Chapter 3.
Roger’s First Visit to Dauphine.
IN the year 1708, Jacques Roger returned to France, and commenced his labors in the Master’s service in Dauphine.
This province had peculiar attractions for him, having from the very first ever gladly welcomed any who preached the pure faith.
The largest and most flourishing assemblies of France were to be found there, before the revocation of the edict of Nantes. It needs not therefore to be said that Dauphine had become a special target for the adversaries of the truth, and that that district gives a long page to the martyrology of those times. Many of the most marked men among the Protestants suffered violent and terrible deaths, whilst others were sent to the galleys of the king.
Those who know not what this latter implies may think that it was a far more merciful punishment than the former; it was, in reality, in most cases, a worse fate, being a more lingering death. Commonly the journey to Marseilles alone, where the most important galleys were stationed, carried off three-fourths of the unhappy captives, through the terrible hardships they had to undergo on the way.
One who accomplished this frightful journey writes: “They chained us by the neck in couples, with a thick chain, three feet long, in the middle of which was a round ring. After having thus chained us, they placed us all in file, couple behind couple, and then they passed a long and thick chain through all these rings, so that we were thus all chained together. One chain made a very long file, for we were about four hundred.” So the weary troop moved on, each wretched man carrying a burden of fifty pounds weight of chains, often on bleeding, fractured limbs, until death would mercifully end the sufferings of many, and deliver them from a further life of torture.
The writer continues to describe one of their halting places: “It is a large dungeon, or rather spacious cellar, furnished with huge beams of oak, placed at the distance of about three feet apart. To these beams thick iron chains are attached, one and a half feet in length, and two feet apart, and at the end of these chains is an iron collar. When the wretched galley-slaves arrive in this dungeon, they are made to lie half down, so that their heads may rest upon the beam; then this collar is put round their necks, closed, and riveted on an anvil with heavy blows of a hammer. These chains being two feet apart, and the beams generally about forty feet long, twenty men are chained to them in file. This cellar, which is round, is so large that in this way they can chain up as many as five hundred.
“There is nothing so dreadful as to behold the attitude and posture of these wretches there chained. They cannot lie down at full length, the beam upon which their heads is fixed being too high; neither can they sit, not stand upright, the beam being too low.
I cannot better describe the posture of such a man than by saying he is half lying, half sitting-part of his body being on the stones or flooring, the other part upon this beam The three days and three nights, which we were obliged to pass in this cruel situation, so racked our bodies and all our limbs, that we could not longer have survived it―especially our poor old men, who cried on every moment that they were dying, and that they had no more strength to endure this horrible anguish.”
To those who survived this terrible journey a life, or more frequently a death, of slow torture began. Each poor victim was chained for both day and night, to a bench of a galley which he was condemned to row as long as his strength held out; when it failed, and he sank from exhaustion, he would be cruelly punished with the bastinado. Many a saint of God, whose physical force could bear this rigorous treatment, toiled on through long years, scorched by heat or frozen by cold drenched with rain or snow, barely clothed and but scantily nourished by the detestable food, which the stomach often refused to digest.
The few who were robust enough to live through these manifold trials, and who a length were liberated, and allowed to return to home and friends, would, in most cases, do so as mere bloodless skeletons, often so shattered in mind that they were but harmless, light-brained men, utterly incapable of again facing the battle of life. Most of them would soon after sink into their graves, through inability to again assimilate wholesome food; liberty thus carrying off those whom captivity had spared.
While the church of Rome displayed this diabolical ingeniousness in torturing the men of God, the Christian women were not treated with much more leniency by her. Although exempt from the galleys, death in many cruel forms, or imprisonment, was freely dealt out to any who fell into her clutches. Seeking strength from God in their weakness, these heroic women bravely laid down their lives for the Lord, refusing to abjure the faith they held so dear― “not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.” We cannot refrain from mentioning one of these by name, Louise Moulin de Beaufort. Condemned to be hung before the door of her own house, for having there assembled herself with the people of God, she entreated, as a great favor, to be allowed once more to suckle the infant at her breast. This being granted her, the young mother tenderly nursed her babe for the last time; then, committing it to God, she calmly mounted the scaffold, and died triumphantly, praising Him with her last breath.
But the Christians of France though persecuted, were not conquered, though cast down, were not destroyed, and all the darts of the enemy were blunted by the shield of faith.
Harrowing tales of martyrdom, and also sorrowful rumors of the deep spiritual need of the devoted people of Dauphine, reaching the ears of Roger in his exile, alike served to arouse in his heart an intense desire to share their sufferings, and to pasteurize their souls, and decided him in his choice of that province for his field of labor.
He was well alive to the danger he thus ran, to the prospect of a life of persecution, suffering and trial; to the probability of a violent death at the hands of those who hated Christ. But he had fully counted the cost, and, in the strength of the Lord, was ready to go forward, not holding his life dear unto himself. Love to the One who had laid down His life for him, a sinner, filled his soul; he gloried in the cross of Christ, and esteemed it his highest privilege to bear it after Him who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame. That cross had a mighty attractive power for Roger, causing him to count but loss all the earthly things that might have been a gain to him, and to present his body a living sacrifice unto God. Does he now regret it?
At the time that Jacques turned his steps again towards his native land, the outbreak of the Camisards had been just repressed by the iron hand of a relentless government, which had, by fire and sword, reduced fair valleys and smiling plains into one vast, howling wilderness. It was very painful to him to see such havoc made in his loved country; but more depressing still to his spirit, was the low estate of the church, which forced itself increasingly upon him, as he traveled through Dauphine, seeking out those who professed the reformed faith. Where he had formerly known of flourishing assemblies, there now remained but little better than a disorganized rabble. The Protestants still gathered together in considerable numbers; they had not fallen into the snare of the Camisard rebellion; but for lack of true pastors, as sheep having no shepherd, had become an easy prey to the false teachers who followed in its train. Devoid of true piety, these yet maintained a hold on the people by an assumption of superiority, and by high-sounding Biblical language. Foremost among them, he found a band of seven or eight women, who assumed a lofty and prophetic style of speech, and claimed to be prophetesses of the Lord, around whom, famishing souls, hungering for the word of God, assembled in masses. Two men, pretending to be prophets, named Bosméand and Jolicœur, actively supported these women, with a view to attaining their own ends, as political agitators, through their influence. Jolicœur had some years before tried to arouse in Dauphiné, a movement similar to that of the Camisards in Languedoc, and was even now secretly in correspondence with their chiefs, and presiding at species of counsels of war.
It is easy to conceive that Jacques’ arrival on the scene was anything but welcome to these leaders. He openly expressed his desire to re-establish order and godly discipline in the assemblies, and his sobriety of thought and action was utterly at variance with their wild excitement. “I wisdom dwell with prudence;” and this Roger, by the grace of God, showed in his dealings with these fanatical or false teachers. While he sought to neutralize their influence over the people of God, by insisting that the Scriptures should have paramount authority, and that all claims to prophesy should be tested by, “Thus saith the Lord,” at the same time he praised the zeal of any whom he believed to be truly seeking to serve Christ. But, although thus walking in wisdom and in grace, Roger found it hard to make headway against the tide that had set in so strongly in favor of the high-flown preaching of the prophets. A few sober-minded, aged saints, however, who remembered brighter days in bygone times, welcomed him, and gladly received his godly ministry. Having learned from God not to despise the day of small things, he rejoiced in having gained, even so far, a hearing, and took courage.
A danger from another source was now added to that of false brethren. The hatred of the Roman Catholics slumbered not, although at this time they thought to serve their ends by cunning rather than by open attack. A Jesuit, pretending to be a Protestant preacher, convoked a great conference, to which he invited all the other preachers in Dauphine, hoping thus to entrap them, and so to cause their death or imprisonment. Thus the great enemy of souls, not daring to advance at that moment with the roar of the lion against the people of God, sought to entangle them by appearing as an angel of light. This subtle design was mercifully unmasked in time to put Jacques Roger and many others on their guard, so that they absented themselves from the proposed conference. But alas! the alarm was given too late to prevent eighty of the preachers from falling into the snare. These were arrested, and imprisoned in the terrible tower of Crest, where already many of the Lord’s people were languishing in fetters.
Thus, amid manifold dangers and trials, both from within and from without, Roger began his ministry. Many of those, for whom he longed to spend himself, looked askance at him, questioning whether he also was not a wolf in sheep’s clothing; these were perilous times, and a stranger could not be received without caution. So doors were shut against him by some who yet yearned for spiritual help. But the faithful workman was not easily discouraged; believing that the Lord was with him, he toiled patiently on in any little corner of the great harvest field where the Master gave him the joy of laboring for Him. To the five or six assemblies, who ventured to receive him in the name of the Lord, he soon commended himself as a minister of God, “in much patience, by the word of truth, and by the power of God.”
Thus passed Roger’s first twelve months in France. Then awoke a great longing in his heart to visit his home, and to see the beloved parents, of whom he had had but scant tidings in the long years of his exile. Many a danger he had to encounter in making his way from Dauphine, to Languedoc, but, impelled by filial affection, he pressed on. The hope of soon embracing his loved ones beat high in his heart as he neared his destination, when, to his dismay, on approaching Nimes, he found further progress impossible, every road and path way being strongly guarded by detachments of soldiers. The restless Camisards, had again made a disturbance in the neighborhood which had led to this renewed display of armed power on the side of the government.
Not only did Roger now find his purpose hopelessly frustrated, but also himself in terrible peril. He had evidently aroused the suspicions of the enemy, by whom he was surrounded, and his liberty, perhaps his life hung in the balance. No way of escape wan! possible. Acting on the impulse of the moment, he rapidly took a step which secured his safety, but which does not commend itself to our minds as being of God. He felt that not a minute was to be lost, and in his dilemma, quick as thought, adopted the only solution that presented itself―the Protestant preacher joins the ranks of the enemy, enrolling himself as a volunteer in the army of him who was styled “le vainqueur de l’hérésie!” This audacious step but partially served his purpose. With lurking suspicions as to the true character of his volunteer, the commanding officer put him under arrest, until he could be brought before the Duke of Roquelaure, governor of Languedoc.
Roger was closely questioned by the duke as to his reasons for being so long in foreign lands, and as to the motive for his return to France. It was well for him that the governor had heard no rumors of his work in Dauphine, which would have at once utterly condemned him. As it was, Roger simply acknowledged that he had been some little time at Geneva, and was able to avoid giving any further account of himself or his doings. The duke, but ill-satisfied with the result of the cross-examination, sent the new recruit away to a regiment in the Ile-de-France.
The months that followed were months of much trial and much annoyance to Jacques, reaping among ungodly comrades, in a position that was utterly distasteful to him, the fruits of his hasty step. After a while his regiment was removed to Savoy, and finding himself once more in the vicinity of his old haunts, he managed to affect his escape, and hastened back to the loved scene of his labors.