France by H. H. DEXTER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1908

France

By H. H. DEXTER

In south central France, in the departments of Ardèche and Haute-Loire is a vast elevated plateau four thousand feet above sea-level. It was to these mountains and table-lands that thousands of the Huguenots fled for refuge at the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes. This edict was proclaimed by Henri IV, king of France, assuring liberty of conscience to the persecuted Huguenots. This freedom was enjoyed more or less till the time of Louis XIV, in 1685, when the king yielded to the clamoring of the Catholic clergy to rid the nation of the despised heretics. Thousands of the best families of France sought shelter in Holland and Switzerland, and those who had the means went to England, and even to America. The poorer families were obliged to flee for safety to the mountains. Since the French Revolution, in 1799, this poor, wasted people has enjoyed their rights to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences.

Last fall two of our colporteurs sold quantities of our small tracts in the Protestant towns and villages of this mountainous region, thus preparing the way for the living messenger.

January 12 I left Nîmes, accompanied by a young brother, a Bible worker, to visit this Protestant section, with the view to introducing our message. Owing to the altitude, the winters here are long and cold, and often the trains are blocked by snow for two or three weeks at a time; however, knowing that the people have more time at this season to devote to attending meetings and reading than in summer, we were willing to endure a little discomfort. For two weeks after our arrival the Lord favored us with excellent weather, with no snow. From the railroad station we walked six kilometers to Mazet St. Voy, a popular summer resort for Protestants. As this place is a center to which hundreds of the inhabitants of the neighboring villages come for supplies, as well as to attend the Sunday services at one of the largest Protestant temples in France, we thought it would be well for us to rent a hall here for public meetings; but finding rents rather high, we decided simply to rent a room for lodging, and then devote our energies to visiting Protestant villages and holding cottage meetings wherever the Lord opened the way.

At the first village we introduced ourselves as missionaries, to one of the best families, who received us very kindly. When we proposed to read a few verses from the Scriptures, the housewife asked us to wait until she had sent her son to invite some of the neighbors. In a few minutes we had an audience of twenty adults. After the Bible study we left an appointment for an evening meeting, which was attended by about seventy persons, who listened with rapt interest to the explanation of the signs of the coming of our Lord. An elderly man, who assured us that the study had done him much good, told us of another village where the people are very pious and would be glad to hear us explain the Scriptures. The next day we went to this village, arriving late in the afternoon. We soon found a family who was willing to give us the use of their spacious kitchen for a meeting. We asked the village school-teacher to announce our meeting to his scholars. At seven o’clock about one hundred persons crowded into this kind woman’s kitchen, and found seats upon rough boards placed on cases or chairs. After the meeting we sold a large number of small tracts on the coming of the Lord. One woman with her face all aglow after hearing a simple exposition of Daniel 2, asked us if we couldn’t come to her village to hold a few meetings at her house. In two weeks we visited, gave readings, and held meetings in five villages.

The ministers soon heard of our work, and fearing we would spoil their pastures, began to warn the flock, saying that we were setters forth of strange and dangerous doctrines; but the people knew better, for they had heard us pray and explain the Scriptures, and they had read our tracts. One old gentleman told us that when his minister sought to influence him against us, he told him that he was like the blind man whose eyes Jesus opened,—he didn’t know whether those men were false and dangerous teachers or not, but one thing he did know, they taught the way of God according to the Holy Scriptures.

I was very glad to form the acquaintance of an Australian woman, the wife of a Frenchman who spent forty years in Australia, but who recently returned to France with his English-speaking wife, a son, and a daughter. The wife is somewhat homesick and lonely, not being able to speak the French. She was delighted to meet some one who spoke her native tongue. Although I knew that she and her family were of the Catholic persuasion, I asked whether she had an English Bible, and to my glad surprise she handed me a Protestant English Bible, from which I read and explained many scriptures relating to the blessed hope and the soon coming of Christ. This is the first Bible study I have given in English since coming to France. We were as messengers of light to this house, and the lady expressed her gratitude for our visit and study, and heartily invited us to call again.

Surely in these mountain villages the Lord has many sterling hearts that are prepared to embrace his message for these last days. H. H. DEXTER.

Nîmes.