“When a friend entered his house, his face, that we had never once seen clouded, suddenly lighted up. His look brightened, his voice assumed a peculiar accent of mildness; in every demonstration of his friendship one felt at the same time the frank heartiness of the sailor, the dignity of the general, the polish of the man of the world, the simplicity and truth of the Christian.... Goodness pervaded all his sentiments, his character, his whole life; it was part and parcel of himself; it was himself; a goodness simple, candid, affectionate, cordial; a goodness inexhaustible in its source and effects; a goodness disinterested in its principle and persevering in its fruits; a goodness that never suspected evil, and would not believe it either in men or things.”[148]
Admiral Ver-Huell was snatched from his friends and the Church the 25th of October, 1845, at the age of sixty-nine.
Some further facts in the internal movement of the Reformed communion might be mentioned, such as the establishment of separate flocks, the Wesleyans, Baptists, and dissenters of several denominations. But they were only local manifestations of no great extent, which, although offering examples of living faith and pious devotion among themselves, did not influence the general condition of French Protestantism.
IX.
We have now reached the end of our task. The Revolution of 1848 has as yet exercised no considerable action upon the Reformed communion, taken as a whole. If during the past three years the Protestants of France have held assemblies whereat new projects of ecclesiastical organization have been framed, nothing has as yet been actually accomplished.
The provisional government, pre-engaged with so many other matters, did not touch religious affairs. It only passed a decree declaring that all citizens detained in prison for acts relating to the free exercise of their religion, should be immediately set at liberty, and that all fines which they had been condemned to pay, should be remitted. This was a homage rendered, as the preamble expressed, to the most precious and the most sacred of all liberties.
The only question at the same time religious and political, which was discussed after the Revolution by the press and in the popular assemblies, respected the separation of Church and State. A placard posted on the walls of Paris, on the 24th of February, demanded as the wish of the people, absolute liberty of conscience, and complete independence of the two powers. It was known that M. de Lamartine, then at the summit of popularity, approved of this system, and M. de Lamennais maintained it with the utmost energy in his new journal, Le Peuple Constituant.
Those of the Protestants who were in favour of the principle of independence, formed a society for the application of Christianity to social questions, and published a placard declaring that—“It is unjust to compel a citizen to contribute to the expense of a worship, which he does not follow. That the support of religious creeds should no longer be borne by the public exchequer, but that every one should be left to provide for the form of worship he shall have freely chosen.... Thus, religious creeds would be propagated by those who accepted them, and there would be no more privileged religions. Thus, the State would no longer have its attention engaged by questions full of embarrassment or danger. Thus, the budget would be relieved to the extent of more than forty millions of francs. Thus, in short, the whole French people would be as free and equal in religious matters, as they are [were] in political matters.”
Nothing was impossible in the midst of the universal confusion of minds and institutions. The defenders of the communions officially recognised were kept in a state of anxious expectation, ready to submit to separation if it were pronounced by the Constituent Assembly, but showing their preference for the maintenance of the union of Church and State.