At the commencement of this century, and in the years which followed the promulgation of the Concordat, the Protestants, like the Catholics in France, thought only of the re-establishment of their worship and of the liberty of their faith. A liberty the more precious in their eyes, as it followed upon two centuries of persecutions and of sufferings of which we cannot, in these days, read the accounts without mingled sentiments of astonishment, of indignation, and of sorrow. Faithfully should men guard the memory of such outrages; they would be infinitely better than they are if they had always present to their minds the vivid pictures of the iniquities and woes which fill the page of their history; and evils would not so soon recur if they were not so soon forgotten. The system of Terrorism under the Revolution had confounded Catholic and Protestant in a common oppression; it had abolished the forms of worship of each, denied all free expression of opinion to Christians; and without distinction condemned to the same scaffold the "pastors of the desert" and the bishops of the Court of Versailles--Rabaut Saint-Etienne as well as the nuns of Verdun. {130} When this terrible regime had ceased to exist, neither party had religiously or politically any desires or pretensions that were not extremely moderate: the one thing regarded by all as the sovereign good was, the right to live without molestation and the liberty to address their prayers to God in the light of day. No other subject so seriously interested them; and they heartily wished to show their gratitude and deference to the Government, which, while it gave security to their bodies, permitted their souls to breathe freely. The condition of the Protestants was in one sense better than that of the Catholics, for the former were now experiencing the joy, not only of a deliverance but of a positive conquest; they had just escaped as well from the system of Terrorism, as from the ancient régime; they had lost nothing to regret; no revengeful feeling made them desire a reaction; their sole aspiration was for the consolidation of their rights, and of their new acquisitions. {131} "You who lived, as we did, under the yoke of intolerance," (thus they were addressed in 1807 by M. Rabaut-Dupuy, formerly president of the legislative body, and the last surviving son of one of their most estimable pastors,) "you, the relics of so many persecuted generations, behold! compare! It is no longer in the desert and at the peril of your lives that you render to the Creator the homage which is his due. Our temples are restored to us, and every day beholds new ones erected. Our pastors are recognized as public functionaries; they receive salaries from the State; a barbarous law no longer suspends the sword over their heads. Alas! to those whom we have survived it was permitted, it is true, to ascend Mount Nebo, and to obtain thence a glimpse of the promised land, but it is we alone who have taken possession."