to go alone to Neyrac, a neighboring village, to sell some yarn, and he was very proud of his independence and his success. Annette praised his diligence, and asked if he was tired. “Oh no, mother,” he said. “It has been a grand day. Every one was so good to me. And I learned a new song; such a glorious one! Let me sing it for you.”
“We can wait for it till thou hast had thy supper, my child. Madeleine, are the chestnuts ready?”
“Yes, mother; quite.” She laid on the board the smoking dish that contained their evening meal―fare much more wholesome and nourishing than artificial and highly-seasoned food. But Claude did more ample justice to it than anyone else that night.
Still, it was hard to keep silence about his song until supper was over, and thanks were gravely returned by Annette. Noticing his eagerness, she opened the subject herself: “How didst thou find time to learn a song today?” she asked.
“I was waiting a long time for M. Mericourt to come home and pay me for the yam,” he said. “His daughters gave me my dinner, and then they sat working, and singing at their work. When I knew what they sang I made them teach it to me. Not all―for it is long; but all the grand part at the end. Listen, mother, and grandmother, and Madeleine!” The child’s clear treble rang through the cottage:
“‘Grieve not for me,’ said Lubac,
‘Nor be my fate deplored―’”
But the hearts of his hearers thrilled with emotion, which the little singer had no power to comprehend.
“Hush” said Annette. The word was spoken very gently; but her check flushed and faded, and flushed again, with intense feeling. She drew the boy to her side, and passed her arm round him. “Claude,” she whispered, “who is it they call ‘Lubac’?”
Claude’s bold, handsome face assumed its best and softest Look as he answered, “Mother, I know. He held me in his arms.”
“Do not sing. Say the words low and reverently, like holy words.”
The child obeyed; and, scarcely understanding either the sorrow or the triumph that breathed in them, repeated the noble words which sprang fresh from the heart of some unknown peasant poet of Languedoc a hundred years ago:
“‘Grieve not for me,’ said Lubac,
‘Nor be my fate deplored;
No more I fear What waits me here,
My Shepherd is the Lord.
He is my portion ever;
In Him will I confide;
My hope that faileth never,
My Rock in which I hide.
“Awake, my soul! take courage!
Behold, this very day
He bids thee burst thy bondage
And soar to Him away;
Away―where round thee, thrilling,
Heaven’s symphonies ascend;
The heart with rapture filling,
‘Mid glory without end.
“With holy angels joining
In concert thou wilt sing;
Thy voice with theirs combining
To praise the eternal King.
A robe of glory splendid
Thou wilt with joy put on,
When the battle here has ended
And the victory is won.
“Then come, my heart, awaken!
The fated hour has come;
With constancy unshaken,
Prepare to meet thy doom.
Go forth with zeal anointed,
Look up with steadfast gaze;
That scaffold is appointed
Thy soul to heaven to raise!’
While archer-guards surround him,
To meet his fate he comes,
And loudly thunder round him
Twice seven resounding drums.
With impotent endeavor
To shake his mind they try;
Serene and calm as ever
Goes Lubac forth to die!
“And now upon the scaffold
The noble martyr stands;
And to the King of heaven
Lifts up his eyes and hands.
The ladder set before him
He mounts without dismay,
And to meet the angels o’er him
His spirit soars away.
“‘Twas thus our faithful Pastor
Fulfilled his honoured course,
And found beside his Master
True joy’s eternal source.
How blessed is thy portion!
How perfect is thy rest!
What tongue can tell the joys that dwell
In the country, of the blest!
“Cease then your lamentation,
True Protestants each one,
Nor mourn in desolation
For the loved one who is gone.
No longer grieve for Lubac,
Nor be his fate deplored;
No wish nor fear disturbs him here―
His portion is the Lord!
“His memory will fine us
To emulate his zeal;
His ardor will inspire us
As long as hearts can feel.
And if through tribulations
God seeks our strength to try,
With Lubac’s faith and patience
Oh may we live and die!”
It is easy to imagine the effect of verses such as these, said or sung at their firesides or in their proscribed assemblies, by those who could say of the martyrs they commemorate, “He held me in his arms;” “He baptized me;” or, “He taught me the truths he died for.”
Claude’s bright young face glowed with enthusiasm; for what a child’s intellect can scarce apprehend a child’s heart can feel to its depths. Madame Larachette and Madeleine were weeping; but Annette seemed the least moved of all. “Yes, Claude,” she said at length, “those words are beautiful. But they are not his words.”
Claude looked surprised and disappointed; and Madeleine said, through her tears, “Surely now, dear mother, he hears the angels’ song―he wears the ‘robe of glory splendid.’”
“He does, my child. But I doubt if, even yet, he has given it one look, for the joy of gazing on the face of Christ. Not the glory, or the victory, or the angels’ song, but Christ Himself was ‘all his salvation, and all his desire.’” Annette’s pale cheek was dyed now with a crimson flush, and her face had the look it wore on the day of Chantal’s visit.
No change in that face escaped the anxious eyes of Madeleine. “Dear mother,” she said, “you have been weary all day; and we rose early, you remember? May we not have prayer, and go to rest?”
“Yes, my child. Bring the Bible, and we will read together those words of the Psalmist: ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.’”
As Madeleine heard the words, a pang of apprehension, keen though unconfessed, shot through her heart. There was that in them which seemed far more true of her who uttered them on earth, than of him who knew all their blessed meaning now in heaven.
But meanwhile there lay forgotten, in the pocket of Claude’s little blouse, a cordial of stronger efficacy to restore the failing heart of the wife and mother than any that could have been prescribed even by the celebrated physicians of Montpellier.