190
The Great Controversy
infected with this detestable rottenness, I would give it you to cut off....
And further, if I saw one of my children defiled by it, I would not
spare him.... I would deliver him up myself, and would sacrifice him
to God.” Tears choked his utterance, and the whole assembly wept,
with one accord exclaiming: “We will live and die for the Catholic
religion!”—D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the
Time of Calvin, b. 4, ch. 12.
Terrible had become the darkness of the nation that had rejected
the light of truth. The grace “that bringeth salvation” had appeared;
but France, after beholding its power and holiness, after thousands
had been drawn by its divine beauty, after cities and hamlets had been
illuminated by its radiance, had turned away, choosing darkness rather
than light. They had put from them the heavenly gift when it was
offered them. They had called evil good, and good evil, till they had
fallen victims to their willful self-deception. Now, though they might
actually believe that they were doing God service in persecuting His
people, yet their sincerity did not render them guiltless. The light that
would have saved them from deception, from staining their souls with
bloodguiltiness, they had willfully rejected.
A solemn oath to extirpate heresy was taken in the great cathedral
where, nearly three centuries later, the Goddess of Reason was to be
enthroned by a nation that had forgotten the living God. Again the
procession formed, and the representatives of France set out to begin
the work which they had sworn to do. “At short distances scaffolds
had been erected, on which certain Protestant Christians were to be
burned alive, and it was arranged that the fagots should be lighted at
the moment the king approached, and that the procession should halt
to witness the execution.”—Wylie, b. 13, ch. 21. The details of the
tortures endured by these witnesses for Christ are too harrowing for
recital; but there was no wavering on the part of the victims. On being
urged to recant, one answered: “I only believe in what the prophets
and the apostles formerly preached, and what all the company of saints
[230]
believed. My faith has a confidence in God which will resist all the
powers of hell.”—D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe
in the Time of Calvin, b. 4, ch. 12.
Again and again the procession halted at the places of torture. Upon
reaching their starting point at the royal palace, the crowd dispersed,
and the king and the prelates withdrew, well satisfied with the day’s