The church has been commemorated in the popular lyric of Mrs. Stansberry, _How he Saved St. Michael’s_, though as a matter of fact it was the spire of St. Philip’s that was saved from fire by an heroic negro. Timrod, during the war between the States, refers to the church in one of his tenderest poems entitled, _Christmas_, and Simms, when the steeple was made a target for Federal guns, published his passionate lines beginning: “Aye, strike with sacrificial aim, The temple of the living God, Hurl iron bolt and seething flame Through aisles which holiest feet have trod!” [Illustration: ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH, CHARLESTON.] From the “pigeon holes,” the highest point in the tower, patriots of the Revolution watched the coming and progress of the British fleets of Parker and Arbuthnot, and almost a century later the war-ships of Dupont and Dahlgren were sighted from the same aerie long before they crossed the bar. Its congregation is so largely composed of the élite of Charleston society that a local wit had irreverently called the venerable structure “the Chapel of Ease of the St. Cecilia Society.” It is claimed that the French Protestant (Huguenot) Church in Charleston is nearly if not quite coeval in date with the present city. There is some evidence that the church owes its origin to the colony of French Protestants sent out to the Province in 1680 by Charles II. of England. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the consequent Huguenot emigration to America in 1685 put the church on a solid foundation, though many of the Huguenots who came to Carolina settled at Orange Quarter, on the Santee River, at St. John’s, Berkeley, and possibly in St. James, Goose Creek. In 1687, came Elias Prioleau, the first recognized and regular pastor of the French Church in Charleston. Two of his lineal descendants are now in the eldership of the church. After the fire of 1740, in which the early records of the church were destroyed, the liturgy of Neufchâtel and Valangin was adopted and an English translation of it is still in use. In 1845 the present tasteful Gothic edifice, the fourth upon the same site, was built, and has been in use ever since, except during the war between the States. In 1858, before a baptism of blood and fire had put the courage and tenacity of Charleston to the supreme test, and twenty-eight years before the memorable earthquake, James L. Petigru, the head of the bar of Charleston, and President of the Historical Society of South Carolina, said in a public speech: “Perhaps the opinion is tinged with partiality; yet, after making due allowance for such bias, I think I may say that in the circle of vision from the belfry of St. Michael’s there has been as much high thought spoken, as much heroic action taken, as much patient endurance borne as in any equal area of land on this Continent.”