LANCASTER COUNTY. 513 



U. p. 69. 

 The HrcrF.NOTS. — This term, now so well understooJ as an honorable, 

 rather than a dishonorable designation of those who professed the Re- 

 formed religion in France, during the persecutions and civil wars in that 

 kingdom, is involved in some obscurity. Whether it was originally confer- 

 upon them, by the adherents of the so styk-d "Mother (church" as a terni 

 oi reproach, or voluntarily assumed by themselves as a party name, or 

 whether it is a derivation from some other word, having an analogous sound, 

 and introduced from some foreign language, is equally uncertain. Many 

 and various are the sources to which the learned and the curious have en- 

 deavored to trace the ctymrlogy of this word ; but like every thing else 

 founded upon conjecture, we are left as much in the dark as ever. 



Some have assserted that the term was originally applied to the members 

 of the Reformed i)y the dignitaries of the Romish Cliurch,as one of reproach. 

 To sustain this posiiion, it is argued that when the new doctrine was first 

 preached in France, a number of the inhabitants of the city of Tours — 

 which afterwards, and next to the city of Rochelle, ranked as the strongest 

 hold of the Reformed party — embraced the same. Unlike the Romanists, 

 their worship was conducted in the evening as well as in the day. Culti- 

 Tating a spirit of genuine piety, they met after night in each ot'.iers houses 

 for social prayer. In this, they imitated the example of primitive christians, 

 and like them, they became the sulijccts of a persecution almost as relent, 

 less. Going from house to house as ihc place of meeting might chance to 

 be, after the labors of the day were over, to attend to this pious duty, and 

 returning therefrom at a later hour, their enemies, the papists, endeavored to 

 prevent the extension of their doctrines, by reporting at first that they were 

 engaged in some foul conspiracy against the government, and afterwards 

 against the people. Failing in their attempts to aflect them in this'way, 

 and finding that the fallow ground was being broken up daily, with the pro- 

 mise of a rich return, and that the seed of the true faith which was sown ia 

 confidence, was germinating and yielding an abundant harvest, despite their 

 efforts, to the contrary, they next changed their mode of warfare, and en- 

 deavored to effect their object by bringing them into ritiicule and contempt. 

 For this purpose, they seized upon the fact of their meeting after night, and 

 connected with it a story, then current, concerning the city of ':l'ours. One 

 •of the gates of the city, it seems, was called I'u^o, and according to a popu- 

 lar tradition from Hugo, comte Tours, who it seems according to the same 

 tradition, was eminent in life only for his crimes, oppression and cruelty. — 

 After his death — so runs the story — his spirit incapable of repose, haunted 

 immediately after nightfall, the scene, which was the neighborhood of thp 

 gate in question, of its cruelty and crimes, when embodied in the flesh. — 

 Many and strange pranks were played, and many a hapless wight was 



