I experienced in so great a degree when later I attended those Paris
churches that strive so for elegance, where one is met at the door by
ushers whose shoulders are tricked out with knots of ribbon. . . .
Oh! for the congregation of Cevennes! Oh! for the preachers of the
wilderness!

Such little things as I have mentioned did not shake my faith which
seemed as solid as a house built upon a rock; but doubtless they made
the first imperceptible crevice through which, drop by drop, oozed the
melting ice-cold water.

Where I still knew true meditation, and felt the deep sweet peace one
should feel in the house of God was in an old church in the village of
St. Pierre Oleron; my great grandfather Samuel had, at the time of
the persecutions, worshipped and prayed there, and my mother had also
attended it during her girlhood days. . . . I also loved those little
country churches to which we sometimes went on Sunday in the summer
time: they were generally old and had simple whitewashed walls. They
were built any where and every where, in a corner of a wheat field with
wild flowers growing all about them; or in more retired places, in the
centre of some enclosure at the far end of an avenue of old trees. The
Catholics have nothing, in my opinion, which surpasses in religious
charm these humble little sanctuaries of our Protestant ancestors--not
even do their most exquisite stone chapels hidden away in the depth
of the Breton woods, that at a later time I learned to admire so much,
touch me so deeply.

I still held fast to my determination to become a minister; it still
seemed to me that that was my duty. I had pledged myself, in my prayers
I had given my word to God. How could I therefore break my vow?