French Reformation
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would have saved them from deception, from staining their souls with
blood-guiltiness, 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 intervals along the homeward
route, scaffolds had been erected for the execution of heretics, and
it was arranged that at the approach of the king the pile should be
lighted, that he might thus be witness to the whole terrible spectacle.
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 apostles formerly preached, and what all the
company of the saints believed. My faith has a confidence in God
which will resist all the power of hell.”
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
proceedings, and congratulating themselves that the work now begun
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would be continued to the complete destruction of heresy.
The gospel of peace which France had rejected was to be only too
surely rooted out, and terrible would be the results. On the 21st of
January, 1793, two hundred and fifty-eight years from the very day that
fully committed France to the persecution of the reformers, another
procession, with a far different purpose, passed through the streets of
Paris. “Again the king was the chief figure; again there were tumult
and shouting; again there was heard the cry for more victims; again
there were black scaffolds; and again the scenes of the day were closed
by horrid executions; Louis XVI., struggling hand to hand with his
jailers and executioners, was dragged forward to the block, and there
held down by main force till the ax had fallen, and his dissevered head
fell on the scaffold.” Nor was the king the only victim; near the same
spot two thousand and eight hundred human beings perished by the
guillotine during the bloody days of the reign of terror.
The Reformation had presented to the world an open Bible, un-
sealing the precepts of the law of God, and urging its claims upon
the consciences of the people. Infinite love had unfolded to men the