University of Virginia Library

Chapter LXVII.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS FROM MY CONVERSION
TO THIS DAY—MY NARROW ESCAPES—THE END OF
THE VOYAGE THROUGH THE DESERT TO THE PROMISED
LAND.

THE marvellous power of the Gospel to raise a man above
himself and give him a supernatural strength and wisdom
in the presence of the most formidable difficulties has seldom
been more gloriously manifested than on the 3rd of August,
1858, on the hill of St. Anne, Illinois.

Surely the continent ot America has never seen a more admirable
transformation of a whole people than was, then and
there, accomplished. With no other help than the reading of
the Gospel, that people had, suddenly, exchanged the chains of
the most abject slavery for the royal scepter of Liberty which
Christ offers to those who believe in Him!

By the strength of their faith they had pulverized the gigantic
power of Rome, put to flight the haughty representatives of
the Pope, and had raised the banners of Christian Liberty on
the very spot marked by the bishop as the future citadel of the
empire of Popery in the United States.

Such work was so much above my capacity, so much above
the calculation of my intelligence, that I felt that I was more its
witness than its instrument. The merciful and mighty hand of
God was too visible to let any other idea creep into my mind;
and the only sentiments which filled my soul were those of an
unspeakable joy, and of gratitude to God.

But I felt that the greater the favors bestowed upon us from
heaven, the greater were the responsibilities of my new position.

The news of that sudden religious reformation spread with
lightning speed all over the continents of America and Europe,
and an incredible number of inquiring letters reached me from
every corner. Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists,
Baptists, and Presbyterians, of every rank and color, kindly

pressed me to give them some details. Of course, those letters
were often accompanied by books considered the most apt to
induce me to join their particular denominations.

Feeling too young and inexpert in the ways of God to give a
correct appreciation of the Lord's doings among us, I generally
answered those kind enquirers by writing them: "Please come
and see with your own eyes the marvellous things our merciful
God is doing in the midst of us, and you will help us to bless
him."

In less than six months, more than one hundred venerable
ministers of Christ, and prominent Christian laymen of different
denominations, visited us. Among those who first honored us
with their presence was the Rt. Rev. Bishop Helmuth, of London,
Canada; then, the learned Dean of Quebec, so well known
and venerated by all over Great Britain and Canada. He visited
us twice, and was one of the most blessed instruments of the
mercies of God towards us.

I am happy to say that those eminent Christians, without any
exception, after having spent from one to twenty days in studying
for themselves this new religious movement, declared that
it was the most remarkable and solid evangelical reformation
among Roman Catholics, they had ever seen. The Christians
of the cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia,
New York, Boston, etc., having expressed the desire to hear
from me of the doings of the Lord among us, I addressed them
in their principal churches, and was received with such marks of
kindness and interest, for which I shall never be able sufficiently
to thank God.

I have previously said that we had, at first, adopted the beautiful
name of Christian Catholics, but we soon perceived that unless
we joined one of the Christian denominations of the day, we
were in danger of forming a new sect.

After many serious and prayerful considerations, it seemed
that the wisest thing we could do was to connect ourselves with
that branch of the vine which was the nearest, if not identical
with that of the French Protestants, which gave so many martyrs
to the Church of Christ. Accordingly, it was our privilege

to be admitted in the Presbyterian Church of the Uunited States.
The Presbytery of Chicago had the courtesy to adjourn their
meeting from that city to our humble town, on the 15th of April,
1860, when I presented them with the names of nearly 2,000
converts, who, with myself, were received into full communion
with the Church of Christ.

This solemn action was soon followed by the establishment
of missions and congregations in the cities and towns of Chicago,
Aurora, Kankakee, Middleport, Watseka, Momence, Sterling,
Manteno, etc., where the light of the Gospel had been received
by large numbers of our French Canadian emigrants, whom I
had previously visited.

The census of the converts taken then gave us about 6,500
precious souls already wrenched from the iron grasp of Popery.
It was a result much beyond my most sanguine hopes, and it
would be difficult to express the joy it gave me. But my joy
was not without a mixture of anxiety. It was impossible for me,
if left alone, to distribute the bread of life to such multitudes,
scattered over a territory of several hundred miles. I determined,
with the help of God, to raise a college, where the children
of our converts would be prepared to preach the
Gospel.

Thirty-two of our young men, having offered themselves, I
added, at once, to my other labors, the daily task of teaching
them the preparatory course of study for their future evangelical
work.

That year (1860) had been chosen by Scotland to celebrate
the tercentenary aniversary of her Reformation. The committee
of management, composed of Dr. Guthrie, Professor Cunningham
and Dr. Begg, invited me to attend their general meetings
in Edinburgh. On the 16th of August, it was my privilege
to be presented by those venerable men to one of the grandest
and noblest assemblies which the Church of Christ has ever
seen. After the close of that great council, which I addressed
twice, I was invited, during the next six months, to lecture in
Great Britain, France and Switzerland, and to raise the funds
necessary for our college. It is during that tour that I had the

privilege of addressing, at St. Etienne, the Synod of the Free
Protestant Church of France, lately established through the indomitable
energy and ardent piety of the Rev. Felix Monod.

Those six months' efforts were crowned with the most complete
success, and more than $15,000 were handed me for our
college, by the disciples of Christ.

But it was the will of God that I should pass through the
purifying fires of the greatest tribulations. On my return from
Europe into my colony, in the beginning of 1861, I found everything
in confusion. The ambition of the young men I had invited
to preach in my place, and in whom I had so imprudently
put too much confidence, encouraged by the very man I had
chosen for my representative and my attorney during my absence,
came very near ruining that evangelical work, by sowing
the seeds of division and hatred among our dear converts.
Through the dishonest and false reports of those two men, the
money I had collected and left in England, (in the hands of a
gentleman who was bound to send it at my order) was retained
nearly two years, and lost in the failure of the Gelpeck New
York Bank, through which it was sent. The only way we found
to save ourselves from ruin, was to throw ourselves into the hands
of our Christian brothers of Canada.

A committee of the Presbyterian Church, composed of Rev's.
Dr. Kemp, Dr. Cavan and Mr. Scott, was sent to investigate the
cause of our trouble, and they soon found them.

Dr. Kemp published a critical resume of their investigation,
which clearly showed where the trouble lay. Our integrity and
innocence were publicly acknowleged, and we were solemnly
and officially received as members of the Presbyterian Church
of Canada, on the 11th of June, 1863.

We may properly acknowledge here that the Christian devotedness,
the admirable ability and zeal of the late Dr. Kemp in
performance of that work, has secured to him our eternal gratitude.

In 1874, I was again invited to Great Britain by the committee
appointed to prepare the congratulatory address of the
English people to the Emperor of Germany and Bismark, for
their noble resistance to the encroachments of Popery. I addressed

the meetings held for that purpose in Exter Hall, under
the Presidency of Lord John Russell, on the 27th of January,
1874. The next day, several Gospel ministers pressed me to
publish my twenty-five years' experience of auricular confession,
as an antidote to the criminal and too successful efforts of Dr.
Pusey, who wanted to restore that infamous practice among the
Protestants of England.

After much hesitation and many prayers, I wrote the book
entitled: "The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional,"
which God has so much blessed to the conversion of many, that
twenty-nine editions have already been published. It has been
translated into many languages.

I spent the next six months in lecturing on Romanism in the
principal cities of England, Scotland and Ireland.

On my return, pressed by the Canadian Church to leave my
colony of Illinos, for a time at least, to preach in Canada, I went
to Montreal, where, in the short space of four years, we had the
unspeakable joy of seeing seven thousand French Canadian Roman
Catholics and emigrants from France, publicly renounce
the errors of Popery, to follow the Gospel of Christ.

In 1878, exhausted by the previous years of incessant labors,
I was advised, by my physicians, to breathe the bracing air of the
Pacific Ocean. I crossed the Rocky Mountains and spent two
months lecturing in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and in
Washington Territory, where I found great numbers of my
French countrymen, many of whom received the Gospel with joy.

Under the auspices and protection of my Orange brethren, I
crossed the Pacific and went to the Antipodes, lecturing two
years in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. It would require
a large volume to tell the great mercies of God towards
me during that long, perilous, but interesting voyage. During
those two years, I gave 610 public lectures, and came back to my
colony of St. Anne with such perfectly restored health, that I
could say with the Psalmist: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, thy
youth is renewed like the eagle's."

But the reader has the right to know something of the dangers
through which it has pleased God to make me pass.

Rome is the same to-day as she was when she burned John
Huss and Wishart, and when she caused 70,000 Protestants to be
slaughtered in France, and 100,000 to be exterminated in
Piedmont and Italy.

On the 31st of December, 1869, I forced the Rt. Rev.
Bishop Foley, of Chicago, to swear before the civil court, at
Kankakee, that the following sentence was on exact translation
of the doctrine of the Church of Rome, as taught to-day in all
the Roman Catholic seminaries, colleges and universities, through
the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas (vol. 4, p. 90),
"Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it,
we must bear with them, till by a second admonition, they may
be brought back to the faith of the church. But those who,
after a second admonition, remain obstinate to their errors, must
not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the
secular power to be exterminated."

It is on account of this law of the Church of Rome, which
is to-day, in full force, as it was promulgated for the first time,
that not less than thirty public attempts have been made to kill
me since my conversion.

The first time I visited Quebec, in the spring of 1859, fifty
men were sent by the Bishop of Quebec (Baillargeon) to force
me to swear that I would never preach the Bible, or to kill me
in case of my refusal.

At 4 o'clock, a. m., sticks were raised above my head, a
dagger stuck in my breast, and the cries of the furious mob were
ringing in my ears:

"Infamous apostate! Now you are in our hands, you are a
dead man, if you do not swear that you will never preach your
accursed Bible."

Never had I seen such furious men around me. Their eyes
were more like the eyes of tigers than of men. I expected, every
moment, to receive the deadly blow, and I asked my Saviour to
come and receive my soul. But the would-be murderers, with
more horrible imprecations cried again:

"Infamous renegade! Swear that you will never preach any
more your accursed Bible, or you are a dead man!"

I raised my eyes and hands towards heaven, and said: "Oh!
my God! hear and bless the last words of thy poor servant: I
solemnly swear, that so long as my tongue can speak, I will
preach thy Word, as I find it in the Holy Bible!"

Then opening my vest and presenting my naked breast, I said:

"Now! Strike!"

But my God was there to protect me: they did not strike. I
went through their ranks into the streets, where I found a carter,
who drove me to Mr. Hall, the mayor of the city, for that day.
I showed him my bleeding breast, and said:

"I just escaped, almost miraculously, from the hands of men
sworn to kill me, if I preach again the Gospel of Christ. I am,
however, determined to preach again to-day, at noon, even if I
have to die in the attempt." I put myself under the protection
of the British flag.

Soon after, more than 1,000 British soldiers were around me,
with fixed bayonets. They formed themselves into two lines
along the streets, through which the mayor took me, in his own
sleigh, to the lecture room. I could then deliver my address on
"The Bible," to at least 10,000 people, who were crowded inside
and outside the walls of the large building. After this, I had
the joy of distributing between five and six hundred Bibles to
that multitude, who received them as thirsty and hungry people
receive fresh water and pure bread, after many days of starvation.

I have been stoned 20 times. The principal places in Canada
where I was struck and wounded, and almost miraculously
escaped, were: Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Charlotte Town,
Halifax, Antigonish, etc. In the last mentioned, on the 10th of
July, 1873, the pastor, the Rev. P. Goodfellow, standing by me
when going out of his church, was also struck several times by
stones which missed me. At last, his head was so badly cut,
that he fell on the ground bathed in blood. I took him up in
my arms, though wounded and bleeding myself. We would
surely have been slaughtered there, had not a noble Scotchman,
named Cameron, opened the door of his house, at the peril of
his own life, to give us shelter against the assassins of the Pope.
The mob, furious that we had escaped, broke the windows and

beseiged the house from 10 a. m. till 3 next morning. Many
times, they threatened to set fire to Mr. Cameron's house, if he
did not deliver me into their hands to be hung. They were
prevented from doing so, only from fear of burning the whole
town, composed in part, of their own dwellings. Several times,
they put long ladders against the walls, with the hope of reaching
the upper rooms, where they could find and kill their victim.

All this was done under the very eyes of five or six priests,
who were only at a distance of a few rods.

At Montreal, in the winter of 1870, one evening, coming out
of Cote Street Church, where I had preached, accompanied by
Principal MacVicar, we fell into a kind of ambuscade, and received
a volley of stones which would have seriously, if not
fatally, injured the doctor, had he not been protected from head
to foot by a thick fur cap and overcoat, worn in the cold days of
winter in Canada.

After a lecture given at Paramenta, near Sydney, Australia,
I was again attacked with stones by the Roman Catholics. One
struck my left leg with such force that I thought it was broken,
and was lame for several days.

In New South Wales, Australia, I was beaten with whips
and sticks, which left marks upon my shoulders.

At Horsham, in the same Province, on the 1st of April, 1879,
the Romanists took possession of the church where I was speaking,
rushed toward me with daggers and pistols, crying:

"Kill him! Kill him!"

In the tumult, I providentially escaped through a secret door.
But I had to crawl on hands and knees a pretty long distance, in
a ditch filled with mud, not to be seen, and escape death. When
I reached the hospitable house of Mr. Cameron, the windows
were broken with stones, much of the furniture destroyed, and
it was a wonder I escaped with my life.

At Ballarat, in the same province, three times the houses where
I lodged, were attacked and broken. Rev. Mr. Inglis, one of the
most eloquent ministers of the city, was one of the many who
were wounded by my side. The wife of the Rev. Mr. Quick came
also nearly being killed while I was under their hospitable roof.

In the same city, as I was waiting for the train at the station,
a well dressed lady came as near as possible and spat in my face.
I was blinded, and my face covered with filth. She immediately
fled, but was soon brought back by my secretary and a policeman,
who said:

"Here is the miserable woman who has just insulted you,
what shall we do with her?"

I was then almost done cleaning my face with my handkerchief,
and some water, brought by some sympathizing friends.
I answered:

"Let her go home in peace. She has not done it of her own
accord, she was sent by her confessor, she thinks she has done a
good action. When they spat in our Saviour's face, he did not
punish those who insulted him. We must follow his example."
And she was set at liberty, to the great regret of the crowd.

The very next day (21st of April), at Castlemain, I was
again fiercely attacked and wounded on the head, as I came from
addressing the people. One of the ministers, who was standing
by me, was seriously wounded and lost much blood.

At Greelong, I had again a very narrow escape from stones
thrown at me in the streets.

In 1870, while lecturing in Melbourne, the splendid capital
of Victoria, Australia, I received a letter from Tasmania, signed
by twelve ministers of the Gospel, saying:

"We are much in need of you here, for though the Protestants
are in the majority, they leave the administration of the
country almost entirely in the hands of Roman Catholics, who
rule us with an iron rod. The Governor is a Roman Catholic,
etc. We wish to have you among us, though we do not dare to
invite you to come. For we know that your life will be in
danger, day and night, while in Tasmania. The Roman Catholics
have sworn to kill you, and we have too many reasons to
fear that they will fulfill their promises. But, though we do not
dare ask you to come, we assure you that there is a great work
for you here, and that we will stand by you with our people. If
you fall, you will not fall alone."

I answered: "Are we not soldiers of Christ, and must we not

be ready and willing to die for him, as he died for us? I will go."

On the 25th of June, as I was delivering my first lecture in
Hobart Town, the Roman Catholics, with the approbation of
their bishop, broke the door of the hall, and rushed towards me,
crying: "Kill him! kill him!" The mob was only a few feet
from me, brandishing their daggers and pistols, when the Protestants
threw themselves between them and me, and a furious
hand-to-hand fight occurred, during which many wounds were
received and given. The soldiers of the Pope were overpowered,
but the Governor had to put the city under martial law for four
days, and call the whole militia to save my life from the assassins
drilled by the priests.

In a dark night, as I was leaving the steamer to take the
train, on the Ottawa River, Canada, twice, the bullets of the murderers
whistled at no more than two or three inches from my ears.

Severals times, in Montreal and Halifax, the churches where
I was preaching were attacked and the windows broken by the
mobs sent by the priests, and several of my friends were
wounded (two of whom, I believe, died from the effects of their
wounds) whilst defending me.

The 17th of June, 1884, after I had preached, in Quebec, on
the text: "What would I do to have Eternal Life," a mob of
more than 1,500 Roman Catholics, led by two priests, broke the
windows of the church, and attacked me with stones, with the
evident object to kill me. More than one hundred stones struck
me, and I would surely have been killed there, had I not had,
providentially, two heavy overcoats which I put, one around my
head, and the other around my shoulders. Notwithstanding
that protection, I was so much bruised and wounded from head
to feet, that I had to spend the three following weeks on a bed
of suffering, between life and death. A young friend, Zotique
Lefebre, who had heroically put himself between my would-be
assassin and me, escaped only after receiving six bleeding wounds
in the face.

The same year, 1884, in the month of November, I was at-
tacked with stones and struck several times, when preaching and
in coming out from the church in the city of Montreal. Numbers

of policemen and other friends who came to my rescue were
wounded, my life was saved only by an organization of a thousand
young men, who, under the name of Protestant Guard,
wrenched me from the hands of the would-be murderers.

When the bishops and priests saw that it was so difficult to
put me out of the way with stones, sticks ond daggers, they determined
to destroy my character by calumnies, spread everywhere,
and sworn before civil tribunals as gospel truths.

During eighteen years, they kept me in the hands of the
sheriffs, a prisoner, under bail, as a criminal. Thirty-two times,
my name has been called before the civil and criminal courts of
Kankakee, Joliet, Chicago, Urbana and Montreal, among the
names of the vilest and most criminal of men.

I have been accused by Grand Vicar Mailloux of having
killed a man and thrown his body into a river to conceal my
crime. I have been accused of having set fire to the church of
Bourbonnais and destroyed it. Not less than seventy-two false
witnesses have been brought by the priests of Rome to support
this last accusation.

But thanks be to God, at every time, from the very lips of
the perjured witnesses, we got the proof that they were swearing
falsely, at the instigation of their father confessors. And
my innocence was proved by the very men who had been paid
to destroy me. In this last suit, I thought it was my duty as a
Christian and citizen, to have one of those priests punished for
having so cruelly and publicly trampled under his feet the most
sacred laws of society and religion. Without any vengeance on
my part, God knows it, I asked the protection of my country
against those incessant plots. Father Brunet, found guilty of
having invented those calumnies and supported them by false
witnesses, was condemned to pay $2,500 or go to gaol for fourteen
years. He preferred the last punishment, having the
promise from his Roman Catholic friends that they would
break the doors of the prison and let him go free to some remote
place. He was incarcerated at Kankakee; but on a dark
and stormy night, six months later, he was rescued, and fled to
Montreal (900 miles). There, he made the Roman Catholics

believe that the blessed Virgin Mary, dressed in a beautiful
white robe, had come in person to open, for him, the gates of
the prison.

I do not mention these facts here, to create bad feelings
against the poor blind slaves of the Pope. It is only to show to
the world that the Church of Rome of to-day is absolutely the
same as when she reddened Europe with the blood of millions
of martyrs.

My motive in speaking of those murderous attacks is to induce
the readers to help me to bless God who has so mercifully
saved me from the hands of the enemy. More than any living
man, I can say with the old prophet: "The Lord is my Shepherd,
I shall not want." With Paul, I could often say: "We
are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed,
but not in despair: persecuted, but not forsaken, cast
down, but not destroyed: always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus, might be
manifest in our body."

Those constant persecutions, far from hindering the onward
march of the evangelical movement to which I have consecrated
my life, seem to have given it a new impulse and a fresher life.
I have even remarked that the very day after I had been bruised
and wounded, the number of converts had invariably increased.
I will never forget the day, after the terrible night when more
than a thousand Roman Catholics had come to stone me, and on
which I had received a severe wound, more than one hundred of
my countrymen asked me to enroll their names under the banner
of the Gospel and publicly sent their recantation of the errors of
Rome to the bishop. To-day, the Gospel of Christ is advancing
with an irresistible power among the French Canadians from
the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. We find numbers of converts
in almost every town and city from New York to San
Francisco. Rallied around the banners of Christ, they form a
large army of fearless soldiers of the Cross. Among those converts,
we count now twenty-five priests, and more than fifty
young zealous ministers born in the Church of Rome.

In hundreds of places, the Church of Rome has lost her

past prestige, and the priests are looked upon with indifference,
if not contempt, even by those who have not yet accepted the
light.

A very remarkable religious movement has also been lately
inaugurated among the Irish Roman Catholics, under the leadership
of Rev'ds. O'Connor and Quinn, which promises to
keep pace with, if not exceed the progress of the Gospel
among the French.

To-day, more than ever, we hear the Good Master's voice:
"Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white
already to harvest."

Oh! may the day soon come when all my countrymen will
hear the voice of the Lamb and come to wash their robes in his
blood! Will I see the blessed hour when the dark night in
which Rome keeps my dear Canada will be exchanged for the
bright and saving light of the Gospel?

At all events, I cannot but bless God for what mine eyes
have seen and mine ears have heard of his mercy towards me
and my countrymen. From my infancy he has taken me into
his arms and led me most mercifully, through ways I did not
know, from the darkest regions of superstition, to the blessed
regions of light, truth and life!

From the day he granted me to read his divine word on my
dear mother's knees, to the hour He came to me as "the Gift of
God," He has not let a single day pass without speaking to me
some of His warning and saving words. I have not always paid
sufficient attention to His sweet voice, I confess it to my shame.
My mind was so filled with the glittering sophisms of Rome,
that many times I refused to yield to the still voice which was
almost night and day heard in my soul. But my God was not
repelled by my infidelities, as the reader will find in this
book. When driven away in the morning, He came back in the
silent hours of the night. For more than twenty-five years,
He forced me to see as a priest, the abominations which exist
inside the walls of the modern Babylon. I may say, He took me
by the lock of mine head, as He did with the prophet of old,
and said:

"Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way towards the North and
behold, northward at the gate of the altar, this image of Jealousy in the entry.
He said furthermore unto me: Son of man, seest thou what they do, even
the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should
go far off from my sanctuary? But turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see
greater abominations. And he brought me to the door of the court; and
when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, son of man,
dig now in the wall; and when I had digged in the wall, and behold the
wicked abominations that they do here. So I went and saw; and behold
every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts and all the idols of the
house of Israel, portrayed upon the walls round about. And there stood before
them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the
midst of them stood Zaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, with every man his
censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

"Then said he unto me: Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients
of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery?
for they say the Lord has forsaken the earth. He said also unto me:
turn the yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than they do.
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord; and, behold, there
sat women weeping for Tammuz.

"Then said he unto me: Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee
yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he
brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and, behold, at the
temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and
twenty men, with their backs towards the temple of the Lord, and their
faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

"Then he said unto me: Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light
thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they
commit here? for they have filled the land with violence and have returned
to provoke me into anger; and lo! they put the branch to their nose. Therefore,
will I also deal in fury; mine eyes shall not spare, neither will I have
pity; and they cry in mine ears, with a loud voice, yet will I not hear
them." (Ezek. 8.)

I can say with John:

"One of the seven angels said unto me: I will show unto thee the judgment
of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings
of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have
been made drunk with the wine of her fornications. So he carried me away
into the wilderness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast full
of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman
was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and
filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forhead was a name written:
`Mystery, Babylon, the Great, the mother of the harlots and abominations

of the earth.' And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints,
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her I wondered
with great admiration." (Rev. 17.)

And after the Lord had shown me all these abominations, he
took me out as the eagle takes his young ones on his wings.
He brought me into his beautiful and beloved Zion and he set
my feet on the rock of my salvation. There, he quenched my
thirst with the pure waters which flow from the fountains of
eternal life, and he gave me to eat the true bread which comes
from heaven.

Oh! that I might go all over the world, through this book,
and say with the psalmist: "Come, all ye that fear God, and I
will declare what he hath done for my soul.

Let all the children of God who will read this book lend me
their tongues to praise the Lord. Let them lend me their hearts,
to love him. For, alone, I cannot praise him, I cannot love him
as he deserves. When I look upon the seventy-eight years which
have passed over me, my heart leaps for joy, for I find myself
at the end of trials. I have nearly crossed the desert.

Only the narrow stream of Jordon is between me and the
new Jerusalem. I already hear the great voice out of heaven,
saying: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and he shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more
death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any
more pain; for the former things have passed away. He that
overcometh shall inherit all things." (Rev. 21: 34.)

Rich with the unspeakable gift which has been given me,
and pressing my dear Bible to my heart, as the richest treasure,
I hasten my steps with an unspeakable joy toward the Land of
Promise. I already hear the angel's voice telling me: "Come:
the Master calls thee!"

A few days more and the bridegroom will say to my soul:
"Surely I come quickly." And I will answer: "Even so, come
Lord Jesus." Amen.