Church, they continued to adorn the doctrines of the Cross.

From the brief review which has been made of an interesting period in the history of the French Protestant Church, one may learn how strong is the tendency to, and how rapid the operation of, religious degeneracy. In a few years the Church rose to greatness and glory, and in a few years she declined into comparative weakness. So it was in primitive times with the churches of Asia Minor; the vigour of their piety did not survive the death of the Apostles, and so it not unfrequently happens with the individual Christian. His first are his best days, and that so generally, that many good men have concluded in every life of faith there is necessarily a season of backsliding. What the more immediate causes of this may be, we are not here called upon to state; but one can scarcely fail to remark, that such cases strikingly show the amazing depravity of human nature even among good men; the necessity of the continued agency of the Holy Spirit to the spiritual prosperity of individuals and of churches; and the sovereignty of the Divine dispensations towards the Church of the Redeemer.

PROTESTANTISM OF THE PROVINCES OF BEARN AND

NAVARRE.

WHILE I have spoken of the Protestant Church of France as a whole, it may be proper to record a few things more particularly of the provinces of Bearn and Navarre, constituting at that time a distinct kingdom. These provinces, stretching along the range of the Pyrenean mountains, had early received the light of the Reformed doctrine. Indeed, the Alpine fastnesses of the South of France, of which they may be said to form a part, seem to have been the asylum where God protected and nourished his suffering saints during the

not be

darkest and bloodiest reign of Antichrist. This was the wilderness into which the woman was driven for 1260 years. Marguerite, the sister of Francis I., became by marriage the Queen of Navarre, in 1527. She was, according to her light, a devoted Protestant; and published a book of piety, which was afterwards translated by Elizabeth, Queen of England, entitled, "A Godly Meditation of the Christian Soul." About the time of her ascending the throne, a fierce persecution broke out in Germany, which drove many Protestants to her kingdom as a refuge, among others, the celebrated Calvin, then scarcely of age; and Marot, the translator of the Psalms of David into French metre. The great Reformer speaks of the Queen; and higher praise could given as of", one who was promoting the kingdom of God." She left an only daughter, Jeanne Dalbret, who ascended the throne in 1555, and proved herself a most able and zealous Protestant. Her court was repeatedly the asylum of the persecuted Reformed, who flocked thither from all quarters; the most eminent of their number being glad of her protection and countenance. She was the mother of the celebrated Henry IV., and when eight years of age, conjured him, with the affection of a mother, never to attend mass, assuring him, that if he did so she would disown him as her son. How it would have made her heart bleed, had she lived to behold his apostasy; and, after all his sacrifices, to know the unhappy end to which his life was brought by the hand of a Popish assassin, whose religion he had adopted!

Great was the rapidity with which the reformed faith advanced in Navarre and Bearn. In 1560, when the French Protestant Church may be said to have been first regularly organized, the population of the former was nearly divided between the Protestants and Roman Catholics; so that a question arose, who were best entitled to the use of the parish churches? Two years after, when the aggressions of the Papists stirred up the Protestants to war, a minister at one town offered to place

at the disposal of a military commander 4000 Protestant soldiers, and also to support them-a plain proof, at once, of the numbers and respectability of the Protestant population; and yet, not many years before, this was, in a great measure, a Popish country. In 1563, the Queen, in the course of a very able letter which she wrote to a Popish cousin, a Cardinal, in defence of Protestantism, declared that the adherents of the Reformed Church increased in number daily. Such was the progress, that the churches were on all hands supplied with Protestant pastors. 230 monks of the convents of Orthez were superseded by Protestant teachers. Golden chalices, and the other apparatus of the Romish Church, were publicly sold, and the proceeds thrown into the public exchequer; and such was the unpopularity of the Popish ecclesiastics, that they needed a guard to protect them against insult. In various considerable towns the Protestants formed the chief part of the population. In 27 years from the commencement of the Queen's reign, not less than 80 Protestant churches had been erected in the province of Bearn-a province which probably, at that period, did not comprehend more than 200,000 souls, not the present population of the city of Glasgow. How amazing, then, had been the progress of the Gospel in the course of a few years, under the rich outpouring of the Spirit of God. At the same time, how perfectly accordant was this with the experience of the Church of God in other quarters-in Germany, and in France generally. But the very progress of the Gospel provoked; and as the people came to be very equally divided, and the court of Navarre was favourable to the Protestant interest, while the court of France was intensely Popish; so it was easy to see, that collision and broils, terminating in civil war, must ere long ensue. This, accordingly, was the case; and the whole reign of the mother of Henry IV. might be said to be chequered with peace and war, often succeeding each other at very short intervals. There was a perpetual struggle, and the fortunes were various. Though

we cannot altogether vindicate the proceedings of the Protestants-though sometimes they were unduly severe in their retaliations, yet, generally speaking, there is a very marked contrast between them and their opponents: the proceedings of the latter were usually the aggressive, and they were tracked with the deepest blood-stains. At Toulouse, in one of the struggles, 3500 Protestants were most cruelly put to the sword, who, without any sacrifice of principle, yea, in common humanity, might have been spared. As the Popish party were strongly supported by the power of the French throne, the Queen of Navarre, the sovereign, comparatively speaking, of a very limited territory, was constrained to apply for aid to the Queen of England. To the honour of Elizabeth let it be recorded, that she promptly sent £50,000-a large sum in these days-and six pieces of cannon. On a second application to the same quarter, the success was similar. Whatever might be the imperfect views, or the serious faults of the English Queen, she was, at least, the ready friend of the Protestant cause in foreign lands against Popish oppression; and as such, her services should never be spoken of without gratitude. In the present case, her assistance did not prove of such essential use as could have been desired; it was, however important; and after all, it was to a foreigner that the Queen of Navarre was indebted for the deliverance of her kingdom. Gabriel Montgomery, the grandson of a Scotchman who had settled in France, undertook, in 1569, the rescue of the town of Navarreins, the last refuge and stronghold of Protestantism. There were but 400 soldiers within its walls. Arrayed against them were 12,000 Popish troops. Montgomery, with 3000 Protestants under his command, repaired to the walls, and, by the excellence of his management, and the blessing of the God of armies, repelled the besiegers; so that the unhappy refugees, after being shut up for 77 days, and undergoing the severest hardships, were at once and completely delivered. Looking over their walls on the morning of the 9th of August, there was

no enemy to be seen. In that religious spirit in which they contended, they devoted the day to public thanksgiving to the God of heaven. On a similar occasion, at an after day, they partook of the Supper of the Lord, plainly showing, that the object for which they struggled was not political, or merely patriotic, but decidedly religious. The character of their commander harmonized with such proceedings. The Scottish soldier seems to have been a true Christian. He escaped the massacre of St Bartholomew, though he was in Paris at the time. By an almost incredible exertion-the continuous ride of above 100 miles-he reached the shore, from whence he sailed to the hospitable refuge of England. On his return, however, two years after, he was seized in Paris by the Popish party, to whom he was peculiarly obnoxious, and basely executed; but no cruelty could take from him the glory, that, in ten weeks, with a small body of troops, he reconquered the whole province of Lower Navarre, and re-established the legitimate authority-the reign of the Protestant queen. She died in 1572, a few months before the St Bartholomew massacre, and was succeeded by her son, Henry IV. He, in process of time, succeeded also to the crown of France, and the separate and independent kingdom of Navarre ceased. Though Henry had himself been shortly before preserved from the massacre, yet, forgetful of all his mother's instructions, and his obligations to his Protestant subjects, and of what he owed to God, he speedily issued an ordinance for the abrogation of their privileges, and the re-establishment of Popery in the ancient territory of Navarre. Multitudes of refugees fled from the Parisian massacre to this foreign asylum. But Navarre was no longer what it had been. A large body of Protestants remained, but their protection was gone.

Before noticing a few interesting features of Christian character which appear among the Protestants of Navarre, in the period of which I have been writing, let me meet an objection which is often preferred against our Protestant brethren of France. It is said they were