Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 1).djvu/39

Rh which, crusades were preached against them and their innocent blood, which has been so inhumanly shed, still cries up to heaven. Even if the papal hierarchy and Christianity had not been one and the same thing, there would still have arisen in our mountains great preachers and reformers of the church. When the papal authority began to totter, such teachers as these spread themselves among our mountains and Calvin's disciples found minds, which had been long prepared to receive his doctrines. This form of faith is here as natural and holy as yours may be in other parts, and he only could resolve on extirpating them by persecution, who misunderstands the beautiful and tolerating spirit of Christianity, indeed it appears to me, that he must be entirely inimical to this religion of love. Since Luther and Calvin, a civil war has raged through every province for nearly a century; dearly was this cherished liberty to be paid for, of which the popes and bishops have so