r leaders, nor fortresses. Under the persecution of the
Valois princes they had Conde and the King of Navarre and Coligny for
leaders; they were strong enough to fight for their liberties,--they had
enthusiasm and prestige and hope. Under the iron and centralized
government of Louis XIV. they were completely defenceless, like lambs
before wolves; they had no hopes, they could make no defence; they were
an obnoxious, slandered, unimportant, unfashionable people, and their
light had gone out. They had no religious enthusiasm even; they were
small farmers and tradesmen and servants, and worshipped God in dingy
chapels. No great men arose among them, as among the Puritans of
England. They were still evangelical in their creed, but not earnest in
defending it; so persecution wiped them out--was terribly successful.
Eight hundred thousand of them perished in prisons and galleys or on
scaffolds, and there was no help.

Henry IV., when he gave toleration to the Huguenots, never dreamed that
his successors would undo his work. Had he foreseen that concession to
the unchanged and unchangeable enemies of human freedom would have ended
as it did, I believe his noble heart would have revolted from any peace
until he could have reigned as a Protestant king. Oh, had he struggled a
little longer for his crown, how different might have been the
subsequent history of France, and even Europe itself! How much greater
would have been his own fame! Even had he died as the defender of
Protestant liberties, a greater glory than that of Gustavus would have
been his forever. The immediate results of his abjuration were doubtless
beneficial to himself, to the Huguenots, and to his country. Expediency
gives great rewards; but expediency cannot control future events,--it is
short-sighted, and only for the time successful. Ask you for the
ultimate results of the abjuration of Henry IV., I point to the
demolition of La Rochelle, under Richelieu, and the systematic
humiliation of the Huguenots; I point to the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, by Louis XIV., and the bitter and cruel and wholesale
persecution which followed; I point to the atrocities of the dragonnades
and the exile of the Huguenots to England and America and Holland; I
point to the extinction of civil and religions liberty in France,--to
the restoration of the Jesuits,--to the prevalence of religious
indifference under the guise of Roman Catholicism, until at last it
threw off the mas