1^2 NOTES, 



souled, energetic people were driven, by the persecutions of the 

 Old World, to take refuge in this uncultivated wild, we trace 

 the origin of this community ; we tread upon the ashes of the 

 pioneers of religion, of domestic peace, and of social virtue. 

 To call up scenes of other times, to revive the memories of 

 the generous dead, to hold up ancestral virtue to praise and 

 emulation, are grateful tasks, which seldom fail to achieve last- 

 ing and beneficial results. We look back to our fathers for 

 lessons of wisdom and piety. We take pleasure in recalling 

 their brave deeds and their exalted virtues. We like to fre- 

 quent their accustomed walks and haunts. With pleasure we 

 sit around the firesides at which they sat, and worship before 

 the altars at which they worshipped — and who will quarrel 

 with this just principle of our nature ? Our Huguenot ances- 

 tors came out to this country in the complete armor of grown- 

 up, civilized men. They had been raised under the auspices of 

 an old and refined civilization ; their minds and hearts had 

 undergone the severest discipline of an improved age and of 

 bitter experience. Up to the edicts of Nantes in 1590, stripes, 

 persecutions, and outrage were exerted against the unfortunate 

 Huguenots, and in a few years after this they were systemati- 

 cally proscribed. In the year 1669 an edict against emigra- 

 tion was issued. The Huguenots' worship was openly at- 

 tacked. No seats in their temples were allowed. They were 

 prohibited from acting in any branch of the learned profes- 

 sions. They were not even allowed to pursue the calling of 

 any business, by which to support their families. 



"It was after they were driven from their homes to take shel- 

 ter in the deserts and forests ; when their property was confis- 

 cated, their marriages annulled, and their children declared 

 illegimate ; when their religious worship was wholly interdicted, 

 their ministers expelled the country, or if found inhumanly 

 put to death ; when, in short, all classes of men, women, and 

 children were hunted down like wild beasts and brutally 

 murdered while engaged in their religious rites ; it was then, 



