5 1954 
 
 Charleston (S.C). French 
 
 Protestant Church. 
 The French Protestant church 
 
 m the city of Charleston 
 
NOVlfl 1918 
 
 THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH 
 
 / 
 
 IN THE CITY OF CHARLESTON 
 
 "The Huguenot Church' 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 TWO ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE 
 
 TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
 THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. APRIL FOUR- 
 TEENTH. NINETEEN HUNDRED 
 AND TWELVE 
 
 J^SC> 
 
 WALKEK, EVANS « COQSWELL CO., CHARLESTON. S. C. 
 1912 
 
I' // ^*f^^ 
 

 A 
 
 THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH 
 
 IN THE CITY OF CHARLESTON 
 
 The Huguenot Church" 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 TWO ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE 
 
 TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
 THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH, APRIL FOUR- 
 TEENTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED 
 AND TWELVE 
 
 NOV 16 I91R 
 
 )M s:; ;^^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 WALKER, EVANS «. COGSWELL CO., CHARLESTON, S. C. 
 1912 
 
w 
 
THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH 
 
 IN THE CITY OF CHARLESTON 
 
 "THE HUGUENOT CHURCH" 
 
 The congregation worshipping at the corner of 
 Church and Queen Streets, in the City of Charles- 
 ton, vSouth CaroHna, represents today, as it has 
 done for perhaps a century, the only Huguenot 
 Church in all America which continues its dis- 
 tinctive service. The adherents of this church 
 had grown strong and self-sustaining by the 
 year 1687. But, although we know that the 
 Huguenots in the first few years of their resi- 
 dence in the Province of Carolina had established 
 four, and probably five, churches between the 
 Santee River and the coast, yet only this con- 
 gregation held together beyond the middle of 
 the eighteenth century; while at least two of 
 the country churches resigned their separate 
 existence soon after the year 1700. 
 
 The first colony on the Carolina coast was 
 planted by Huguenots under Jean Ribault, in 
 1562. This settlement failed, but after the 
 lapse of a hundred years, when Carolina had 
 begun to fill up as an English Province, we 
 again find Huguenots migrating, and they were, 
 indeed, the first people to preach the Gospel in 
 the country districts around Charleston. 
 
 But when an emigrant pastor died there was 
 always difficulty in securing a successor, while 
 the people had to meet the terrible ravages of a 
 malarial climate, whose diseases they had not the 
 means or knowledge to combat. The mortahty 
 
at Jamestown, on the Santee River, one of the 
 principal settlements, was so great that it had 
 soon to be abandoned. Then there were the 
 troubles of new and untried conditions, with lack 
 of roads and easy means of transportation, and 
 the absence of many facilities of life. 
 
 The congregations had to care for a percentage 
 of very poor members, and even those who had 
 been rich in France had generally escaped with 
 the loss of their estates. On the other hand, 
 the Church Act of 1706, established the Church 
 of England, giving it permanence and support 
 from the public funds, and at the same time 
 placing other religious bodies under some dis- 
 abilities. 
 
 Episcopal ministers were sent out from Eng- 
 land, and in order to attract the refugees, the 
 English service was translated into French, and 
 many pious families, availing themselves of 
 church privileges which were thus rendered more 
 regular and stable than their own, ultimately 
 became affiliated with the Episcopal communion. 
 
 The absorption of the Carolina Huguenots 
 was not different from the experience of their 
 brethren elsewhere. Half a century ago, it was 
 stated by a careful enquirer, that only two 
 Huguenot Churches were then to be found in 
 England, although so many thousands of exiled 
 French had taken root there. 
 
 Notwithstanding the large migration of French 
 protestants to Virginia and New York, and the 
 considerable settlements made by them in New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and North 
 Carolina, as early as 1836 the church in Charles- 
 ton had the distinction of being the sole survivor 
 in America. 
 
 But the church and its records have had a 
 vicissitudinous history. Twice are its records 
 
known to have been lost. In 1740 a conflagra- 
 tion visited Charleston, and though the church 
 itself was not burnt, the archives, which were 
 probably at some officer's home, were destroyed, 
 leaving considerable breaks in our knowledge of 
 the previous history of the organization. 
 
 Again, during the War between the States, 
 when Charleston had become unsafe, a box of 
 invaluable records, and the eommunion service 
 were sent to Cheraw, in the interior, for safe- 
 keeping, but, after the Federal army had visited 
 the town, in 1865, no trace of the property could 
 ever be obtained. This is published in the dim 
 hope that it may be seen by some one who can 
 aid in the discovery of the lost treasure. 
 
 On June 13, 1796, during what is called by old 
 writers "a great fire" in Charleston, the French 
 Church itself was blown up in an unsuccessful 
 effort to arrest the flames, but the church books 
 are not supposed to have been lost on that 
 occasion. 
 
 Mr. Daniel Ravenel (1789-1873) had pre- 
 pared a history of the church, supported by 
 many valuable documents and publications, prior 
 to the War between the States, but its publica- 
 tion was interrupted, and when he resumed the 
 work after the War, so much had been lost, that 
 he could make only a partial restoration. This 
 post-bellum paper was published by the Hugue- 
 not Society of South Carolina in 1900, in Trans- 
 actions No. 7. 
 
 It is practically certain that the first pastor 
 of the Huguenots in Charleston was the Rev. 
 Elias Prioleau, who had succeeded his father as 
 pastor of a large flock in Pons, in Bretagne, 
 where, during a short but heroic career, he and 
 his congregation had been in constant peril. His 
 church was torn down on April 15, 1685, in the 
 
violent persecutions attendant upon the revo- 
 cation of the Edict of Nantes, and he came to 
 Carolina followed by a large portion of his 
 people, and served the Charleston church until 
 his death in the Fall of 1699. He seems for 
 a time to have been assisted by Rev. Florent 
 Philipe Trouillard, who subsequently removed 
 to St. John's, Berkeley, to serve one or more 
 of the country churches. 
 
 The form of government of the French church 
 is Presbyterian, although the service is liturgical. 
 Its confession is said to have been the work of 
 Calvin himself, and was adopted by the first 
 Synod in France, assembled at Paris in 1559, 
 under the title "Confession de Foi, faite d'un 
 commun accord par les Eglises Reformees du 
 Roy aume de France." The liturgy is translated 
 from that of the churches in the principalities of 
 Neufchatel and Vallangin, from their second 
 edition, published in 1737, with some minor 
 adaptations to local needs. 
 
 The refugees brought with them the hymns of 
 Clement Marot and Theodore de Beze, which in 
 the lapse of time, have given way to, and have 
 been supplemented by, books containing the 
 more modern poetry of Christian worship and 
 praise. 
 
 On the walls of the Huguenot Church, in 
 Charleston, are a number of monuments of 
 unusual beauty and historic value. The limits 
 of this notice forbid quotations, but memo- 
 rials of such families as Gourdin, Prioleau, 
 Ravenel, Porcher, de Saussure, Huger, Mazyck, 
 Lanier, all repay inspection, while more recently 
 the corporation has allowed the insertion in 
 the interior walls, under certain conditions, of 
 plain marble stones, of fixed size, inscribed 
 with only the name, location and date. Among 
 
these stones we see — de la Plaine, Bacot, Maury, 
 Gaillard, Meserole, Macon, Gabeau, Cazenove, 
 Iv'Hommedieu, L'espenard, Serre. Marquand, 
 Bayard, Boudouin, Marion, Laurens, Boudinot, 
 Gibert, Robert, Fontaine, and others whose 
 descendants have embraced this opportunity to 
 memorialize their ancestors. 
 
 Many stones in the ancient burial-ground 
 surrounding the church also have a story for 
 the visitor. 
 
 Following the blowing up of the church dur- 
 ing the fire of 1796, a new building was erected 
 in the year 1800, but by that time many of the 
 younger people, and others who might desire 
 to unite, were unfamiliar with French and could 
 not enjoy the services, so that attendance fell 
 very low in the early part of the century — 
 indeed, the church almost died. But in the 
 year 1828 steps were taken for a permanent 
 change to English, and Messrs. Elias Horry, 
 Joseph Manigault, WilHam Mazyck, vSr., George 
 W. Cross, Daniel Ravenel, Thomas S. Grimke 
 and William M. Frazer were appointed a com- 
 mittee to translate the liturgy from French to 
 English. 
 
 The committee did its important work well 
 and deliberately, and a final report having been 
 submitted, the book containing the version of 
 the confession, and the various parts of the 
 service now in use, was first printed as a whole 
 in 1836, and revised in 1853. 
 
 The church having been revived, it was de- 
 cided to take down the building of the year 1800, 
 and the beautiful structure, represented by the 
 sketch at the head of this paper, was erected, and 
 was dedicated on May 11, 1845. 
 
 The congregation was fortunate in securing 
 the ministry of Rev. Charles W. Howard, and 
 
with the newly translated liturgy, the attractive 
 new building, and the drawing power of Mr. 
 Howard's personality and preaching, such an 
 impetus was given and so many accessions made 
 to the roll, that serious consideration was given 
 to the question of enlarging the church to accom- 
 modate the congregation. 
 
 From the completion of the church to the 
 beginning of the War between the States was, 
 however, only a period of sixteen years, and when 
 the War ended, four years later, Charleston, 
 with her churches, her banks, her schools, and 
 all her cherished institutions had felt its wither- 
 ing touch. 
 
 There were then left very few persons of 
 means whose devotion and liberality maintained 
 the church, but these are all dead; other adherents 
 have removed from the city, and the congrega- 
 tion has at last become so small that it cannot 
 sustain the church. It is also unable adequately 
 to support the venerable pastor, the Rev. 
 Charles vS. Vedder, D. D., LL- D., and still is it 
 less able to supply him with an assistant so 
 greatly needed now, when after forty-six years 
 ministry he remains faithful to duty, and though 
 stricken by blindness, conducts the entire ser- 
 vice from memory. 
 
 The two hundred and twenty-fifth anniver- 
 sary of the founding of the Huguenot Church on 
 the present site was celebrated with much dis- 
 tinction on April 14, 1912, when able discourses 
 were preached; in the morning by Dr. Vedder, 
 and at night by the Rev. W. H. S. Demarest, 
 D. D., LL. D., President of Rutgers College, 
 New Brunswick, New Jersey, himself of Hugue- 
 not name and lineage. 
 
 The large attendance at both of these services 
 would lead the visitor to believe that there must 
 
be interest enough in Charleston for the abundant 
 support of the church, and with outside encour- 
 agement there is a field for hope of usefulness. 
 When the present edifice was opened in 1845, 
 there were but seventeen persons who would 
 definitely unite and pledge themselves to attend. 
 Therefore, this sketch is sent out for the informa- 
 tion of all who wish to know tiie true condition 
 of the church, and who are interested in its 
 preservation. It goes forth with mingled feel- 
 ings of pride and humiliation. Pride in the 
 heritage and history of the church, humiliation 
 that aid is asked to preserve it. But so wide- 
 spread has been the kindly expression of inter- 
 est, and so generous the attitude of some of its 
 outside friends, that its officers cannot justify 
 themselves in allowing this church to perish 
 without inviting co-operation from all interested 
 in its preservation, embracing workers and 
 leaders in every branch of thought and activity 
 who look back with pride to Huguenot forbears. 
 The historical appeal is strong enough, when 
 we remember that the first child born in New 
 York City was Jean Vigne. and the first in 
 Albany, New York, was Sarah Rappelyea, 
 children of Huguenot parents, and that in the 
 year 1610 one-fourth of the population of New 
 York City was Huguenot: and when we assem- 
 ble before the mind the noble tributes to the 
 Huguenot character and its contribution to 
 American life, by George Bancroft, John Esten 
 Cooke, and the host of historical and religious 
 writers. 
 
 But the historical appeal alone would not 
 justify the keeping open of a house dedicated to 
 God. If it awakens any holy religious sentiment, 
 any reverence for a faith consecrated by suf- 
 fering, any tenderness for forefathers who sacri- 
 
ficed home, country, fortune, and even life 
 for the sake of principle; and if we can also 
 believe that in the twentieth century this little 
 temple may have a work to do, then let these 
 words fall on open ears. 
 
 Let us close with the benediction used by 
 the soldiers at the siege of La Rochelle and called 
 the "Huguenot Benediction": — 
 
 "The love of our good God and Father, the 
 grace, peace and favor of our Lord, Jesus Christ, 
 through the communion of His Holy vSpirit, rest 
 upon us and all His church forever. Amen." 
 
^^^T the annual meeting of the Corpb- 
 ^% \\ ration of The French Protestant 
 ^^ IJ Church, in the City of Charleston, 
 -^ held January 8th, 1912, the follow 
 ing resolutions were offered: 
 
 "While we do not know the exact date of 
 the establishing of the Huguenot Church in 
 the City of Charleston, still we have docu- 
 mentary evidence of its existence in 1687. 
 
 Therefore; be it resolved, that, this being 
 the two hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary 
 of its recorded existence, a celebration be made 
 with befitting services. 
 
 Be it further resolved, that a committee be 
 appointed by the chair to make the necessary 
 arrangements for this celebration." 
 
 These resolutions were unanimously adopted 
 and the chairman appointed the following com- 
 mittee: Mr. Daniel Ravenel, Chairman; Rev. 
 Dr. C. S. Vedder, Mr. H. E. Ravenel, Mr. 
 J. R. P. Ravenel, Mr. F. G. Ravenel and Mr. 
 Isaac Hammond. 
 
 A meeting of the congregation was held at 
 a later date in the Huguenot Church. At this 
 meeting the congregation unanimously ex- 
 pressed their approval regarding the celebra- 
 tion. It was suggested that four ladies of the 
 congregation be added to the General Com- 
 mittee. The Chairman appointed Mrs. A. A. 
 Palmer, Miss C. P. Ravenel, Mrs. Philip Chazal 
 and Miss Lena Logan. 
 
 The orator chosen for the occasion was the 
 Rev. W. H. S. Demarest, D. D., LL- D., President 
 of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 
 a devoted descendant of his Huguenot forbears. 
 
 Letters and telegrams of congratulation from 
 all parts of the world were received by Dr. 
 Vedder and the Committee. 
 
to that God, who, through tribulation and 
 loss of all else, brought them to this land of 
 religious liberty. Of those Huguenots, who 
 settled outside of Charles Town, we have con- 
 temporary proof of the purity of their lives 
 and the harmony in which they dwelt. 
 
 Lawson, the Surveyor-general of North Caro- 
 lina, at that time visited one of these colonies, 
 and his description is that of a people among 
 whom "the welfare of all was the care of each." 
 A simple incident has come down to us of a 
 resident of one of these colonies who had gone 
 in his boat to Charles Town, and whose delayed 
 return was a matter of great anxiety to his 
 friends and co-religionists. They feared that 
 something had happened to him. When the 
 congregation assembled on the Lord's Day 
 morning, the pastor, who from the pulpit could 
 see down to the shore, suddenly paused in his 
 sermon and cried; "There is Monsieur Gendron," 
 and the pastor, followed by the whole congrega- 
 tion, adjourned the services, and went to the 
 shore to welcome their brother. 
 
 But long before these Huguenots had scat- 
 tered to other parts of America, there were 
 Huguenot settlements in Massachusetts, New 
 York and Virginia. Among the passengers by 
 the "Mayflower," which landed in Plymouth, 
 in 1620, was Priscilla; the Priscilla of romance 
 and poetry, the typical Puritan maiden, and her 
 father, William Molines. 
 
 In New York City as early as perhaps 1610, 
 the Huguenots constituted one-fourth of the 
 population of the city. They had their church 
 within the walls of the fortress. That church 
 continued until 1707, when it became absorbed 
 in the Episcopal Church. Peter Stuyvesant, 
 Governor of New York, married Judith Bayard, 
 
a Huguenot; and Minuit, Lieutenant-Governor, 
 was a Huguenot. 
 
 In Virginia the colony of Huguenots was 
 formed, of whom John Esten Cooke, the historian, 
 says, they diffused an element of lofty character 
 throughout all the community in which they 
 lived. Everywhere the Huguenot secured a 
 position of prominence all out of proportion to 
 their numbers. 
 
 John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the 
 United vStates, and Elias Boudinot the first 
 President of the American Bible Society. 
 
 The part which South Carolina had in giving 
 great names to American history is found in the 
 fact that Henry Laurens was the first President 
 of the Continental Congress. His son, John 
 Laurens, the idol of the American Army, received 
 the sword of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, 
 while Henry Laurens, his father, was prisoner in 
 the Tower of Londo-n, of which Lord CornwalHs 
 wa's titular lieutenant. 
 
 General Francis Marion, with his lieutenant, 
 Ehas Horry, and their faithful partisans, made 
 possible the surrender of the British arms and 
 the failure of the British cause at Yorktown. 
 Gabriel Manigault loaned to the Continental 
 Congress $220,000. All of these were Huguenots. 
 This present church edifice in Charleston is 
 the only one which survives, whilst all its sister 
 churches in the country were absorbed by the 
 estabhshed Church of England. It continued 
 its automony amid many difficulties and dis- 
 abilities. Four churches, successively, stood on 
 the spot whereon we now stand. Owing to the fact 
 that pastors could only be secured from abroad, 
 the services of the church were often interrupted 
 and the sanctuary unoccupied. During this 
 time many of its members found place in other 
 
churches, where their descendants are prominent 
 today. The present church building was erected 
 in 1845. 
 
 The Hturgy of the Church was that of the 
 Swiss churches of Neufchatel and Valangin, 
 which was translated, together with the "Confes- 
 sion of Faith," by a committee of eminent gentle- 
 men. The trial service was held, and the liturgy 
 was so approved that it has ever since been used. 
 The government of the Church is by a bench of 
 elders. The spirit of the Church is wholly 
 evangelical. 
 
 The present church is a center of great interest 
 to tourists visiting Charleston, and they cannot 
 understand why this historic sanctuary lacks so 
 much of that sympathy which ought to be 
 assured; but those who remain faithful to its 
 traditions are proud and happy in their attach- 
 ment to the church of their fathers. The Church 
 continues isolated, not from any lack of unity 
 and sympathy with other churches, but because 
 its merger in any other ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion would be at the expense of its memorial 
 or monumental character. 
 
 At the beginning of the French Revolution of 
 1848, with which Charleston was in the deepest 
 sympathy, a procession was formed, at the head 
 of which were all the dignitaries of State, and 
 the French Consul at Charleston. As it passed 
 this edifice, the procession halted, tho French 
 Consul dipped the flag of France, and all un- 
 covered before this sacred fane; the proces- 
 sion passed to St. Philip's Church, where the 
 oration was delivered by the pastor of the Hugue- 
 not Church. Facts like these are of interest on 
 an occasion like the present. 
 
 A recent writer, whose work of liction has its 
 scene in Charleston and whose book has excited 
 
great interest, speaks of the memories which 
 this church enshrines. He speaks of other 
 churches, and then says of the French Church, 
 that it is: "The one of all these that holds the 
 most precious flame, the purest light; which 
 treasures the holy fires which came from France. 
 It was for liberty of soul, to lift their ardent and 
 exalted prayer to God, as their, own conscience 
 bade them, and not as any man dictated, that 
 those French colonists sought the New World. 
 No Puritan splendor of independence and indomi- 
 table courage outshines theirs. They preached 
 a word as burning as any that Plymouth or 
 Salem ever heard. They were but a handful, 
 yet so fecund was their marvelous zeal that they 
 became the spiritual leaven of their whole com- 
 munity. They are less known than Plymouth or 
 Salem, because men of action rather than men of 
 letters have sprung from the loins of the South. 
 They stand a beautiful beacon shining upon the 
 coast of our early history." 
 
 There is a feature of the spirit of the Hugue- 
 nots, who accepted banishment from their own 
 land, which ought not to be unmentioned. It 
 was the love they still held for the land that 
 cast them out. An admired American poetess, 
 Mrs. Sigourney, on visiting the ruins of a Hugue- 
 not Church in Massachusetts, was shown a vine 
 which the French Protestants had brought with 
 them to Oxford, where a monument now stands 
 to commemorate the Huguenot settlement at 
 that place. Mrs Sigourney apostrophizes this 
 memento of the patriotic love of the exiled sons 
 of France. 
 
"Green vine, who manliest in th\ frc.-h embrace 
 
 Yon old grey rock, 
 I hear that thou, with them, didst brave the ocean surge! 
 
 Hast thou no tale for me? 
 Drank thy germ the dews of Languedoc? 
 
 Or slow uncoiled thine infant fibre in 
 The fruitful moulds of smiling Rousillon? 
 Or didst thou shrink from the harsh tread of martial men, 
 Brother fighting with brother unto death in La Rochelle? 
 
 Hast thou no tale for me?" 
 
 Yes, it had a "tale" for all! A "tale" that 
 told of the unalterable love for the mother-land, 
 which had denied them every right of conscience, 
 life and liberty — an unchangeable love which 
 reproduced in the new world the beloved names 
 of the homes from which they had been banished 
 in the old. 
 
 Our church contains tablets to prominent 
 names among the original emigrants, and more 
 than fifty smaller tablets to eminent Huguenots 
 throughout the land. There is one beautiful 
 stained window, the history of which will be 
 preserved. Some years ago the pastor of the 
 church received a letter from the Hon. Elihu 
 B . Washburne asking how he could commemorate 
 in our church his wife, who was a grand-daughter 
 of General Gratiot, of General Marion's force. 
 Mr. Washburne had been Secretary of State of 
 the United States, and was our ambassador to 
 Paris during the horrors of the Commune. He 
 was told that the walls were already covered 
 with tablets, but that place could be made for 
 a stained window. He replied by securing such 
 a window and having it erected, but before it 
 could be placed in position Mr. Washburne him- 
 self had died. 
 
 I am asked to speak something with regard to 
 my pastorate in the Church. I do this less 
 
reluctantly, because, what shall be said will 
 pertain more to the Church than to myself. 
 When, forty-six years ago, the present pastorate 
 was instituted, the South was in the throes of 
 what is known as Reconstruction, when this 
 grand old vState was harried throughout all its 
 extent by organized brigandage. In this ordeal, 
 Charleston was, perhaps, the principal sufferer. 
 In common, with most of the churches of the city, 
 our church was largely depleted of its members, 
 and deprived of its means of support, but those 
 who remained were unfaltering in their determina- 
 tion to maintain the integrity of the endeared 
 sanctuary of their pious ancestors. 
 
 In his opening sermon, the pastor took as his 
 text, the question of St. Peter to Cornelius, "I 
 ask therefore to what intent thou hast sent for 
 me?" The answer, which he gave to the ques- 
 tion then, is the same as he has sought to give 
 through all the years since; namely, to preach 
 Christ crucified. He remembers, so vividly, the 
 congregation over which he first looked on that 
 far-off day, that it requires no serious effort of 
 th imagination to re-people these pews with 
 those who then occupied them, and who have 
 passed to the life beyond. He has baptized 
 three generations, and received them into the 
 communion of the Church. 
 
 While life lasts with him it will retain endeared 
 memories of saintly women and noble men who 
 then greeted him. 
 
 Of the pastorate who were in charge of 
 Charleston churches forty-six years ago, one sur- 
 vives, Rev. Dr. John T. Wightman, of Baltimore, 
 Maryland, who though in his eighty-seventh 
 year, continues to preach the same Gospel which 
 he proclaimed and exemplified here. All the 
 others have passed away. The Rev. Dr. John 
 
Forrest, Rev. Paul Trapier Keith, Dr. William 
 C. Dana, Dr., afterwards Bishop, W. B. W. 
 Howe, Dr. Thomas Smythe, Dr. Charles Cotes- 
 worth Pinckney, Dr. John L- Girardeau, Dr. 
 A. Toomer Porter, the revered and honored 
 Dr. John Bachman, Dr. William S. Bowman, 
 Dr. Edwin T. Winkler, the ideal Seaman's 
 Chaplain William B. Yates, Dr. A. W. Mar- 
 shall, Dr. E- J. Meynardie, and others of 
 the Methodist Church, earnest and faithful 
 men. And among those, whose memory is still 
 like ointment poured forth, was Christopher 
 Philip Gadsden, beloved Rector of vSt. Luke's. 
 Bishop Lynch then presided over the Roman 
 Catholic Church in South Carolina, to be fol- 
 lowed by my good and dear friend, Harry Pinck- 
 ney Northrop. 
 
 Although this Church has been always ex- 
 clusive in its character, and measurably isolated 
 in its relation to other ecclesiastical bodies, it 
 has abounded in works of beneficence and in 
 types of exalted character. The senior elder of 
 this Church, when the present pastorate was 
 formed was one of whom Hugh Swinton Legare 
 said: "Daniel Ravenel, ten such men would 
 save a city." One of the most beautiful crea- 
 tions of fiction is Charles Dickens' protraiture of 
 the Cheeryble brothers. It was left to this 
 church to make that ideal real in the character 
 of the two brothers, Henry and Robert Gourdin. 
 Time would fail to tell of what this church has 
 done in elevating and exemplifying nobility of 
 life and spirit. But one instance more cannot 
 be withheld. When this church was nearly 
 shaken down by the earthquake, and its means 
 
of restoration apparently beyond reach, at a 
 meeting of the elders, to consult as to what 
 should be done, one of their number, a graduate 
 of West Point, who had served in three wars, 
 and was as truly a Soldier of the Cross, as he had 
 been of the country, proposed that we should 
 roof over the church, and hold our services in 
 the partially destroyed edifice as our Huguenot 
 fathers had done in the caves and fastnesses of 
 France. Fortunately, the necessity to do this 
 was avoided, by the generous munificence of Mr. 
 Charles Lanier, of New York City, who furnished 
 the means by which the church edifice was 
 rehabilitated. It was a member of this church 
 and her sister, who, almost unaided, wrought, 
 what, to me, was the most beautiful example of 
 patriotic devotion elicited in the War between 
 the States; namely, the removal of the Carolina 
 dead, who fell at Gettysburg, from their stranger 
 graves to be re-interred with solemn ceremony in 
 our own Magnolia Cemetery, where each year, 
 patriotic love wreathes their graves with tribute 
 flowers. It was in this church and by the same 
 sisters that the Home for Mothers, Widows and 
 Daughters of Confederate Soldiers was estab- 
 lished, to send forth, as it has, fifteen hundred of 
 its pupils, prepared to meet and overcome the 
 difficulties which confronted life after the deso- 
 lation wrought by the War. It was from this 
 church, and the same devoted sisters that the 
 funds raised before the War for the beautiful 
 Calhoun monument were preserved amid all 
 dangers and difficulties. It is to this church, 
 that our city owes the beautiful and beneficent 
 ministry of the district nurse. It was to this 
 
church, that the Huguenot Society of South 
 CaroHna was first organized, and it is to the 
 Huguenots of that early day that we are to 
 refer the founding of the South CaroHna Society. 
 But I may not continue this rehearsal without 
 wearying you. May I conclude with some lines 
 written by myself, for a like occasion in my 
 native church, in explanation of the propriety 
 and value and need of memorial occasions. 
 
 Oh guardian spirit of days long gone, 
 
 Whose fadeless scroll behooves all days to read, 
 
 Who wait'st unseen with wayward souls to plead; 
 
 For lives of those of old, in word and deed, 
 
 Lift high the veil o'er mortal vision thrown 
 
 That vanished years may live again, again be known. 
 
 And our dead fathers' virtues name our own. 
 
COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS 
 
 two hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of 
 
 the founding of the french protestant 
 
 church in the city of charleston, 
 
 "the huguenot church" 
 
 Rev. W. H. S. Demarest. D. D., LL. D. 
 
 "These all having received a good report through faith, 
 received not the promise, God having provided some better 
 thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect." 
 
 This word of vScripture so summarily complet- 
 ing the splendid story of the Old Testament 
 heroes of faith belongs as well, we believe with- 
 out irreverence, to the Huguenot heroes of long 
 after generations. The spirit, experience and 
 triumph, the incompleteness and the surely com- 
 ing fulfillment, are essentially the same in Bible 
 times and other ages of the onward march of 
 the Kingdom of God. Today, everywhere, there 
 are men and women and children, stewards of 
 the oracles and grace of God just as surely as 
 were prophets and apostles, and somewhere they 
 are suffering, conquering and waiting for faith's 
 sake just as surely as did the many unnamed 
 heroes and martyrs enshrined in this great 
 panegyric to the Hebrews. 
 
 In the long and distinguished succession of 
 those who have received and transmitted the 
 traditions of the Church of Christ through good 
 report and evil report none, perhaps, deserve 
 enduring fame and filial remembrance more 
 than the sons and daughters of France of the 
 days and after-days of the Reformation. To 
 this generation as to every generation there falls 
 the duty and the privilege of honoring the many 
 
groups of leaders in the world-movement of 
 the Gospel, and of deriving anew from them the 
 direction and inspiration which they have be- 
 queathed their descendants. To some comes 
 such call to ever new remembrance of the 
 Puritan and Pilgrim; to some, of the Quaker; to 
 some, of the Dutchman; to some, of the Presby- 
 terian, the Scotch-Irish; to some, of the English- 
 man, the Anglican or Wesleyan. To you and 
 to me, with a true body of brethren, falls the 
 honor of ever-new exalting of the Huguenot and 
 ever-new devoting of our lives to his ideals and 
 undertakings. 
 
 Your claim to this lineal, filial honor seems, 
 one might say, supreme. For here in Charles- 
 ton was the first Huguenot settlement on these 
 Western shores and here you have kept alive, 
 and with its distinctive characteristics; the one 
 French Reformed Church in this Western Re- 
 public. You dwell in a chief place of the noble 
 tradition and in a rare continuance of the 
 original life. Nor is my claim small to a part 
 in this honorable service. The early Huguenot 
 planting in this country in which I have family 
 pride was an enduring one. David des Alarest, 
 leader of a little band of fellow-churchmen, 
 came to this new land in 1663; he lived a little 
 while on Staten Island, and a little while on 
 Manhattan Island; and then he occupied a 
 patent between the Hudson and the Hackensack 
 Rivers about fifteen miles from Manhattan in 
 New Jersey. His three sons established their 
 homes on the several portions of the patent, 
 and at the central home of the three my father 
 was born, the line unbroken there for eight 
 generations. Near Hackensack, before there 
 was a Dutch Reformed Church nearer than that 
 in New York and that at Bergen, New Jersey, 
 
fifteen miles away, the original David des Marest 
 and his sons and their few fellow-families founded 
 their French Reformed Church. It could not 
 last long with its small French constituency in 
 the midst of the larger Dutch population, and 
 especially when a little later the Dutch Church 
 was established close by. So the French Church 
 passed, merged in the Dutch. And the French 
 blood was with the passing ge-nerations more and 
 more thinly mixed with the Dutch blood. And 
 with many descendants of today I own allegiance 
 to the Dutch Reformed Church and to the 
 Holland Society. But the French name has 
 endured; it still stays on the old patent; it 
 has gone widespread throughout our land; and 
 the French strain is not all disappeared; and we 
 strive to keep in spirit and life something of the 
 Huguenot type and quality which, if it be in us, 
 makes us in so far worthy of the name we bear 
 and the faith we profess. 
 
 My first word, then, tonight is In Memoriam. 
 You call this a commemorative sermon. Your 
 minister has told the story of this church, of 
 the men who founded and preserved it. I 
 could not deal with that; I have not known it; 
 nor should I attempt to repeat or add to the 
 story if I could. But I may commemorate 
 the multitude of those who through long time 
 and in many lands, and widely in our own land, 
 under the same banner of fatherland and church, 
 endured hardness and kept the faith. It may 
 well be said of them that they received a good 
 report. For even in their own generation, and 
 increasingly through the centuries since, the 
 thought of men has given the Huguenot peculiar 
 fame and admiration. It has been a good 
 report through faith for it was their faith that 
 wrought out the life and works which deserved 
 
such good report. It was no worldly ambition, 
 it was no zeal for good by withdrawal from the 
 world, it was not devotion to a human high 
 ideal, it was not a purpose of service of fellowmen ; 
 it was faith in God, in Jesus Christ, and in the 
 vScriptures. Their good report through faith, 
 their fame, through all time, is born of their 
 sufferings, their endurance, their martyrdom. 
 The story of sacrifice, of suffering for truth's 
 sake, of heroic stand for principle, of death 
 chosen rather than surrender, is the story that 
 masters men's minds and hearts and is written 
 most vividly in the annals of a nation or of the 
 world. The heroes whom the world honors are 
 supremely those who by faith fighting or wait- 
 ing for the substance of things hoped for remain 
 to the last only heirs of the promise — the thing 
 itself, the rest, the peace, the freedom, the 
 homeland, reserved for others who come after. 
 These are they whom we call great, they who, 
 in God's name, were lifting the valleys and 
 leveling the hills- of the hard highway of the 
 marching souls of men, that those who came 
 after might easily enter into the promised land, 
 and find it a land of milk and honey. So when 
 God has provided the better thing for us, the 
 liberty and the prosperity, we are unerringly 
 taught that they are not made perfect without 
 us, that the triumph which has so surely come 
 was necessary to complete their conflict, and 
 that it ministers forever to their satisfying after 
 the travail of their soul. We are unerringly 
 taught that in a sense they are not complete 
 save as we give them the remembrance and the 
 honor they deserve, as we enshrine them in the 
 memory and life of each generation, as we 
 nurture in our souls the virtue of grateful 
 understanding, as we carry out the work they 
 
so nobly sustained, as we show ourselves of 
 the same mould and spirit. The noblest monu- 
 ment of worthy ancestors is noble emulation by 
 their descendants. 
 
 It is a long, sad story, all shot through with 
 the splendid light of unquenched faith and far- 
 reaching hope. It takes days and it takes 
 volumes to weave together the threads of that 
 strange story running out from the valleys and 
 the towns of fair France, to picture the scenes, to 
 rehearse the names. We gather up the history 
 of that garden land, when it knew not the day 
 of its visitation, in one vast panorama. The 
 stir of Reformation thought and spirit; the turn- 
 ing of men, families and communities to the 
 new worship and the open Word; the challenge 
 by an entrenched church and by a despotic 
 throne; the resistance of brave and devoted 
 life; sword and fire; cruelty, torture, exile, the 
 waste of fields and homes; the pitiless hurt of 
 children, the satanic dishonor of women, the 
 lavish murder of men; the faith, zeal and cour- 
 age of God's people; the strong voice of unflinch- 
 ing confession ; the flight into mountain fastnesses ; 
 the far-hidden assembly of those who sang and 
 prayed and listened to the pure preaching of 
 the Gospel; the journey into foreign and far 
 distant lands; the seeming triumph of persecu- 
 tion; the seeming overthrow of the Reformation 
 in France; yet the victory of a faith that over- 
 comes the world; and the bequest of triumphant 
 life to all the generations since. 
 
 I want to speak to you of two or three points 
 where the Huguenot has commanded place in 
 history and life. 
 
 1. The National Life; the Depleting of France 
 and the Enriching of America. 
 
Never perhaps has any land more plainly or 
 more largely depleted its life by its own wilful 
 waste than France. A noble race, it cut out by 
 destruction or exile its noblest part and debased 
 its less fine remainder by giving rein to base, 
 fierce passion. The tens of thousands on tens 
 of thousands who went out from their homes, 
 from their fertile fields, from their throbbing 
 industries, depleting the population, still more 
 impoverished the virile, noble quality of the 
 nation. For it was the best blood of France 
 that thus poured itself out, literally to lose 
 itself on the soil of the fatherland or to pulse 
 abundantly in an alien, albeit a friendly land. 
 They were ministers and statesmen, noblemen 
 and artisans, merchants and manufacturers. 
 Rank and wealth were common among them. 
 They were pioneers and promoters of the great- 
 est material activities of the land. They were 
 ardent friends and patrons of education. They 
 were leaders in serious concern for the public 
 welfare and national prestige. They were men 
 of vision, ideals, enthusiasm. They were lovers 
 of their country, patriots of the finest grain. In 
 them lay largely the secret of well-filled treasury, 
 of a noble common life, and of the national 
 spirit. It was no small drain upon the nation's 
 vitality when its very arteries were opened and 
 this its richest blood streamed over the borders 
 and across the seas to mingle with other streams 
 in new commonwealths. Nor did the army of 
 exiles go, sorrowful alone for the loss of homes 
 and fortunes, of friends and even families, 
 perhaps, but keenly sorrowful too that they 
 were torn from a land they loved, from a national 
 allegiance precious to them to the last, sorrowful 
 that a land and throne that had nurtured them 
 had turned upon them in bitter strife, and cruel 
 
injustice, sorrowful that fair France could give 
 itself to bigotry, hate and torture. France 
 reaped the harvest in the wrong and irreligion 
 that grew apace, as well as in the lessened pro- 
 duct of the field and of the factory, in the un- 
 belief and reign of terror that blackly stained 
 her life in years long after, in the enduring 
 defects of an impeded and depleted civilization. 
 But the happier side of the picture is this — 
 the enriching of nations elsewhere into which 
 the Huguenots came with all their genius for 
 national life. Into the countries of the old 
 world round about they went, to Switzerland, 
 Germany, Holland, England; with that we have 
 not to do, save as many made Holland or Eng- 
 land but stopping-place en-route to America. It 
 is our own national life we have in mind. It 
 is a surprise to some to learn how widespread 
 were the Huguenot pioneers upon these shores. 
 Here in vSouth Carolina; many in Pennsylvania; 
 in New Jersey on the Hackensack; in New York 
 at New Rochelle and New Paltz; in Rhode 
 Island; in Massachusetts. Here in larger num- 
 ber, there in smaller, they almost everywhere by 
 a community or a personality touched upon and 
 reached into the forming national life. With the 
 Puritan in New England, with the Dutch in 
 New York, with the German in Pennsylvania, 
 with the Scotch-Irish here and there, they made 
 common cause and entered a composite blood. 
 Nor was it in any instance a strain to be readily 
 lost or dissipated or to prove of less moment 
 than the other. Far more than in proportion to 
 their number did their life tell upon the new 
 American life. It was needed to soften the 
 austerity of the Puritan, to enliven the steadi- 
 ness of the Dutchman and the German, to 
 broaden the devotion of the Scotch-Irish, to 
 
deepen the impetuousness of the AngHcan and 
 the Cavaher. Beyond the well known leaders in 
 the pioneer groups there were those in the period 
 of forming independence. Laurens and Faneuil 
 and Boudinot and Jay and Hamilton. Honor- 
 ing as we do the elements other than ours, and 
 those others in which we have a part, we are 
 impressed with the singularly unprejudiced place 
 given the Huguenot. With all the virtues of 
 the other races there always urges in the mind 
 of casual observer or of more serious student 
 the defect which invites ridicule or rebuke. But 
 somehow of the Huguenot we hear only the good. 
 Nothing seems to rise out of the past to dis- 
 courage his lovers or admirers; the destructive 
 criticism, which seeks, and often successfully, to 
 shatter our happy notions of men and events 
 behind us, scarce challenges the Huguenot. 
 Nowhere, I am sure, in the early days of our 
 land do we find the Huguenot a disturbance or a 
 detriment; nowhere in the beginning statesman- 
 ship do we find him perverse, narrow or super- 
 ficial; in the large life of today we like to think 
 that his blood-bequest is still one of the strong, 
 sweet and saving elements in our national 
 character. In the cultivating of a virgin soil., 
 in the every day making of a new home, in the 
 actual welding of varied people into a new com- 
 munity we find him everywhere wise, ready and 
 forceful. The liberty which is the keystone of 
 our institutions was a passion of his soul out of 
 the price for it which he had paid. The righteous- 
 ness which exalts a nation had in him an 
 impregnable stronghold. The education which 
 claimed its immediate and enduring place beside 
 the hall of law and justice and beside the sanctu- 
 ary with God's Word, found in him a first 
 creator and a generous support. The forming of 
 
the constitution or of the institutions of the infant 
 nation could not be wise or effectual without 
 the idealism, the charity, the poise of the elect 
 Frenchman, the Huguenot. And as the life of 
 a nation is more than its organic law or its 
 corporate institutions, rather the life of the 
 people, his rare quality was rich asset indeed 
 for the nation that hoped, and still hopes, to be 
 the crowning civilization of the world. And as 
 the nation today is facing important and diffi- 
 cult problems, challenged by ventures impetuous 
 and footish or shrewd and unscrupulous, we 
 covet the clear wisdom, the brave readiness, 
 the high principles, and excellent poise of this 
 pioneer stock. 
 
 2. The Forsaking and the Sustaining of a 
 Church, of Religion. 
 
 We are reminded that the cause beneath this 
 whole story is religion and devotion to it. The 
 motive which started a Huguenot people, that 
 separated them from their fellow-countrymen, 
 was the fear of God, the call of faith. Their 
 activity in factions of the court or on the field 
 of battle was but accessory to this — neither 
 political ambition nor the lust of war was the 
 ruling force. As the rise of the Dutch Republic 
 was an uprising of true religion, so was the fall 
 of a united France. The zeal of the Reformation 
 rent the nation and made a new Frenchman 
 over against the old. Religion was worth living 
 for, worth fighting for, worth dying for; its call 
 was rightly to forsake husband or wife, lands, 
 houses, and fatherland. The Huguenot was a 
 protestant — a protestant against a church gone 
 wrong, against error in doctrine and life, against 
 the slavery of the mind and of the conscience. 
 His birth as a Huguenot was his claim to believe 
 as he must and worship as he pleased. To him 
 
the essence of religion was not the form of 
 worship or of the Church; it was the soul's 
 relation to its God, the setting of the heart on 
 Him Who is above; that was not subject to any- 
 other man, be he priest or pope. Yet with 
 religion thus essentially within he was supremely 
 zealous for the united, outward worship of God's 
 people. Those who held the faith must not 
 forsake the assembling of themselves together; 
 it was their right to assemble according to the 
 dictates of their conscience; denied that right, 
 they must gather in the secret chamber, in 
 mountain valleys, or caves of the earth. Religion 
 with them meant a newly opened Bible, a Bible 
 rightly and frankly interpreted, a Bible in their 
 own language, a Bible in their own hands — a 
 proclaiming of the truth which makes men free, 
 of the Gospel which saves the lost. Nor did 
 their spiritual principle of religion or free prin- 
 ciple of worship mean enmity to or neglect of 
 church organization. Gladly would they have 
 honored and remained in the old organization 
 had it permitted them and had it provided that 
 which their consciences did not abhor and resist. 
 They were not anxious to depart from the ancient 
 boundaries, thought of no such thing at first. 
 But, offended by the mother church, unable to 
 secure the things they might approve, driven 
 out by official decrees and the weapons of war, 
 they coveted, and counted essential, an organized 
 church which should direct their order of wor- 
 ship and maintain a reasonable and just govern- 
 ment of religious affairs. Thus arose the Reformed 
 Church of France. It was natural that, with 
 their genius for liberty and their new grasp of 
 the Scriptures, the Presbyterian government 
 should have been chosen. Doctrinal standards 
 and dignified liturgy followed, of course; formal 
 
congregations and fixed sanctuaries. But the 
 organization, the ministry, must be purged of 
 faults, of crimes. The Huguenot was a protest- 
 ant against evil in high places, against common 
 sins in sacred things, against a priesthood given 
 to extortion or uncleanness, against the pervert- 
 ing of church power to personal gain or self- 
 indulgence. The hands must be clean that 
 touched the holy vessels, the^life must be pure 
 that would speak the oracles of God or lead 
 God's servants to His holy hill. Nor might 
 even clean hands and a pure heart dare stand 
 between as mediator, only Jesus Christ, when 
 man would find acceptance with his God and 
 win salvation in the only way, by faith in Him. 
 As the Huguenots came to this land, they 
 brought this unquenchable ardor of the faith. They 
 brought their church and their minister; they 
 brought their pureness of the Gospel and their 
 cleanness of life; they brought their devotion 
 to the Word and their spirit of sacrifice. They 
 were not so many or so centrally located that 
 their racial assemblies could endure or ought to 
 have endured. But swiftly as their language 
 passed and their life spread out, they entered 
 into any near-by church of the Reformed. The 
 church was the heart of the social and civic 
 life; the Bible was the man of their counsel and 
 guide of their life; the minister was the adviser 
 and patron of all their local and personal affairs; 
 reHgion was their vital breath. My own ances- 
 tors for years on Sundays travelled their fifteen 
 miles from Hackensack to Bergen to worship 
 in spirit and in truth ; at New Paltz, New York, 
 the settlement of Beviers and Du Boises and 
 their well-known Huguenot fellow-patentees, the 
 church records pass from French to Dutch to 
 English, the language changing, the religion 
 
never changing, the worshiping assembly and the 
 membership roll the very life of the developing 
 American people. They had in their fair, free 
 land the priceless privilege denied them in their 
 fatherland, for which they had been willing to 
 sacrifice all they possessed and life itself. They 
 were not singular in this respect, of course; 
 largely our pioneer peoples were those of like 
 devotion to faith and church, of like readiness 
 to pay the price, and some of them of like suf- 
 fering and deprivation. The voice of the new 
 American life was thus of no uncertain sound. 
 The years have passed and with them have 
 passed in some measure this spirit of supreme 
 devotion to religion and the outward signs and 
 exercises of it. Later peoples of alien sort 
 have played their part in changing the standards 
 and reducing the habits of religious life. But 
 it is unfair and futile to charge all the change to 
 their account. Straight descendants of the Puri- 
 tan, the Quaker, the Dutchman, the Huguenot 
 are conspicuous enough in the host of those 
 who count the Church and the Word and the 
 Lord's Day and salvation by faith a very little 
 thing. Perhaps they defend the new aspect of 
 things, their new attitude; say that it is the 
 right standpoint of the age, the position properly 
 advanced from the earlier and more primitive 
 idea and habit of a century or three centuries 
 ago. I cannot feel it so. I cannot but feel 
 that the great religious principles of that earlier 
 time were enduringly right. I can only feel 
 that departure from them is a decadence of life 
 and of values which, if continued, must in a few 
 years show unfortunate issues which we as yet 
 scarcely discern. And the truth comes home 
 that what we do not have to pay or sacrifice 
 for we value less. All this came to us without 
 
slightest cost in money, toil or blood — the 
 Church, the Word, the Lord's Day, the faith. vSo 
 we count things little which the fathers thought 
 great riches. I have wondered whether, if an 
 alien force should ride into our land, our cities, 
 our villages, forbidding us the privileges of 
 religion, men who now ignore them would not 
 rise in new spirit to defend them with their 
 very lives. It does seem strange that any man 
 glorying in the Huguenot descent could with 
 uplifted head and open life cast aside the very 
 things which made the Huguenot what he was 
 and which are the citadels of our pride as his 
 descendants. Everywhere there is yet the multi- 
 tude who hold aloft the ancient banner of Church 
 and faith. Let us be in the van. 
 
 3. The Making of the Man, the Gentleman 
 and the Christian. 
 
 Speak as we may of a national life, speak as 
 we may of a church life, we are only emphasiz- 
 ing that which is the final element of each, and 
 that which is the one thing needful after all, 
 the individual man. his quality, his character, 
 his personality. The marvel of human life 
 with its many races and its many millions of 
 souls is the essential sameness of each with every 
 other and at the same time the absolutely 
 inevitable difference of each from every other. 
 The life of races and of men, we believe, in the 
 Providence and Kingdom of God, is going on 
 toward the perfect society, and toward the 
 perfect man. In the age of man's imperfect- 
 ness a group, an individual, stands out here 
 and there in nobler mould than others. The 
 Hebrew race in the ancient world. These 
 heroes of that race whom the writer of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews eulogizes in our text. 
 These men were the makers of the best national 
 
life, their exile and death were the depleting of 
 the chosen people of God yet the enriching of a 
 far-flung life — and this because of what they 
 were in themselves, because of the virtues and 
 nobilities which made them a salt of the earth 
 and a Ifeaven of the world. These were they who 
 would not yield their faith and sacred honor to 
 the whim or the perversity of apostate king or 
 priest or people, but who would ever renew and 
 sustain the spark of true religion and of Jehovah's 
 church in a crooked generation; and any spiritu- 
 alness or righteousness of the Church in the 
 wilderness or in the promised land simply 
 throws into relief these rare lives. After all 
 each man of us stands for himself and is judged 
 for what he is. And we set before ourselves 
 the ultimate ideal, not of vast attainments or 
 vast achievements, but the man, the gentleman, 
 the Christian. The Huguenot, with all his 
 imperfection, stands out second to none, it 
 seems to us, measured in terms of life and 
 character. To commemorate him thus seems 
 to be but the rehearsing of virtues common- 
 place enough, each in itself, yet a calling to 
 remembrance worth while perhaps lest we forget 
 the things that make life's strength and beauty 
 in any age, in our own age. The sturdy quali- 
 ties of manhood were his; industry, thrift and 
 frugality. He led the earnest and modest and 
 simple life — but withal not a life of dullness 
 and monotony. He was a man of ambition 
 and enterprise; one to forge his way ahead. He 
 had the endurance, the courage, the high spirit 
 to press on into the wider fields, larger activities, 
 higher attainments. Nor did he lack the intel- 
 ligence and skill to make good his ambition, 
 courage and industry. In his veins was the 
 blood of thinking men; a quick and virile brain 
 
commanded his ready strength. Then, if we 
 allow the scarce justified distinction between the 
 man and the gentleman and permit the latter 
 title to add something to what we have said of 
 the man, we look at his refinement, at those 
 graces of life which some may tend to disparage 
 but which are such happy marks of highest 
 manliness, graces which we so readily concede to 
 the Frenchman but which only too often consist 
 with grosser spirit within. The Huguenot had 
 that gentleness which strictly means the gentle- 
 man, which is more than an adornment, an 
 essential nobleness to which even the Scriptures 
 call us — Be ye courteous. And with that quiet 
 grace the vivacity that made his words and 
 manners a stimulus of good. Then, once more, 
 if we are to allow the scarce justified distinc- 
 tion between the gentleman and the Christian 
 and permit the latter word to add something to 
 what we have said of the gentleman, we look 
 at his morality and piety — morality without 
 which no man is a true gentleman, piety with- 
 out which the man and the gentleman so unhap- 
 pily tend to decay. Honoring the Huguenot, 
 we tell his fidelity to every trust, his staunchness 
 in every duty, his brave loyalty to principle. 
 Pureness of life, holding the home sacred and 
 society harmless, was acknowledged of him by 
 his foes. To him the fear of the lyord was the 
 beginning of wisdom and the keeping of His 
 commandments the whole duty of man. He 
 was a man of vision, the vision of Christ, and to 
 it he was not disobedient. 
 
 Such manhood, such Christianity, speaks with 
 vivid force to our own day and life. It calls 
 us from idleness and extravagance; it calls us 
 from rudeness and vulgarity; it calls us from 
 laxness of home life and private morals, from 
 
unfaithfulness to private and public trust, from 
 forgetfulness of God and independence of Christ. 
 The Huguenot stands before us, a man and a 
 Christian, in heroic size, a personality that 
 beckons us on to spirit and virtue and high 
 endeavor like his own. 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 C*Vl.O»iO 
 
racuse, N.Y. 
 3ckton, Calif. 
 
1 1012 00017 3031 
 
 
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