ccordingly
lay for eighteen days in the cabin of the gravedigger, until it could
be transported to the cemetery of Sevres, where it was finally
interred.

But the people of France, as well as the government, have become too
indifferent about religion generally, to persecute any one on its
account. The nation is probably even now suffering for its
indifference, and the spectacle is a sad one. It is only the old, old
story. The sins of the fathers are being visited on the children.
Louis XIV. and the French nation of his time sowed the wind, and their
descendants at the Revolution reaped the whirlwind. And who knows how
much of the sufferings of France during the last few years may have
been due to the ferocious intolerance, the abandonment to vicious
pleasures, the thirst for dominion, and the hunger for "glory," which
above all others characterized the reign of that monarch who is in
history miscalled "the Great?"

It will have been noted that the chief scenes of the revival of
Protestantism described in the preceding pages occurred in Languedoc
and the South of France, where the chief strength of the Huguenots
always lay. The Camisard civil war which happened there, was not
without its influence. The resolute spirit which it had evoked
survived. The people were purified by suffering, and though they did
not conquer civil liberty, they continued to live strong, hardy,
virtuous lives. When Protestantism was at length able to lift up its
head after so long a period of persecution, it was found that, during
its long submergence, it had lost neither in numbers, in moral or
intellectual vigour, nor in industrial power.

To this day the Protestants of Languedoc cherish the memory of their
wanderings and worshippings in the Desert; and they still occasionally
hold their meetings in the old frequented places. Not far from Nismes
are several of these ancient meeting-places of the persecuted, to
which we have above referred. One of them is about two miles from the
city, in the bed of a mountain torrent. The worshippers arranged
themselves along the slopes of the narrow valley, the pastor preaching
to them from the grassy level in the hollow, while sentinels posted
on the adjoining heights gave warning of the approach of the enemy.
Another favourite place of meeting was the hollow of an ancient quarry
called the Echo, from which the Romans had excavated much of the stone
used in the building of the city. The congregation seate