Little did the faithful Huguenot preacher imagine that a century after he wrote thus kindly to his own children, myriads who have been born from the same noble and holy ancestry would be animated, cheered, and profited by his useful life and example. Though dead he yet speaketh.
We have dwelt thus at length upon the heroic history of this Huguenot minister and his family; for where can we find an example so worthy of imitation? He was a Huguenot in its fullest sense, bearing himself, at all times, with a noble spirit of the true man, for the work before him. Never losing trust in God, nor proper confidence in himself, he proved that, when thus true, no man need ever despair. His long line of descendants in the United States may well cherish and honor his memory.
As we have said before, we dwell more particularly upon the character and history of Mr. Fontaine, as a striking example of a true Huguenot; and how truth and the right will finally triumph over all obstacles. Wherever the French Protestants settled in America, they exhibited this same excellent trait; and among their families of Virginia were those who distinguished themselves as brave soldiers and able magistrates in the councils of the then young Republic.
TO-MORROW!
[G. H. BOKER.]
'The sun is sinking low,
Upon the ashes of his fading pyre;
The evening star is stealing after him,
Fixed, like a beacon on the prow of night;
The world is shutting up its heavy eye
Upon the stir and bustle of to-day;—
On what shall it awake?'
MONTGOMERY IN SECESSION TIME.
In the beginning of the year 1860, there existed in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, a strong, active, and apparently indestructible Union party. Three months after the close of the year there remained in the city no trace of Union sentiment. To show how this feeling was destroyed, sinking slowly, and with many reactions, under influences in themselves insignificant, and to narrate, as they fell under personal observation, that short train of events which make up the historic period of this first capital of the Southern confederacy, will be the object of the present sketch.