About My Father's Business

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Archer Thomas. About My Father's Business

THE RARITY OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY

WITH THE CHILDREN OF THE STRANGER

WITH THE CHILDREN'S CHILDREN

WITH THE STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

WITH THOSE WHO ARE LEFT DESOLATE

WITH THEM THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS

WITH THEM WHO WERE READY TO PERISH

CASTING BREAD UPON THE WATERS

WITH THE FEEBLE AND FAINT-HEARTED

WITH THE LITTLE ONES

IN THE KINGDOM

WITH LOST LAMBS

WITH THE SICK

BLESSING THE LITTLE CHILDREN

WITH THEM THAT FAINT BY THE WAY

"IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH."

"WITH THE HALT AND THE LAME."

WITH THEM WHO HAVE NOT WHERE TO LAY THEIR HEADS

TAKING IN STRANGERS

FEEDING THE MULTITUDE

GIVING REST TO THE WEARY

WITH THE POOR AND NEEDY

GIVING THE FEEBLE STRENGTH

HEALING THE SICK

WITH THE PRISONER

Отрывок из книги

A hundred and eighty-seven years ago a French army invaded England and effected a landing at various places on the coast. Smaller divisions of that army had previously obtained a footing in some of the chief towns of Great Britain; and for about fifty years afterwards other contingents arrived at intervals to find the compatriots settled among the people, who had easily yielded to their address and courage, and by that time were apparently contented to regard them as being permanently established in the districts of which they had taken possession. The strange part of the story is, that for a large part of this time England was successfully engaged in war with the country of the invaders, and not only with that country, but with a discarded prince of its own, who, having received assistance from France, strove to regain the throne which he had abdicated by raising civil war in Ireland. Then was to be seen a marvellous thing. A detachment of the French army of occupation in England went with King William to the Boyne, and when the mercenaries who were at the back of James in his miserable enterprise came forth to fight, they beheld the swords of their countrymen flash in their faces, and heard a well-known terrible cry, as a band of veteran warriors cut through their ranks, fighting as they had been taught to fight in the Cevennes and amidst the valleys and passes of Languedoc. For the army that invaded England in 1686, and for four or five years afterwards, was the army of the French Huguenots, against whom the dragoons of Louis XIV. and the emissaries of Pope and priests had been let loose after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Four hundred thousand French Protestants had left their country during the twenty years previous to the revocation of that pact, which had been renewed after the siege of Rochelle, and though the attempt to escape from the country was made punishable by the confiscation of property and perpetual imprisonment in the galleys, six hundred thousand persons contrived to get out of France, and found asylums in Flanders, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, and England, after the persecutions were resumed.

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It must not be forgotten though that many of the old gentlemen have grown accustomed to the use of tobacco, and here in the basement is a smoking-room, quite out of the way of the ordinary sitting and dining-rooms, and not far from the laundry and drying-rooms, which form an important part of the establishment.

But, hush! there is a hymn sounding yonder in the refectory; a hymn sung by voices, many of which are yet fresh and clear, though the singers number more than eighty years of life, and of life that has often been hard and full of heaviness.

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