nd in a horror-struck way tells how that last Bishop, "being
overcome by the devil, abjured the episcopacy; with his own hands
destroyed the insignia of his sacred office; and thereafter gave himself
up to a blasphemous attack upon the holy religion of which he had been
for a long while one of the most worthy ministers."

It certainly is true that the devil had things largely his own way about
that time here in France; but it does not necessarily follow that in
this particular matter the devil directly had a hand. To my mind a
simpler and more natural explanation presents itself: That the
iconoclastic Bishop was a weak brother who had suffered himself to be
forced into a calling for which he had no vocation, and into an
apparent championship of a faith with which his inmost convictions were
at war; that for years and years the struggle between the inward man and
the outward Bishop had gone on unceasingly and hopelessly, until--as
well enough might happen to one strong enough to resent yet not strong
enough to overcome restraint--the galling irksomeness of such a double
life had brought madness near; and that madness did actually come when
the chains of a life and of a faith alike intolerable suddenly were
fused in the fierce heat of the Revolution and fell away.

IX

Below Viviers the Rhone breaks out from its broad upper valley into its
broader lower valley through the Defile of Donzere. Here the foothills
of the Alps and the foothills of the Cevennes come together, and behind
this natural dam there must have been anciently a great lake which
extended to the northward of where now is Valence. The Defile is a
veritable canon that would be quite in place in the Sierra Madre. On
each side of the sharply-narrowed river the walls of rock rise sheer to
a height of two hundred feet. The rush of the water is tumultuous. In
mid-stream, surrounded by eddies and whirling waves, is the
Roche-des-Anglais--against which the boat of a luckless party of English
travellers struck and was shattered a hundred years ago. Indeed, so
dangerous was this passage held to be of old--when faith was stronger
and boats were weaker than in our day of skepticism and
compound-engines--that it was customary to tie-up at the head of the
Defile and pray for grace to come through it safely; and sincerely
faithful travellers tied-up again when the passage was ended to offer a
service of grateful praise. But nowadays they clap five men on the
tiller a