sip iBBB 



God\> Wonderful Work 

IN FRANCE. 



f|od'd ifonderM Igork 



IN FRANCE. 



AN INTRODUCTION 

OF THE 

DEPUTATION FROM THE PROTESTANTS OF FRANCE 

TO 

THE AMERICAN CHURCHES. 

BY REV. LEOHARD W. BACOH. 



PUBLISHED FOR THE 

SPECIAL COMMISSION ON THE WORK OF THE DEPUTATION 

BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

I50 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2014 



https://archive.org/details/godswonderfulworOObaco 




CHAPTER I. 

The Beginning of the Great Work in France. Paul Bouchard 
and his Letter to the Bishop page 

CHAPTER II. 

M. Eugene Reveillaud and his Pamphlet 



CHAPTER III. 

Notable Accessions to Protestantism. Renouvier and Pillon 
and the "Critique Philosophique." Francisque Sarcey. 
In Belgium, Laveleye and Frere-Orban. Jules Favre, 
and the Funeral at Versailles 

CHAPTER IV. 

The "CEuvre des Conferences." The Marks of a Divine 
Work. The Dawn of Religious Liberty. Protestant- 
ism in the Government. Protestant Worship in the 
Palace of Versailles. A Week's Work of the "Con- 
ferences." A Letter to Republican Peasants. A Two 
Hundred Years' Retrospect - 



4 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 
The McAll Mission. A brief Survey by Dr. Horatius Bonar- 43 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Deputation to America. France the great Mission Field 
of the World, to-day. The Three Societies. M. 
Reveillaud's Farewell. The Commission 51 



PRINCETON 

God's Wonderful Work 




IN FRANCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Beginning of the Great Work in France. 
Paul Bouchard and his Letter to the 
Bishop. 

About the beginning of the year 1877, there was 
printed in many newspapers of France a letter of very 
unusual tenor, addressed by Monsieur Paul Bouchard, 
a former Mayor of the city of Beaune, to the Bishop of 
Dijon, in whose diocese he lives. The letter is brief 
and tells its own story so plainly that we transcribe it 
in full : 

"Beaune, Dec. 31, 1876 
"To the Lord Bishop of Dijon. 
" My Lord : I have the honor to present the following 
declaration to you who are the only person qualified, as head 
of the diocese, to receive it. 

" From day to day we are accustomed to see funeral pro- 
cessions attended to the last resting place by the Catholic 
priest, with the mortal remains of men who have held them- 



6 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



selves aloof from the Catholic church, or have even been its 
open enemies, the greater part of their lives. 

" In these circumstances, the church, to justify its taking 
part, claims that these men, having been born within its pale, 
and having been married and having had their children bap- 
tized by a priest, have continued to be Catholics, notwith- 
standing all their open declarations to the contrary. 

" In fact, in view of acts of such grave import on their 
part, how can these men be released from their engagements 
except by another act, of a clear, decisive, unmistakable 
character ? 

" Such an act, my lord, is that of public abjuration ; and it 
is upon this that I have resolved, in order to extricate myself 
from the uneasy and false position in which I have already 
continued quite too long. I have resolved on this step, 
further, in order to fulfil a duty which rests on me as a loyal 
and conscientious man. 

" I declare, therefore, that I abjure Catholicism and trans- 
fer my adhesion to Protestantism, which I regard as the only 
deliverance for our country from the dangers which threaten 
it from every quarter. 

" I am, my lord, with deep respect, 

"PAUL BOUCHARD." 

This letter is notable for its contents, its author, 
and its consequences. 

It will be observed that the main motives expressed 
in it are, first, consistency, and secondly, patriotism — 
motives altogether respectable in themselves, but not 
the highest that could be named for an act of so grave 
a religious import. But how great an advance did it 
imply from the position which up to that date the writer 
had held in common with thousands — say rather, with 



PAUL BOUCHARD'S LETTER. 



1 



hundreds of thousands — of his fellow-citizens. To 
consent, sometimes with the outward show of respect, 
sometimes with open scoffs, that one's name and influ- 
ence and example shall be associated with a system of 
beliefs and ceremonies which is inwardly renounced 
and despised; to permit one's self to be officially 
reckoned among the adherents of a church which is the 
avowed enemy of the institutions and liberties of his 
country — such has been and is the miserably false 
position of the average French liberal and republi- 
can. The act of M. Bouchard, though not the utter- 
ance of a Christian faith, nor even of an intellectual 
conviction of religious truth, was a worthy and honor- 
able act. He wished to renounce allegiance to the 
Roman church, the enemy of the republic; and the only 
effective way of doing this, under the existing laws and 
usages of France, was to declare his adhesion to the 
French National Protestant Church, which he could do 
without offence to his reason as an intelligent man, or 
his patriotism as a loyal citizen. 

The writer of the letter is a man advanced in years, 
the ex-mayor of his city (Beaune) and member of the 
Council-General of his Department (Cote d'Or). In 
the terrible days of 1870, he was the trusted friend and 
supporter of Gambetta in the organization of the na- 
tional defence. Among the little popular tracts with 
which he has followed up the letter to his bishop, 
and which are scattered by myriads among the peasant- 



8 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



ry in all parts of France, is one in the form of a 
" Letter to L£on Gambetta," the concluding page of 
which clearly indicates his position. He addresses the 
great tribune of the people, the Mirabeau of the new 
republic, with the freedom warranted by superior age 
and long-tried friendship, and reproaches him with the 
demoralizing atheism which appears in his popular 
speeches — a teaching not less perilous to France than 
that of the Romish clergy ; and he concludes thus : 

"To bring back France into the way from which, in the 
sixteenth century, she was led astray by her incapable and 
guilty rulers — to bring her over from Catholicism to Prot- 
estantism — this is what I propose. This is the only practical 
course. You, our present rulers, have no other course to 
propose. Rather, let me say, the course you are following, 
far from diminishing the existing evil, only aggravates it by 
strengthening that church which is the public enemy. 

" We are confronted by two great public evils : one is the 
idolatry which is cherished and developed by the church of 
Rome in pursuance of its principle : brutalize the people and 
so rule them. The other is the atheism which grows strong 
on the hatred of the Roman church and clergy. 

" Both are alike perilous, alike fatal. We must fight them 
both. Our duty, unless we are to perish, is to strive against 
them to the utmost of our energy. 

"There is no liberty in Romanism, for its principle is 
domination and subjection. There is none in atheism, for 
it denies God and the life to come ; it leaves us with no faith 
except in ourselves, limited to earthly wants, with no mo- 
tives but our passions and appetites, whose slaves we thus 
become. A short and easy step it is, from that point, to be- 
come the slaves of a Caesar. 



PAUL BOUCHARD'S LETTER. 



9 



" Protestantism is our only escape from Romanism ; it 
will be found to be our only escape from atheism. Deliver 
us from both, for they are our two worst enemies." 

So clearly does this experienced French politician 
apprehend the fact, so plainly does he set it before his 
countrymen, that French Romanism is the parent of 
French atheism, and that atheism, in return, drives the 
people back into Romanism. 

M. Bouchard took this step alone. He could 
hardly have foreseen that he would be followed within 
a few months by thousands of his fellow-country- 
men, from the peasant on the farm and the artisan 
in the workshop, to the highest names in statesman- 
ship and literature. Surely he did not foresee that the 
movement which began, in his own mind, from mo- 
tives of consistency and patriotism, would deepen as 
well as widen, and give every evidence, in awakened 
consciences, in repentance toward God, in faith and 
grateful love toward the Lord Jesus Christ, of the 
wonder-working presence of the Holy Spirit. 

The brief tracts of M. Bouchard, which have had 
the widest currency in France of late, are these five : 

1. Simple Letter of a Burgundian to the people of 
his own little city. 

2. Voluntary Slavery. 

3. God and Native Land. Addressed to women. 

4. Letter to Leon Gambetta. 

5. Romanism and the Republic. 

God's Work in France. 2 



io GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



CHAPTER II. 

M. Eugene Reveillaud and his Pamphlet. 

" This pamphlet is not a work of faith, though it 
is a work of good faith." Such is the opening sen- 
tence of a remarkable publication which is circulating 
to the number of many thousands in all parts of 
France, and which represents the new religious move- 
ment to the minds of thoughtful and studious persons, 
as the pungent little tracts of M. Paul Bouchard 
represent it to the common people, the peasants, and 
the artisans. If the ecclesiastical historian of a future 
generation, continuing into a new era the thrilling 
story of French Protestantism, shall have occasion to 
tell how in the latter part of the nineteenth century 
" the grand nation " passed over from the list of papal 
countries to that of Protestant countries, and to tell of 
the instrumentalities that concurred in this momentous 
work, he will have to ascribe no small share in it to 
the pamphlet of 144 pages, i2mo, the first important 
work of a young lawyer and journalist, Eugene Revei- 
llaud, entitled " The Religious Question and the Prot- 
estant Solution." 



RE l EILLA UD A ND HIS PA MPHLE T. 1 1 

" It is not a work of faith, though it is a work of good 
faith. The writer is not a believer, though he would fain be 
one. He belongs to no church. Born and educated in the 
Catholic church, he early abjured its pomps and its works. 
He is what is called a 'free-thinker.' He is one of the great 
multitude of enthusiasts for freedom of conscience, the prog- 
ress of the human mind, the honor and glory of his country. 

" His testimony for Protestantism is spontaneous and dis- 
interested. His book is not for the propagation of a creed, 
but for the preservation of society." 

So, frankly, in his preface, the young pamphleteer 
introduces the sober and weighty words, addressed 
simply to the patriotism of Frenchmen, in which he 
advises them, as the one way to deliver France from 
the moral debasement, the impoverishment, the end- 
less mischievous intrigues in which it is involved by 
existing relations to the Church of Rome and its 
clergy, to renounce that church, and at the same time, 
since no people can exist without some religion, to 
transfer themselves and their families to the communion 
of the Protestant church. 

It is honorable to the high character ot French 
Protestantism that it gave at the outset a very hesita- 
ting and scanty welcome to converts professing no 
loftier reasons for their adhesion than these reasons 
of patriotic expediency, and, to use the French ex- 
pression, " religious opportunism." Even when it 
began to enrich its rolls with such names as those 
of M. Renouvier, and M. Bouchard, and M. Jules 



12 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



Favre, the ministers ol the little " persecuted rem- 
nant " of the Huguenot church bore themselves with 
the dignity of men put in trust with the gospel, and 
declared boldly in sermon and pamphlet that join- 
ing one's self to the Protestant party did not make 
one a Protestant ; that this required the sincere con- 
viction of the heart, and the work of the Spirit of God. 
And they grew more faithful in setting forth the truths 
of the gospel, as held by Protestant Christians, before 
the minds that had been awakened by the appeals of 
M. Reveillaud and M. Bouchard. 

The work of God's Spirit, to which the pastors 
appealed, was not long in becoming manifest. In July, 
1878, four months after the pamphlet of Reveillaud 
had begun to waken the thoughts of French patriots, 
there occurred one Sunday, in the Protestant meeting- 
house of the city of Troyes, a startling and thrilling 
incident, the story of which, as told by the pastor of 
the church himself, we condense from " L'Ami Chre- 
tien des Families," in which it is given without men- 
tion of name or place. The pastor had been preach- 
ing on the dying vision of Stephen, and was preparing 
to dismiss the congregation, when a young man rose 
suddenly and came toward the pulpit : 

" I turned quickly, and perceived that the intelligent and 
educated young man who was coming towards me, and 
whom I well knew, desired to be heard. ' Would you suffer 
me,' he said, ' to bear witness to the Holy Ghost ?' I gave 



REVEILLAUD AND HIS PAMPHLET. 



'3 



him leave, and standiug before the communion table below 
the pulpit he spoke nearly as follows : 

" My brethren, I desire to bear witness to the Holy Ghost, 
and to declare, with our pastor, that there is an invisible and 
supernatural world, not known by the senses, but apprehend- 
ed by faith and heavenly grace. Last night it pleased the 
Holy Spirit to reveal himself to me and give me that baptism 
in which, according to the promise of the Scriptures, we be- 
come the children of the Father and joint-heirs with Jesus 
Christ. By this baptism I have been born again, and have 
put off the old man, with the lusts of the flesh. I feel the 
grace, the power, the love of God. I have entered into the 
invisible church of Christ. I am converted. I am saved. 

" I was the most unworthy of the children of sin and the 
world ; and when I think of my old life, so corrupt and im- 
pure, I wonder that God should deign to make choice of my 
soul for a temple of the Holy Ghost. Formerly I had noth- 
ing but a wish for good, a lively feeling of my misery, with a 
vague, indefinite desire to make my peace with God, and 
enjoy his favor. I remember that some days ago I expressed 
in prayer the desire that God would bestow on me the 
grace of the Holy Spirit. I have been answered a hundred- 
fold more than I could have dared to hope. 

" I fell asleep yesterday in an atmosphere of worldly 
thoughts, and I do not remember that during the whole day 
I had once lifted up my heart to God. In the night T had a 
dream. I thought that I was arguing with a Catholic lady. 
She said to me: ' Yours is no religion ; you believe nothing.' 
' What !' said I, still in my dream, ' believe nothing ? On the 
contrary, we have the same creed with the Catholics ;' and I 
went on to repeat to her the Apostles' Creed — ' I believe in 
God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and 
in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,' etc. I continued 
thus, in my dream, making an effort, sometimes, to remem- 
ber the words, and my conviction of their truth grew stronger 



14 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



as I proceeded. I came to that part of the creed ' From 
thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead,' when 
it seemed as if the earth quaked, and a gulf opened, and the 
stars fell from heaven— as if the last day had come. The 
impression was instantaneous, and I expected to be swal- 
lowed up in the universal convulsion, when I remembered 
the part of the creed I had recited the moment before, ' I be- 
lieve in the Holy Ghost.' At this moment it seemed that I 
was set beyond the open gulf, and that the Holy Ghost took 
possession of me. 'Saved!' I thought to myself, and I 
repeated, as if to reassure myself of my salvation, ' I believe ; 
yes, I believe in the Holy Ghost.' 

" From that moment I had the assurance that I was no 
longer dreaming. What followed might have seemed an 
hallucination, had I not tested it thoroughly, and found it to 
be the conviction of a waking man whose pulse was calm, 
I counted it repeatedly, and who was fully conscious of his 
own personality — knowing himself to be in his room, and 
perceiving, when he opened his eyes, the light of dawn 
creeping through the windows. 

"As I repeated, still under the influence of the dream 
and the vision, ' I believe — I believe in the Holy Ghost,' a 
tender emotion filled my whole being. I had from this mo- 
ment the persuasion that the Holy Spirit had come to me. 
I had a perfect feeling of happiness and a most lively im- 
pression of the infinitude of the love of God. I repeated the 
Apostles' Creed from the beginning, and a new meaning 
seemed to shine out from it and make all its assertions self- 
evidencing. I was full of deep emotion. I was filled with 
a rushing flood of divine love. It is impossible to express 
in words my experience, and the happiness it brought . . . 

" I owe to you, my brethren, members with me of this Chris- 
tian church, the first expression of my new-born and living 
faith. Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will 
toward men ! Christ has come to redeem us, to save us, to 



REVEILLA I'D AND HIS PAMPHLET. 



'5 



bear the burden of our sins, to be our ransom before the 
Father. Christ reigns and has fellowship with us by the 
Holy Spirit. Oh, love the Lord Jesus ; love God, that God 
may work his work in you, that you may be filled with the 
grace of the Spirit, and thus may have peace and the com- 
munion of the Holy Ghost, joy of heart, and assurance of 
eternal life." 

The utterer of this remarkable confession was none 
other than Eugene Re'veillaud, the brilliant young ad- 
vocate and journalist who four months before had said, 
at the opening of his book, " The writer is not a be- 
liever, though he fain would be one." With such an 
anointing has he been set apart to the work of a leader 
of his people out of darkness and confusion into the 
light of the gospel. 

M. Reveillaud is a young man, not yet thirty 
years old. Born and bred a Catholic, devoted to the 
priesthood by a pious mother, his conscience early 
revolted from the teachings of the "petit se'minat're." 
He pursued the course of college education with high 
honor, winning the prize for rhetoric in the " general 
competition" among the grammar schools of all France, 
and entered at once on the study of law, in which he 
took his degree, but never has practised as an advocate 
except in political trials and " press trials " in which he 
has been involved as a journalist. For he was early 
drawn into the career of journalism. At the age of 
twenty-one he was chief editor of the "The Taxpayer" 
{Le Contribuable), and after that, in succession, of sev- 



1 6 GOD'S WONDERF UL WORK IX FRANCE. 



eral leading provincial papers of France. But from 
January, 1879, he has devoted all his strength and tal- 
ents, by pen and tongue, to the evangelization of France. 
He is one of the foremost of the men who, in every 
part of France, in theatres, in ballrooms, in barns, 
wherever a company can be gathered, are addressing 
eager multitudes on liberty and the gospel of Christ. 
And his little weekly newspaper, " Le Signal," is the 
organ and chronicler of this greatest movement in the 
religious history of our generation. 

A brief abstract of the notable pamphlet of Revei- 
llaud sounds the opening note of the march in which 
France is moving forward — the key-note, we were 
about to say; but it must be remembered that this 
pamphlet was written from a merely secular point of 
view, and that, beginning with such tones as these, the 
movement soon modulates into a higher and nobler key. 

The progress of society (says the writer) revolves 
I about three pivotal questions — the social question, the 
political, the religious. Of these, in the France of to- 
day, only the latter remains to be settled; and about 
this all the antagonist forces of the nation are engaged. 
The two parties are the party of the priesthood, on the 
one hand, identified with " the defeated parties," royal- 
ist and imperialist ; and on the other hand liberalism, 
which, being resolved to stand by human rights and 
the Republic, is placed in necessary hostility to the 
priesthood and its allies. 



REVEILLAUD AND HIS PAMPHLET. 



17 



We are forced to make against clericalism this in- 
dictment : 

It is a peril to civil society. 
It is a peril to the individual. 
It is a peril to the family. 

It is a peril to all the interests of France, whose 
backward position in the ranks of civilized na- 
tions is due solely to its subjection to the Roman 
clergy. 

This is the substance of the first chapter. The 
point of it is the necessity of a religious reformation. 

The second chapter opens by anticipating an objec- 
tion : " Why have any religion at all ? Is it not enough 
to have a good, sensible philosophy ?" 

No. If this had been enough, clericalism would 
have been driven to the wall long ago. The experi- 
ment has been thoroughly tried in France for eighty 
years, and has failed. The power of the priesthood 
tends to increase, and the superstitions of the Roman 
church grow worse and worse. No doubt atheism in 
its various forms — materialism, pantheism, positivism — 
has advanced and spread ; but the bota-geoisie — the 
bulk of the well-to-do citizens — have a horror and 
dread of atheism, and by this very fact are impelled to 
support the only church they know of; and so super- 
stition is made fashionable. 

" Man cannot live by bread alone." All his higher 
cravings are famished when he attempts to subsist only 

Gii'8 Woik in Fran' e. -5 



1 8 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



on what he can find in atheism. And the writer pro- 
ceeds to a brief retrospect of the various experiments 
that have been made in France to construct a substi- 
tute for religion without the basis of a divine revela- 
tion. 

France cannot live without religion. The only 
hope of a religion for France is in reforming her pres- 
ent religion, not in inventing a new one. 

"Jesus planted his standard so high above all earthly ho- 
rizons, that all mankind may take refuge beneath its folds. 
And if the shadow of his cross, extending over the earth, has 
caused to spring up nothing but virtues — a law of love and 
of human brotherhood — who would not be proud to be called 
by the name of Christian ? 

" But, some one will say, ' We have seen the very reverse 
of this — what outrages committed, what massacres ordered, 
in the name of Christ and for the interests of religion !' We 
answer that Christ must not be confounded with the church 
of Rome. The excesses and crimes of every kind, the Saint 
Bartholomews and the Dragonnades, were not committed by 
Christianity, but were the result of that regime of priestcraft 
which has prevailed, to the misery of the ages, in the organi- 
zation of the Roman church. 

" No, Christianity is not to be annihilated. Nothing is 
destroyed unless its place is supplied by something else. 
Catholicism may be cast out by Christianity, but the gospel 
will not be suppressed until something else shall have been 
found to take the place of it. 

"Let us then remain Christians, and snatch from the 
hands of our enemies the standard of Christ which they have 
usurped and dishonored. Let us take their motto for our 
own, "Hoc signo vinces!" We shall never make a better 



REVEILLAUD AND HIS PAMPHLET. 19 



fight against clericalism than by borrowing from the gospel 
the scourge with which Jesus drove the money-changers 
from the temple, and the rebukes with which he stigmatized 
the scribes and Pharisees." 

Chapter third is entitled " The Fruits of Protestant- 
ism," and exhibits, in startling figures, mainly taken 
from Laveleye, the Belgian publicist, the growing de- 
cadence of the Catholic nations of Europe as compared 
with their Protestant competitors. Two centuries ago 
the unquestioned supremacy of Europe was with the 
Catholic powers. The others were all second-class 
powers. Now the predominance is completely the 
other way. In 1700, France represented 31 per cent, 
of the strength of Europe; now it represents 15 per 
cent. 

What is Protestantism ? In the discussion of this 
question, the writer draws a clear and intelligent con- 
trast between it and its antagonist system, and shows 
where is the " hiding of its power " of uplifting and in- 
vigorating nations. 

He goes on to speak of the work of the Reforma- 
tion in public worship, in the family, in the school, in 
the ministry ; of the gospel and democracy ; and of the 
reasons why the French revolution has never achieved 
a settled and good result. 

Chapter fourth is devoted to certain popular ob- 
jections to the course proposed. And Chapter fifth 
and last, to the question, " Is it absurd to expect 



2c GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



France to change from Catholic to Protestant ?" 
And he recounts the forces, natural and supernatu- 
ral, that are cooperating to that end, and the progress 
already accomplished — so remarkable even in 1878, 
but so little then in comparison with what was about 
to be. 



ACCESSIONS TO PROTESTANTISM. 



CHAPTER III. 

Notable Accessions to Protestantism. Renou- 
vier and plllon and the " critique philoso- 
phique." Francisque Sarcey. In Belgium, 
Laveleye and Frere-Orban. Jules Favre, 
and the Funeral at Versailles. 

"There is Protestantism in the air" was the 
recent exclamation of a leading French journalist. 
How completely it is justified by the facts, will be 
indicated by a few names of persons who have lately 
renounced their connection with Romanism and enrolled 
themselves as Protestants. 

Simultaneously with the appearance of Reveillaud's 
pamphlet, there sounded out from a strange quarter — 
from Avignon, the old residence of the popes — a like 
voice in the pages of one of the foremost Reviews of 
France. The "Critique Philosophique " is a monthly 
Review of politics and literature, but especially of phil- 
osophy, in which its editor, M. Renouvier, and his 
assistant, M. Pillon, have won deserved eminence. 
So earnestly did these weighty writers undertake the 
cause of Protestantism, that they added to their 
monthly Review a quarterly supplement, entitled "La 
Critique Religieuse," devoted to religious discussion 



22 GOD'S WONDERFUL IVORK IX FRA.VCE. 



and to the promotion of the new Protestant move- 
ment. 

Just before the Reveillaud pamphlet, appeared a 
notable article in the " Dix-neuvieme Siecle," from the 
pen of Francisque Sarcey, one of the most influential 
liberal writers in France, in which he advises all lovers 
of their country, rationalists, indifferentists, skeptics, 
and Christians who are simply Christians and nothing 
else, to register themselves officially as belonging to 
the Protestant community. 

In the " Eglise Libre" oi May, 1877, appeared the 
following announcement : " M. Turquet, Republican 
member of the Chamber of Deputies from the de- 
partment of the Aisne, has joined the Protestant church 
with his family. We learn that his example is to be 
followed by an entire village." 

Simultaneously with this spontaneous movement in 
France arose a like movement in the neighboring and 
most Catholic country of Belgium. About the begin- 
ning of 1S77, Count Goblet d'Alvielle published in the 
" Revue de Belgique " an article which made no small 
stir, entitled "Altar over against Altar; or Practical 
Means of propagating the Reformation in Belgium." 

But the work which has made the deepest impres- 
sion, not only in Belgium, but wherever the French 
language is spoken, is the pamphlet of Emile de 
Laveleye, whose rank as a publicist and statistician is 
recognized die world over, and whose arguments in 



ACCESS/OA'S TO PROTESTANTISM. 23 



favor of the change from Catholic to Protestant are 
reinforced by his personal example. The title of his 
pamphlet is " The Future of the Catholic Nations." 
It is a tract of only a few pages, but of irresistible power. 
It might well be translated into every language of 
Christendom as a warning to all nations of the tempo- 
ral penalties that attend upon the cherishing of the 
Romish superstitions. There is no wonder that the 
example and arguments of Laveleye should have drawn 
with him out of Romanism many like-minded. Such 
an influence reaches down as well as up; and whole 
villages in Belgium have been moved by it, directly or 
indirectly, to renounce Catholicism, and transfer them- 
selves and their families, with the village church and 
school buildings, to the Protestant communion. 

But the best known of the Belgians who have gone 
with the Protestant movement, is the highest man in 
the kingdom, next to the king himself. It is no less 
than the Prime Minister, M. Frere-Orban, whose reso- 
olute but wise and temperate resistance of the Ro- 
man power in its encroachments on Belgian indepen- 
dence has been the admiration of the world. Belgium 
will sometime acknowledge that this sturdy and suc- 
cessful fight in her defence was due to her having at 
the head of her government a convert to Protestantism. 

In like manner the eminent man who in the terrible 
crisis after Sedan bore on his shoulders the painful 
responsibility of the French foreign affairs, Jules Favre, 



24 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



added, in his last days, to his many civic and literary 
honors, the honor of openly confessing his convictions 
of the truth in Jesus Christ, as set forth in the wor- 
ship of the Protestant church. At his own command, 
given in his last sickness, the religious services at his 
4 funeral were conducted by the pastor of the Protestant 
church at Versailles, where he had been wont to wor- 
ship. And when, with words of " reasonable, religious 
and holy hope," the body of the departed statesman 
was carried forth to burial from the plain meeting- 
house under the shadow of the great palace, the splen- 
did assembly of the wise, learned, and brilliant, in the 
new Republic, confessed how far worthier was such a 
ceremonial of such an occasion, than the candles, the 
tapestries, the incense, and the chanting files of shaven 
priests, to which they had been accustomed. 

" How decent and how wise, 
How glorious to behold, 
Beyond the pomp that charms the eyes, 
Or rites adorned with gold." 

The names that have thus been cited are irom the 
number of the adhesions to the new movement that 
took place within a few months of its beginning. If 
we were to add the names of more recent converts in 
high positions, the list would grow too long. But the 
chief progress of the work is not among "the wise, 
mighty, and noble," but among the peasantry of the 
fields, and the artisans of the great towns. 



THE "CEUVRE DES CONFERENCES." 25 



CHAPTER IV. 

The " CEuvre des Conferences." The Marks 
of a Divine Work. The Dawn of Religious 
Liberty. Protestantism in the Government. 
Protestant Worship in the Palace of Ver- 
sailles. A Week's Work of the " Confer- 
ences." A Letter to Republican Peasants. 
A Two Hundred Years' Retrospect. 

Gibbon, greatest of modern historians, climbed, 
like Balaam, to a height from which he could behold 
the whole history of the church, and essayed to curse 
the people of God ; but lo ! he blessed them all togeth- 
er. That great chapter in which he seeks to explain, 
by visible and proximate causes, the successful prog- 
ress of the gospel and the church until they had per- 
vaded the Roman Empire, will stand to all time as a 
chapter of "the Evidences of Christianity," showing 
how the work of God's fatherly providence conspires 
■with the work of his Son and the work of his Holy 
Spirit. It was only the madness of the undevout his- 
torian that could hide from him— what is so plain to 
his readers — the hand of God in history, making its 
lines of influence to converge upon that point of time 
when " He bringeth his Only-begotten into the world." 

God> Woik 1J! France. J. 



26 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



It is a briefer and less momentous, but still a paral- 
lel chapter of history, which will recount how, while 
men's minds, unknown to each other, were ripening 
these thoughts, in France and Belgium there were pre- 
paring, in the course of political changes, the facilities 
for diffusing them throughout French-speaking Eu- 
rope, and the soil in which they might freely fructify. 

How great is the change that has come over the 
face of France since 1873, cannot be conceived by an 
American without an effort. It is hardly a hundred 
years since Protestants in France were tortured and 
murdered in public for their religion. The extreme 
forms of religious persecution were brought to an end 
by the furious invective, the acrid and corrosive sar- 
casm of Voltaire. And in the next generation " God's 
slaughtered saints" were terribly avenged when the 
atheism that had been gendered by corrupt religion 
turned fiercely upon its own parent, and made it the 
victim instead of the persecutor. Down to these last 
few years France has known changes in the direction of 
persecution, and mitigations in the bitterness of it, but 
has never known religious liberty. From the accession 
of Napoleon I. to the descent from power of President 
MacMahon, France has had no government whose 
policy was not that of concession to the Roman clergy, 
that it might rule through their influence. 

A vivid picture of what France was in this respect, 
as lately as under the MacMahon presidency, is given 



THE " CEUVRE DES CONFERENCES:' 27 

in the Report of the Secretary of one of the Protestant 
Evangelization Societies of France, presented April 6, 
1880. Said M. Lorriaux : 

" While there is a growing movement of tolerance and 
sympathy on the part of the press and of public opinion, 
there is a no less important progress in our legislation. 

" I recall to myself how, so late as the 7th of June, 1873, I 
was expelled by the mayor and the gendarmes from a hall 
where I was peaceably presiding at a religious service. I 
glance through the Society's annals, and find a meeting- 
house closed for twenty years without even being dedicated. 
I find a pastor dragged to prison with part of his congrega- 
tion. I find hindrances, suspicions, prosecutions, persecu- 
tions. Ah, what thanks we owe to those who within these 
last few years have been struggling for religious liberty ! At 
last they have introduced into our legislation the emancipa- 
ting provision that public meetings may be held without 
permission previously obtained. This law, which has 
passed the House, and will surely pass the Senate, will be 
accompanied, we cannot doubt, by two great measures that 
shall crown the structure of our religious liberties. First, the 
burying-grounds will become public property; henceforth, 
no more burying of Protestants in shameful places, no more 
leaving of their bodies (as we have known it to be done) for 
twenty days unburied, while waiting for justice from the au- 
thorities. Secondly, a general law concerning associations 
will permit the establishment of regular worship wherever 
the need of it is felt. 

"A new era is dawning upon us. Now for the first time 
we have in our hands this great instrument of evangelization, 
religious liberty — liberty, let us add, which we claim, not for 
ourselves alone, but for every one. We reprobate and repu- 
diate the least infringement on the legitimate rights of any 
citizen whatever." 



28 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



It is easy and instructive to trace the course of 
events by which this era of religious liberty has been 
brought in coincidently with the general waking up of 
mind and conscience among the leaders of French 
thought. It was natural that, under the " Third Em- 
pire," the priesthood, in return for imperial favors, 
should lend itself to the support of imperial tyrannies 
and corruptions. But it must have been under some 
infliction of judicial blindness that, after the Republic 
had come, and "come to stay," the priesthood should 
boldly reassert the " alliance of the throne and the 
altar," so identifying its cause with the restoration of 
abuses and oppressions, the mere fading tradition of 
which is enough to madden the grandchildren of their 
victims. It is by its own folly that the priesthood has 
compelled the whole liberal party to declare open war 
upon it, and has justified the bold challenge of Gam- 
betta when he declared, "The foe of France is cleri- 
calism? 

A singular fact presented itself to the observer 
when the government of President MacMahon had 
gone down on this issue, whether France would toler- 
ate a government of priestcraft. With that sobriety of 
conduct which has wonderfully distinguished the Third 
Republic from its two predecessors, they proceeded to 
install in the offices of administration men whose mod- 
eration and capacity for affairs had been well proved 
in public life. And when, by-and-by, it occurred to 



THE " (EUVRE DES CONFERENCES." 29 



some one to make the inquiry, it appeared that of the 
nine ministers of the Waddington Cabinet, five were 
Protestants — the remaining four were Catholics or free- 
thinkers. A marvellous thing, that the little persecu- 
ted remnant of the Huguenot church, being only one 
in twenty of the population, should give more than 
one-half of its chiefs of state ! The Freycinet cabinet 
showed a like proportion of Protestants ; and if this 
has now been supplanted by a ministry in which no 
Protestant is found, their leaving power is not less hon- 
orable to them than their entering on it; for they are 
supplanted for lack of zeal in pressing the laws to the 
disadvantage of their immemorial enemies, who have 
never spared in executing oppressive laws against them. 
A nobler testimony to religious liberty was never borne 
than this which the Protestants of France are bearing 
to-day. " God's slaughtered saints " begin to be 
avenged indeed when the persecutor is looking to the 
children of his victims for defence and help. 

A most dramatic illustration of the changed relation 
of Protestantism to the government was that given on 
Sunday, November 2, 1879, when, the meetinghouse 
at Versailles being under repairs, Protestant worship 
was held, by permission of the authorities, in a hall of 
the Palace of Louis XIV., at Versailles. The place 
chosen was under the hall of the Oeil-de-Bceuf, not far 
from the chamber where, in 17 15, the Grand Monarque 
expired. It is the vast room decorated by Cotelle with 



30 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IX FRANCE. 



paintings of the royal residences. Before a great can- 
vas representing the palace and park of St. Cloud, had 
been set up a temporary pulpit; and through the 
crowded congregation passed the President of the 
Consistory of Paris, and the pastor of Versailles, each 
bearing a copy of the Holy Scriptures, and with them 
the officers of the congregation. A young French 
poet, who was among the worshippers, utters the sen- 
timents which the occasion could not but inspire : 

" Not without a glow of honest pride we passed before the 
colossal bronze statue of Louis, stretching out its hand as if 
to defend his palace against the intrusion of modern and 
heretical ideas. And when we heard the Bible and the Hu- 
guenot liturgy read in that building in which, just overhead, 
Madame de Maintenon had induced Louis XIV. to sign the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, well nigh two hundred 
years ago, we were thrilled with emotion, and blessed God 
from our inmost heart. At that solemn moment our thoughts 
seemed to bring back the dead. On the one side, Bossuet, 
acclaiming, in his mighty voice, the new Theodosius and the 
new Constantine, under the very roof in which we were 
singing forth the old 138th Psalm : 

"'Ilfaut, grand Dieu. que de mon cceur 
La sainte ardeur 
Te glorifie, 
Qu' a toi, des mains et de la voix 
Devant les rois 
Je psalmodie ;' 

("'Great God, to thee my heart upsprings, 
And joyful sings, 
Thy glory raising ; 
Unawed by kings, with hands and voice 
I will rejoice 
I.j thanks and praising;') 



THE " CEUVRE DES CONFERENCES? 31 



that court in which superstition and immorality joined hands 
to hold France in subjection ; those courtiers, beribboned 
and beplumed, among whom the king moved about as a god 
come down to earth — these on the one side. On the other 
side, our proscribed forefathers of the ' pretended reformed 
religion,' forced to quit the ruins of their churches, hunted 
and tortured by the dragoons, gathering in caves or forest- 
clearings; those glorious camisards who harried and foiled 
the troops of Baville and Villars and Louvois, that had vainly- 
dreamed of exterminating the Reformation. The day of our 
vindication was come ! What would have been the rage of 
the one, what the joy of the other, could they have foreseen 
that in two centuries the very palace of Versailles would re- 1 
sound with the worship of a Protestant congregation !" 

The Spirit of God had put it into the hearts of 
many Frenchmen, both of the old and of the new Prot- 
estants, to speak to the people the free gospel — the 
gospel of freedom ; and (as will soon appear) had wa- 
kened among all the people an earnest desire to hear. 
Now the Providence of God, by the new enactments of 
religious liberty, flings wide an effectual door — rather, 
flings down all walls and barriers — before the feet of 
his messengers. They are not slow in entering upon 
their work — not the work of preaching to religious 
worshippers, but that of haranguing the general crowds 
of Frenchmen, in all towns and villages, concerning 
that Protestant Christianity of which they have heard 
nothing except that " it is everywhere spoken against." 

A more just impression of the character and gran- 
deur of this " cenvre des confere?ices" — lecturing work — 



32 COD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



can hardly be given, than by transcribing from a sin- 
gle number of M. Reveillaud's newspaper, " Le Signal," 
the news of one week in the spring of 1880. 

The first items come from the South — the depart- 
ment of Vaucluse, rich in sentimental memories of Pe- 
trarch and his Laura, in histories and monuments of 
the sojourn of the popes at Avignon, and in sacred tra- 
ditions of Huguenot confessors and martyrs. [It is a 
fact to lay to heart for those immensely over-wise peo- 
^ pie like Mr. Buckle and Dr. Draper, who assure us 
that Protestantism will not do for southern climates 
and Latin races, the fact that these semi-tropical re- 
gions and this population of Italian strain are the region 
of all the continent of Europe where Protestant Chris- 
tianity in its "baldest" form has given the strongest 
proofs of a tenacious hold on men's hearts and con- 
sciences.] At Cavaillon, a considerable town, fifty or 
sixty families have lately withdrawn from the Roman 
church, and connected themselves with the Reformed 
church. They are reported to be constant in attend- 
ance at the worship, which is held by permission in the 
courthouse, and as talking about securing a house of 
worship of their own, as the court-room has become 
too small. At Pertuis, another large town on the Du- 
rance, the Protestants have just secured a larger place 
of worship, the dedication of which was attended by a 
very large concourse, the major part of whom were 
Catholics ; some of these have since become regular 



THE " (EUVRE DES CONFERENCES:' 33 



attendants upon the meetings. A pastor at this town 
went to the neighboring village of Villelaure to minis- 
ter to the four or five Protestants who live there. They 
told him that there would be a crowd at the meeting, 
and he accordingly took for his subject, " Protestant- 
ism, its origin and its doctrines." The little room was 
crowded with upwards of eighty people. He went 
again on a Sunday, and they had engaged a hall half 
as large again; but this also was found too small. He 
is to go again and speak in the ballroom — the largest 
room in the place. The minister thinks that the move- 
ment is one of genuine religious interest. 

So much for the South — the old seat of persecution 
and martyrdom. Now hear from M. Fourneau, who 
has made a visit along the banks of the Loire, a region 
hitherto unvisited by Protestant speakers. " Last Tues- 
day I set out for Blois with high hopes, which have 
not been disappointed. That evening I demonstrated 
the superiority of the gospel to all human religions, 
before an audience of nearly two hundred and fifty per- 
sons. The next day they nearly all came again, and 
others with them, making an audience of nearly three 
hundred, all that the little meetinghouse would hold. 
The theme of my second lecture was, ' The regenera- 
tion of society cannot be effected by clericalism, nor by 
free-thinking, but by the gospel, known, received, and 
practised, first in the family, then in the community. 
The greater part of the audience were Catholics, but 

God'* Worfc in Franco. c 



34 GOB'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



manifested full sympathy with the speaker. An Eng- 
lish friend, who has been living at Tours for several 
years, had hired for two days the Circus of that city, 
having about fourteen hundred sittings, and announced 
the lectures by posters. There were eight hundred 
persons at the first lecture, and over one thousand at 
the second ; the subjects were the same as at Blois. 
The speaker is to return for a third lecture on the Per- 
son of Christ. The population of Tours is one half 
clerical, the other half infidel ; and there was no min- 
cing of words with either of ' these two ways of hin- 
dering the soul from seeking God,' and yet the speak- 
er was received with such demonstrations as encourage 
him to go again with the simple message of salvation. 
At the end of the second lecture twelve hundred tracts 
were distributed, and the speaker lamented that he had 
left behind him one hundred and twenty Testaments he 
had meant to bring." 

Turn to the map of France, and look for the famous 
old city of Troyes, on the upper Seine. To the south- 
west of it stretches a hilly region, sprinkled with nu- 
merous villages, called "the Forest of Othe." In the 
sixteenth century this was a Protestant region ; but the 
reformed churches perished under persecutions and 
massacres and outrages, for which the French lan- 
guage has names untranslatable in English. . The pas- 
tors were murdered or driven into exile. The meet- 
inghouses were closed and desecrated, or burned to 



THE " CEUVRE DES COA'FEREACES." 35 



the ground. No trace of the ancient Huguenot spirit 
remained discoverable except a marked antipathy to 
kings and priests. The pastor of one solitary little 
Protestant church of that region had the thought of 
passing among these villages and trying to rekindle 
among the people that faith which had been quenched 
in the blood of their fathers. And this is his report : 

March 14, at Neuville, out of a population of 500, 
200 persons were present at the meeting, fifty of them 
women, notwithstanding the efforts of the priest, who 
sent out personal invitations to gather the people at 
his own house. Hardly any one accepted his invita- 
tion, and even the parish clerk was on the platform 
with the Protestant pastor. The hall was lighted gra- 
tuitously, and on the platform were the dignitaries of 
the place — a retired army captain and others. The 
argument of Pastor Russier, that " clericalism is not 
Christianity, but only a caricature of it," was received 
with frequent applause, notwithstanding the request 
for silence. At the close were distributed 200 of M. 
Bouchard's tracts, and twenty copies of M. Reveillaud's 
little pamphlet, " The Religious Question and the Prot- 
estant Solution," were sold. The next day, March 15, 
at Aix-en-Othe, there were 350 present, by actual 
count. There was the same enthusiastic reception of 
the pastor, with hearty thanks for his discourse, and 
invitations to him to come again. On the 16th, at 
St. Mards, he was taken to see the house which three 



36 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



centuries ago was a Protestant church, and the site of 
the ancient burying-ground, near which stands a cross 
still called " the Preacher's Cross." At the meeting in 
the evening there was an audience of 456 persons, by 
actual count, not less than 100 of whom were women. 
( Observe that the number of women present is reck- 
oned a strong sign of success. Ordinarily the women 

^ are the last to let go the superstitions of the old church.) 
When the lecturer, alluding to the ancient scenes of 
persecution which the place had witnessed, reminded 
the people that in the neighboring woods a pastor had 
been assassinated by his own nephew at the instigation 

n! of the Jesuits, and exclaimed, " Almost every one of 
you has Huguenot blood in his veins !" a visible sen- 
sation ran through the assembly. After the meeting 
the people bought forty copies of M. Reveillaud's pam- 
phlet. Just so on the 17th, at Maraye-en-Othe, there 
were 255 hearers, 100 of them women ; the same atten- 
tion, applause, exclamations of " Good !" " True !" and 
the same invitations to the pastor to return, which he 
means to do, and to send other lecturers to the same 
field. 

It is observed that the Liberal newspapers in the 
country towns, in general, take favorable notice of this 
Protestant propaganda, sometimes printing full reports 
of the discourses. The Reveil National of Dreux, at 
the close of a full report of one of M. Reveillaud's dis- 
courses, added these words : 



THE •' CEUVRE DES CONFERENCES:' 37 



" We need not say that this peroration (proposing y 
to take up anew the work of the Reformation that/v\ 
was broken off in the sixteenth century) was almost 
drowned in applause. M. Reveillaud has had a great 
success ; every word of his has gone to the heart of 
his hearers. We must have another opportunity to 
hear the brave and ringing utterance of a man who is 
not afraid to put his finger on the wound." 

Finally, to the summary of the news of the week is 
added this item — the appearance of a new tract by M. 
Paul Bouchard, the earliest leader in this great exodus 
from the house of bondage in the Roman church. This 
new tract, like the four that have preceded it from the 
same pen, is a cheap little vest-pocket affair of sixteen 
pages, sold for distribution at three dollars a thousand. 
This one is addressed to Republican peasants, for, 
strange to say, the French peasants have become 
clearly and firmly Republican. The tract tells the 
undeniable story of the constant alliance of the Catho- >i 
lie church in France with despotism, and winds up N 
with this practical conclusion : 

" Disgusted with religion as you have been — you who are 
husbands and fathers — by the abuses of that religion in which 
you have had the misfortune to be born, you see, neverthe- 
less, that we need a religion. Reason tells you so, your heart 
confirms it. What better course, then, than to quit that Cath- 
olic religion, source of all our woes, and go over to the rival 
church, in which you find liberty, independence, and the sat- 
isfaction of all your religious wants ? 



38 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK EV FRANCE. 



"There, no enforced celibacy — consequently no confes- 
sional. You have to do with good husbands and fathers, 
ready to render you every service and encouragement you 
may seek. Saints and relics they have none ; to trust in God, 
to bow before him alone, to pray to him without intermedi- 
ary, and tell him our sorrow for our sins, and ask his help, 
and to guide our lives according to the morality of the gos- 
pel — this is Protestant teaching ; it is none other than that of 
the Master himself, as it has come to us through the primi- 
tive church. Accept it for your own. Become Protestants. 
It will be the best service you can render to our government, 
which knows not how to protect us from the Roman church 
so long as you persist in adhering to it. Free yourselves 
from this most odious of tyrannies, and history will declare 
that, liberated by themselves, the peasantry of France have 
saved the Republic." 

And then, by way of postscript, the little tract gives 
directions how to register one's self as Protestant, and 
recommends applying to the nearest Protestant pas- 
tor. 

It is not easy to refuse ourselves the pleasure of 
adding here some of the inspiring reports that come 
from every part of France to indicate the welcome that 
meets, and often anticipates, the coming of the evange- 
list. But perhaps the adding of incidents culled from 
the whole course of this " lecture work" would weaken 
the just impression to be derived from the contempla- 
tion of the si?igle week's news, of which a part has just 
been given. What hath God wrought ! No wonder 
that the eloquence of Pastor Puaux, at the meeting of 
the " Central Protestant Evangelization Society," in 



THE ,: CEUVRE DES CONFERENCES:' 39 



April, 1880, was kindled by the retrospect of two hun- 
dred years. Said he, 

" My thoughts have been carried back two centuries, al- 
most to a day. It was in June, that the Jesuit Society, 
faithful to its plans of perfidy and treason, holding control of 
the mind of the king, was marching on to supreme power, 
seeking with a detestable ferocity the ruin of the Protestants. 
The king gave docile ear to them, and was induced to declare 
that no one of his Catholic subjects should be permitted, un- 
der any pretext, to embrace the Protestant Reformed Reli- 
gion, under pain of perpetual banishment. It was the pre- 
lude of the storm which broke in the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes. Charenton crumbles ; and in my own Normandy, 
in a few years, the great church of Rouen, that numbered 
15,000 souls, is brought to naught. From Dieppe one-half 
the population goes into exile, and in Havre not one Protes- 
tant remains. The iniquity is consummated, and from his 
banishment comes back the despairing cry of the fugitive, 
' Why must they tear the Frenchman's heart out of our bos- 
om ?' What a conflict was that, and what times were those 
that followed it! Children torn from their mothers' arms, 
galley-slaves dying for the faith of Christ, pastors bleeding 
on the wheel or dangling from the gibbet — such is the history 
of the Reformation in France. 

" In the eighteenth century, any one having dealings with 
a Protestant is accounted infamous ; and when at last the 
hour of deliverance strikes, the old faith of the Reformation 
has been so far lost, that not far from this place a pastor bap- 
tizes ' into the name of the Supreme Existence.' 

" The nineteenth century begins, and Paris has one pastor 
and one meetinghouse. 

" And now behold how it fares with us to-day ! 

" This is no place to talk of discouragement or despair. I 
have no love for those prophets of evil who take pleasure in 



40 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



saying that the Latin races are doomed to irremediable de- 
cay. No ! this is not to be. Into this generous and genial 
mass of French society you have only to infuse new princi- 
ples, and you shall see coming forth again from their ashes 
those Huguenots of the sixteenth century, of whom Bunsen 
said, 'They are the most glorious impersonation of manhood 
to be found in history.' " 

The history of evangelization in Saint Just and its 
vicinity may be given as one more illustration, and a 
very brief one, of the attitude of the French common 
people towards the gospel. Observe that this is a town 
of Picardy, on the railroad line from Paris to Calais, 
in a region that has not been reached for nearly three 
hundred years by any Protestant influence. Until the 
visit of M. Reveillaud, very early in 1880, the popula- 
tion had been in utter ignorance of what Protestantism 
was. Owing to some special occasion of dissatisfaction 
with the Roman-catholic clergy and their teachings, 
M. Reveillaud was sent for to give an address. He 
awakened an eager interest, which his brief visit did 
not suffice to satisfy ; and Dr. de Pressense was sent for 
on a like business. But the more they heard, the more 
they wished to hear. M. Dhombres, one of the most 
eloquent preachers in Paris, went thither and found an 
audience of a thousand souls assembled to hear his 
declaration of a pure and simple gospel. The people 
responded with a cordial and earnest acceptance of it. 
The seed thus sown was watered, from time to time, 



THE " CEUVRE DES COXFEREA'CES." 



41 



by other preachers ; and at the end of eight months 
from M. Reveillaud's visit, the harvest was ready to be 
gathered and a church to be organized. M. Reveillaud 
and Pastor Lorriaux, Secretary of the Societe, Ccntrale 
d tlvang'elisation, went on to Saint Just to aid in the 
organization. Three hundred men (out of a town of 
two thousand) had gathered, by special invitation, to 
meet them. These were the leading men of the town, 
the men of wealth, position, and influence, animated 
with the earnest and devout desire to lay the founda- 
tion of a Protestant community and a gospel church. 
They needed instruction in all the details of Protestant 
church organization and worship; but they had the 
teachableness of children. They were promised a pas- 
tor who would " expound unto them the way of God 
more perfectly." They were ready to give of their 
substance towards the building of the new church, and 
on the spot made a subscription amounting to 1,300 
francs. 

On the way to Saint Just, M. Reveillaud took the 
opportunity to respond to another invitation of the 
same sort that had first introduced him to the people 
of Saint Just. He had been invited to Warloy, a town 
of three thousand people, near Amiens, to inaugurate a 
Protestant religious movement. There was no hall in 
the town that could hold the people who wished to 
hear, and so a large tent was pitched for the purpose. 
Two thousand people were estimated to be present. 

Ood'* Woik (d F.-uca. 6 



42 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



On the platform behind the speaker were seated the 
mayors of six of the adjoining villages, together with 
several members of the Council-general of the Depart- 
ment. It was an impressive demonstration this meet- 
ing (such as would not have been tolerated in France 
for centuries before), as manifesting the deep alienation 
of the French people from the Roman church, and 
their eager desire, not to abolish religion, but to seek a 
better and purer Christianity. The argument of M. 
Reveillaud was followed with closest attention through- 
out his two hours' address, and with constant marks 
of sympathy and assent. Everything prophesied re- 
sults similar to those at Saint Just ; while the leading 
men from the different communes " besought that the 
same words might be preached" in their villages "on 
the next Sabbath." 



THE McALL MISSION. 



43 



CHAPTER V. 

The McAll Mission. A Brief Survey by Dr. 
Horatius Bonar. 

Probably many of the persons who will read the 
title-page of this pamphlet will say at once, " The great 
work in France — that means, of course, the McAll Mis- 
sion," and will wonder, as they read on, to find them- 
selves mistaken. 

^ The "great work in France" is not a mission. It 
has not been begun or carried on by human planning 
or organizing. " It is the Lord's doing, and it is mar- 
vellous in our eyes." No phrase can better describe it 
than that which was used twenty years ago of America 
by one of the most illustrious of French Protestants — 
our loyal friend in an hour ol great darkness — " the 
uprising of a great people " — un grand peuple qui se 

v relive But parallel with it, incidental to it, has gone 
forward another work, not less divine for being also 
more human, the McAll Mission. 

It is not difficult to explain how the McAll Mission 
should be known and honored throughout Protestant 
Christendom, while the greater work, to which it stands 
related, should have come, as the kingdom of heaven 
is wont to come, " without observation." It is just be- 



44 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



cause it is a mission. It was begun by one noble and 
believing man, in an alien land, drawing on the sym- 
pathies of his own countrymen for help in money and 
personal assistance. Naturally he did not fail of his 
duty in making known his work to those whose aid he 
sought. Furthermore, the place where his work was 
done was the very focus of the whole world's travel — 
Paris — -and soon became the object of the personal 
attention of a multitude .of Christian travellers, espe- 
cially from Great Britain and America, many of whom 
found a delight beyond anything else the " Grand 
Tour " could offer them, in the humble ministries to 
which they were invited by the McAll Mission. The 
eyes of its friends have traced its progress and expan- 
sion till 10 or 12 of the great cities of France are feeling 
its influence. But no one has been able to trace the 
course of that influence which, in a thousand villages 
and hamlets in every part of France, has wakened a 
craving desire to know what is the religion of Christ's 
own gospel. 

It is this reason, and this reason only — that the 
McAll Mission is already made known in books acces- 
sible to every reader — that dissuades us from dwelling 
proportionately on the history of this most noble and 
most Christian charity. The work of Dr. Horatius 
Bonar, entitled, " The White Fields of France," has 
been republished in America in two editions, one of 
them at the price of ten cents. And one who reads 



THE life ALL MISS/OX. 



45 



this story will hardly need additional details, though 
he will be sure to wish for them. 

All that need here be said may easily be condensed 
from a briefer statement just prepared by the same pen, 
and addressed to English Christians. 

" The McAll Mission is carrying the Book of God and the 
Gospel of Christ to all parts of Paris and France. Every- 
where there is welcome entrance, and a desire to hear the 
new religion called ' the Gospel ' that has been brought over 
from England. Men, women, and children, flock in crowds 
to listen. It is no labor to gather an audience. Hire a hall, 
advertise a meeting, and the people come. They come from 
the worst and wildest dens of Parisian faubourgs ; they come, 
not to smile or to scoff or to wonder, but to receive into their 
hearts the divine message of life. They come, week after 
week, with eyes and ears all open, to drink in the unaccus- 
tomed sounds and unheard-of truths, from the Scripture read, 
from the hymn sung, from the words of the messenger, spo- 
ken in those tones of love to which they have been strangers. 
They come to join in prayers, uttered, not in Latin, but in 
their own dear French. They come to sing the joyful hymn, 
whose words and music go to their inmost souls. They come 
to hear the gospel or the epistle or the psalm, or the parables 
of the Master, or the discourses of the servants ; and go away 
thinking they had never in their lives heard anything so sweet 
and beautiful, so suitable to their wants, and so unlike any- 
thing that they had ever been taught by bishop or cure\ It is 
all so simple, so intelligible, yet so grand and new. ' God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son'! Eter- 
nal life the free gift of God — never had the cathedral or the 
parish church echoed to such a sound ! No wonder that they , 
come. 

" The beginning was small. One poor but earnest request 



46 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



made to Mr. McAll by an ouvrier in a Belleville cafe — " Oh, 
teach us your religion " — was the seed from which a great 
tree has sprung. That seed fell into the ground in August, 
1871. That tree has spread its branches over Paris, and is 
spreading them over France. It has only had eight years to 
grow, and already it numbers in all thirty-seven of these 
goodly boughs. If the Christians of England would awake 
and measure the magnitude of the enterprise, pouring in of 
their abundance into the empty coffers of the Mission, the 
work might, without difficulty, widen itself out on every side. 
The ' open door which no man can shut ' is that which we 
now see in France; a 'great door and effectual,' such as has 
never been seen in that land before. ' I have much people in 
that city' is the word of cheer which we get in connection 
with that open door. 

" It was to the cry of the workingman of Belleville that Mr. 
McAll responded when he left his English home, broke his 
pastoral tie, came over to Paris, and set up his first station in 
the Rue Julien Lacroix, in January, 1872. Without shrinking, 
yet not without many misgivings, did he and Mrs. McAll 
stand at the door of that hall on the first evening — strangers 
in a strange land — to invite the wild Communists to enter 
and hear some English friends speak to them of the love of 
Christ. They had boldly gone into the very heart of Parisian 
Communism, with nothing in their hands but the Bible, in a 
district of which the Commissary of Police has said, ' The 
worst spot in St. Giles', London, would be more easily 
worked.' 

" It was to like cries from other parts of the city that he 
responded year after year ; till now there are twenty-four of 
these gospel-stations, like torches shedding their glad light 
into the dens of crime and ignorance ; supplanting the wine- 
shop, outrivalling the political club, quieting Communism, 
substituting the Bible for Voltaire, teaching the holy cantique 
instead of the lewd or revolutionary song, pointing to the 




THE J A- ALL MISSION. 



47 



true cross, attracting ten thousand weekly hearers to the 
good news of God's free love, and sending out into the ob- 
scurest homes the message of the heavenly reconciliation. 

" There are now, as we have noticed, twenty-four of these 
mission-stations. They girdle Paris like its own Ceinture 
Railway ; each at a suitable distance from the other, and each 
planted in the midst of destitution and wickedness and igno- 
rance. In connection with these there are schools, classes, 
mothers' meetings, prayer-meetings ; there are also evange- 
lists, visitors, tract distributers, and helpers of various kinds, 
male and female, all under the superintendence of Mr. McAll, 
whose wisdom and caution have been as remarkable as his 
earnest zeal. Endowed with no common prudence and 
meekness, he has steered his way through many difficulties, 
preserved the Mission from collision with municipal law, and 
maintained his quiet equanimity under provocations and an- 
noyances. 

" The Mission is a thoroughly evangelical one. It is 
the gospel of Christ which pervades the hymns, the addresses, 
and the whole teaching. At the opening of the last station, 
in June of this year, Mr. McAll struck the keynote in the 
words, 'Jesus Christ, and him crucified ;' and all the speakers 
that followed took it up, so that at the close of the meeting 
the remark was made by an English friend, ' I never heard 
more or fuller gospel truth than I have done to-night.' 

" The Mission is a very laborious one. These twenty- 
four stations require weekly arrangements beforehand for 
speakers and helpers, and this is a most responsible, deli- 
cate, and difficult business. It devolves chiefly on Mr. McAll. 
Then the distances to be traversed by the workers, male and 
female, the necessarily late hours, the unceasing round of la- 
bor, the visiting, the classes, the distribution of tracts, involve 
great fatigue, both mental and bodily. Saturday is the only 
free day, and even it is not always free. 

"The Mission is a very complete one. It embraces every 



4S GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



mode and department of missionary work that we have at 
home, except the open-air preaching, which law prohibits. 
Tracts, books, gospels, Bibles, Testaments, magazines, illus- 
trated religious journals, placards with texts, hymn-books, 
are here ; every appliance is made use of. Paris has been 
flooded with these messengers ; and to do this has been no 
small toil to the overburdened laborers. 

" The Mission is a very simple one. No grand hall has 
been built ; no costly furniture has been purchased. Old 
wine-shops have been cleaned, whitewashed, adorned with 
texts, and well lighted ; these are the halls. No attempt has 
been made at ornament or show. The rush-bottomed chairs 
and the rough boards of the platform and pulpit are witness- 
es of the simplicity of idea which runs through the whole, 
and suit, better than all grandeur, the nature of the Mission 
and the designs of the workers. There is nothing offensive 
or coarse or untidy ; yet all is plain. Here ritualism would 
be shocked ; early Christianity would find itself at home. 
The archbishop of Paris would not endorse such homeliness; 
Paul would enter that unadorned hall, and step up upon that 
unpolished platform with congenial alacrity. 

"The Mission is a very economical one. There is no 
mission in existence so cheaply maintained. Mr. McAll man- 
ages everything himself, and* he is a capital economist. The 
rents of the different halls are the most serious item of ex- 
pense ; and this cannot be lessened. But no needless cost 
is incurred, and every farthing of the subscribers' money is 
carefully laid out. Mr. McAll knows architecture as well as 
theology ; and he looks well to the condition of his halls, 
avoiding unnecessary, yet not sparing necessary outlay. 

" The Mission is a very accurate and honest one. Ev- 
ery farthing given is accounted for, not in the lump, but in 
detail. The yearly reports show the carefulness with which 
each item is set down, both in receiving and in paying away 
the Mission money. Mr. McAll's accounts are models of mi- 



THE McALL MISSION. 



49 



nuteness and accuracy, and hence the confidence which sub- 
scribers have in the pecuniary part of the Mission, and their 
assurance that their money is fully and honestly accounted 
for. 

" It is a very comprehensive Mission. Its agents and 
agencies embrace all evangelical Christians of the different 
churches in France and Great Britain and America. For it 
is not any one church that is at work, but all the churches 
that recognize the one foundation and the one Head, Jesus 
Christ the Son of God. Hence the question of forming a 
church for the converts has never been raised. They fall in 
to the neighboring Protestant churches and are taken up by 
the different pastors. 

" Though the Mission in every part is most economically 
conducted, yet the expenses are necessarily great; and were 
it not for the large amount of disinterested work, of unpaid 
and half-paid help, the noble enterprise could not be main- 
tained. The rents are high, both of the halls and private 
dwellings. There are many expenses connected with the 
maintaining of these meetings. The distances to be travelled 
are not small, and the cost of conveyance, whether by rail- 
way, tram, boat, omnibus, or cab, is very considerable. 
Books, tracts, Bibles, leaflets, journals, gospels, are sent out 
weekly in thousands ; and though many of these are gener- 
ously furnished to the mission-bureau by individuals or soci- 
eties, such as the Religious Tract Society of London, still for 
a considerable proportion of them the Mission has to pay. 
The tear and wear of machinery, as we may call it, in the va- 
rious halls is not small, and the demands on this account are 
numerous and frequent. 

" The cry comes from all parts of France, and this Mis- 
sion would most gladly respond to it had it the means and 
the men. But it has not. Its resources are limited. With 
twenty-four stations in Paris, eight thousand of a weekly 
adult audience, and three thousand children, its hands are 

Go I'D Wo It In Franre. 7 



50 GOV'S WOXDFRFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



full. The French pastors have thrown themselves nobly into 
the work ; a goodly number of volunteer laborers, male and 
female, French and English, give most efficient aid. But all 
this is too little. With thirteen other stations more recently 
opened elsewhere, in Lyons, Bordeaux, Arcachon, Boulogne- 
sur-mer, Rochefort, and La Rochelle, the labor and the cost 
are multiplying; and though the year 1879 nas not been un- 
favorable as to the funds, still much help is needed, espe- 
cially for the establishment of branches at Lille and St. 
Etienne. For this help we now appeal. 

" HORATIUS BONAR." 



THE DEP UTA TION TO A M ERICA . 5 1 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Deputation to America. France the Great 
Mission-Field of the World to-day. The 
Three Societies. M. Reveillaud's Farewell. 
The Commission. 

The most fruitful mission-field in all the world to- 
day is France. 

It is an exacting field, wherein daily increasing suc- 
cess involves the need of increasing expenditure, and 
every new demand satisfies the giver that his past gifts 
have accomplished their object. 

It is a field which is a manifest seed-plot for future 
harvests in other lands, so that every sheaf brought in 
from it is an inspiring prophecy and promise. 

It is a field full of inspiring associations, such as 
kindle the passion of a Christian chivalry ; it is rich with 
the blood ot martyrs, and adorned with the monu- 
ments of high heroism. 

It is a field frequented yearly by the visits of pas- 
tors and other influential Christians, each one of whom 
becomes a representative and advocate of the work on 
his return. 

It is a field whose own converts, accomplished in 
every native gift and refinement of culture, are ready 



52 GOD'S WOXDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



at once for the propagation of the work in the field, or 
its advocacy at the base of supplies. 

It is a field wherein all the achievements of the gos- 
pel in the mission are felt to be a triumphant assault 
upon the strongholds of a form of aggressive error that 
threatens us in our own homes ; so that the evangeli- 
zation of France is the defence of America. 

And yet, in this noblest mission-field of all the 
world no American missionary society, whether gen- 
eral or denominational, has any part or lot. 

It is under the impulse of a simple craving to have 
some hand in what seemed to them God's greatest 
work in our generation, that several American gentle- 
men, without mutual concert, have given personal as- 
surances to the leaders of this work that if the great- 
ness of it can be set before the American churches by 
fit representatives of it, it is not possible that such rep- 
resentatives shall fail of a generous welcome. 

Moved by such assurances, the three principal soci- 
ties of evangelization in France, with fraternal accord, 
have agreed in the choice of their common representa- 
tives to the people of America. 

These societies are : 

1. The " Societe Centrale Protestante d'Evangeli- 
sation," the organ oi the evangelical part of the Prot- 
estant church in France as by law established. 

2. The " Societe Evangelique," the organ ol the 
Free, or unestablished church. 



THE DEPUTATION TO AMERICA. 53 



3. The " Mission Intxrieure," or Home Mission So- 
ciety, whose chief duty is to awaken Protestants, and 
to organize meetings among the Catholic population. 

All these societies act, in the matter of deputation, 
as in other matters, with Christian comity and har- 
mony. 

The delegates whom they send to us are, 

Monsieur Eugene Reveillaud ; 

The Reverend G. Theophilus Dodds. 

The former is already introduced to the reader of 
this pamphlet by the story of his life and work. His 
associate is known to the friends of the McAll Mission 
as the chief assistant of Mr. McAll. There can be no 
impropriety in mentioning a fact which will commend 
him to the warm personal interest of all American 
Christians, that he is the son-in-law of Horatius Bonar. 

The farewell of M. Reveillaud to the readers of Le 
Signal, on his departure for America, may be trans- 
cribed here as his salutation to us. 

" At this moment when our country is taking counsel to 
effect its final deliverance from the clutch of clericalism, when 
sympathy for Protestantism is becoming so general, when so 
many cities and villages are opening to the gospel, and so 
many Protestant communities are ready to be founded or 
extended, if only we could respond to all the calls that come 
to us — in this most propitious seed-time, when our resources 
are so inadequate to such great needs — it has seemed neces- 
sary to the three great societies which divide among them 
the field of evangelistic labor in France — the 'Soci^te" Cen- 



54 GOD'S WONDERFUL WORK IN FRANCE. 



trale,' the ' SocieHe" £vang£lique,' and the ' Mission Int£rieure,' 
to seek aid of our brethren across the Atlantic. We go, Mr. 
Dodds and myself, and others too, if need be, to set before 
the citizens of the great American Republic, before the evan- 
gelical Christians of every denomination in that vast conti- 
nent, the nature and extent of the wants that are felt, that 
they may judge to what extent it is within their power or 
their duty to help us. The facts shall speak for us, more elo- 
quent than any words of ours. We shall depict the crowds 
that flock together to these meetings at which the eternal 
Saviour is set forth as the one Redeemer that can liberate 
and regenerate society threatened with decadence, decom- 
position, and ruin. We shall tell them of the success of Mr. 
McAll's meetings wherever they have been founded, with 
what sympathy our evangelists are received in every quarter, 
and from how many men, brought up in the Catholic church, 
we hear the words, ' We have done with Romish priests ; 
send us pastors.' 

" These calls, to which, for lack of means, we are too often 
compelled to answer, ' By-and-by,' may, through the aid of 
our American brethren, be satisfied at once. If God shall 
bless our efforts as we hope, the three societies will, on our 
return, through the generosity of American Christians, be in 
a position to establish and maintain many new stations of 
evangelization that shall be outposts to secure old conquests 
and to prepare new ones. 

"On occasion of the centennial celebration of the inde- 
pendence of the United States, the people of France had the 
idea, which a Franco-American committee is soon to realize, 
of a colossal statue, ' Liberty enlightening the world,' to stand 
aloft in the harbor of New York, and symbolize the hundred 
years of union between the sister nations. May we not ex- 
pect, at least may we not hope, that our great-grandchildren, 
when the hundred years come around again, may celebrate 
another centennial by setting up in the public square of Paris 



THE DEPUTATION TO AMERICA. 55 



or some other of our great cities, the statue of France enfran- 
chised from the yoke of Roman intolerance and superstition? 
And on its pedestal, built by some new Franco-American 
committee, shall be a bas-relief representing America and 
England, hand in hand, giving to France the kiss of peace, 
and teaching her to read that gospel from which they have 
learned the great lessons of their own liberty." 

The Central Commission, organized at New York to 
welcome and aid the Deputation, and having its office 
at the rooms of the American and Foreign Christian 
Union, 45 Bible House, New York, is thus constituted: 

REV. HOWARD CROSBY, D. D., LL. D., 

President. 

REV. A. F. BEARD, D. D., of Syracuse, 

Secretary. 



Rev. HENRY M. FIELD, D. D. Rev. LYMAN ABBOTT, D. D. 

" J. M. BUCKLEY, D. D. " L. T. CHAMBERLAIN. D. D. 

" ELBERT S. PORTER, D. D. FRANKLIN ALLEN, Esq. 

" A. C. WEDEKIND, D. D. Hon. E. L. FANCHER, LL. D. 

" HENRY M. BAIRD, D. D. A. V. STOUT, Esq. 

" LEON. WOOLSEY BACON. Bishop W. L. HARRIS. 

" S. I. PRIME, D. D. Hon. CHARLES FLAMMER. 

" WM. H. WARD, D. D. Hon. F. T. FRELINGHU YSEN. 

ALBERT WOODRUFF, Esq. Hon. R. L. PRUYN. 

SAMUEL D. SCHIEFFELIN, Esq. Prof. ELIE CHARLIER. 
Rev. WM. M. TAYLOR, D. D. FREDERICK H. WOLCOTT, Esq. 
Prof. ARNOLD GUYOT, LL. D. Rev. WILLIAM T. SABINE, D. D. 
Rev. R. HEBER NEWTON, D. D. " HENRY M. BOOTH. D. D. 
A. S. HATCH, Esq. " G. L. SHEARER. 

A. S. BARNES, Esq. " EDWARD B. COE. 



