(Prefacing note:   Requests for the republication of this little story, which appeared in the Christian Observer of September, 1881, have come from various parties, north, south and west. W.D.M.)

It is now 200 years since the wicked King Louis XIV of France broke the most solemn promises his crown had made to the Huguenot Presbyterians, by revoking what is known as the "Edict of Nantes." His grandfather, Henry the Fourth had adjured the faith of his pious mother, Jean D' Albert, and had become a Roman Catholic. But he still cherished a warm affection for the Presbyterian Church of his parents; and despite the bitter opposition of his new Roman Catholic friends, he had given the Huguenots, to whom he owed his throne as well as his education, a solemn pledge that they should be at liberty to worship God according to their religious principles.

Under the pledge, the life of a Protestant Christian was compartively free from persecution until Louis XIV became King of France. Soon this cruel tyrant began to show the most bitter hatred of the Huguenot Christians. He robbed them of one right after another, until he finally broke the sacred pledge which had been given to them, of freedom to worship God in France. They were compelled to become Roman Catholics, or to abandon their property and secretly leave their country forever. For the king would not even let them emigrate. This wicked law, known as the "Revocation of the Edict of Nantes" was made in the year 1685.

The poor Huguenots were now reduced to a pitiable state. If they brought their children to their own pastors for baptism, they were heavily fined, and were required to bring them to the priest to have them baptized. Their beautiful chruches were destroyed, and they were not allowed to build any more. Their children must be educated at Roman Catholic schools, or grow up in ignorance. Their pastors were required to leave the kingdom in 15 days, and these poor people were allowed to have no public worship of any kind. More than half a million of these afflicted Christians were thus forced to leave their pleasant homes, for though they loved France dearly, they would not live where they could not worship God, and teach their children the pure doctrin of His Word.

During these years of great distress, there lived in the department of Ardennes a little girl named Susannah Rochette. Her home was on the banks of the winding Meuse, one hundred and thirty miles northeast of Paris, in the beautiful city of Sedan. (The same place where Louis Napoleon surrendered to the Prussian Army in 1870.) Sedan was the home of a great many Huguenots. They had there a flourishing university, and a large number of faithful friends. Little Susannah had been blessed with Protestant parents, who had directed her education until the cruel king broke up their schools, and the Roman priests wished to take her from her father's care to send her to some of their schools that they might make her a Papist.

Unwilling to have the principles of their little daughter poisoned by Roman Catholic teachers, her father tried to send her out of France. But even this must be done in secret, for the watchful soldiers of King Louis were closely guarding all the roads that led out of the country to stop the flight of the Huguenots who were his most valuable subjects. It was doubtless a painful trial for little Susannah to leave her pleasant home to live far

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