his congregation that he had intended to have
preached a sermon on baptism; but, eyeing his garments, he observed that
_circumstances_ prevented, as he could now sympathize with Peter, and
take the text, 'Lord, save, or I perish.'

To serve God according to the dictates of their own conscience, had ever
been a supreme duty with the French Protestants, and paramount to
everything else. For this they had endured the severest persecutions in
France, and had sacrificed houses, lands, kindred and their native
homes; they had crossed a trackless ocean, and penetrated the howling
wilderness, inhabited by savage tribes--and for what?--To serve their
MAKER, and the RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. They had been the salt of France,
and brought over with them their pious principles, with their
Bibles,--the most precious things. Some of these faded volumes are still
to be found among the children of the American Huguenots, and we have
often seen and examined one of the most venerable copies. It is
Diodati's French Bible, with this title:--

LA SAINTE
BIBLE,
INTERPRETEE PAR JEAN DIODATI,
MDCXLIII.
IMPRIMEE A GENEVE.

The sacred book is 219 years old, in excellent condition, and well
covered with white dressed deerskin, its ties of the same material. It
was brought to America by Louis Bevier, a French Protestant of Ulster,
and has been preserved as a precious family relic through nine
generations. It was carried from France to Holland, and thence to New
Paltz. 'Blessed Book! the hands of holy martyrs have unfolded thy sacred
pages, and their hearts been cheered by thy holy truths and promises!'
There is also a family record written in the volume, faintly legible, of
the immediate descendants of Louis Bevier and his wife, Maria Lablau,
from the year 1674 to 1684.

Above anything else did the Huguenots of France love their BIBLES.
Various edicts, renewed in 1729, had commanded the seizure and
destruction of _all_ books used by the Protestants, and for this
purpose, any consul of a commune, or any priest, might enter the houses
to make the necessary search. We may therefore compute by millions the
volumes destroyed in obedience to these royal edicts. On the 17th of
April, 1758, about 40,000 books were burned at one time in Bordeaux; and
it is also well known that at Beaucaire, in 1735, there was an
auto-da-fe almost equal to that of Bordeaux. It was a truly sad day, in
France, when the old family BIBLE must be given up; the book