For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts. checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. "Humboldt once saw in South America a parrot which was the only living creature that could speak the language of a lost tribe." - DARWIN'S Descent of Man. SAD fate is thine, most desolate of birds, Left lonely 'midst the strangers in the land, Repeating still the old familiar words, That none can understand: Words soft with love or plaintive with regret, Fierce battle-cries and songs dead poets sung; The voices of a nation linger yet Upon thy tuneless tongue. Words that once, haply, as with trumpet-call, Who were they, that lost people of the past, I hear thee answer, speaking evermore That strange forgotten language of the dead, But only dwellers on the shadowy shore Can tell what thou hast said. 3 From The London Quarterly Review. NORMAN ISLES.* ish crown, whilst Ireland, with its millions of inhabitants, entirely failed in its strug gles for home rule. THE Channel Islands have a history of The beginnings of the Reformation in their own not wanting in interest and the Norman isles have not yet been the grandeur. It is the history of a small object of any special study known to us. part of the duchy of Normandy which, They are still involved in a certain obscuunited to England by William the Con-rity by reason of the absence of printed queror, never forgot that it was Normandy documents and the scarcity of manuscript that conquered England. The Norman- chronicles. Yet with the help of such like tenacity with which, during centuries, chronicles as are available, and of official that small people struggled for the pres-acts, the physiognomy of events, not alervation of their privileges and their ways sufficiently respected by local histolanguage should claim the attention of rians, may be recovered. One of these historians, if history condescended to re-historians, Philip Falle, who wrote at the member the little ones. It would be seen end of the seventeenth century, spoke of how a people counting only a few thou- the Huguenot period of insular Protestsand souls maintained and even developed antism with all the disdain of his Hightheir political institutions and distinct Churchism. Raised from the humble Parliaments under the power of the Brit- rectorate of St. Saviour's, Jersey, to the rich prebend of Durham, he found it hard to forgive the French reformers who came into his native country to interrupt the SO-called apostolic succession of bishops, and to put the Huguenot stamp on the religious institutions of the islands. Falle's high reputation amongst his countrymen gave his unjust prejudices a credit they did not deserve, and those who followed were not always careful to examine his assertions. Presbyterianism in the Norman isles was vanquished, and to this day the conquerors alone have written its history. Is it astonishing if it reads like a bulletin de victoire? 1. An Account of the Island of Jersey. By the Rev. PHILIP FALLE. With Notes by the Rev. EDWARD DURELL, M.A. Jersey. 1837. 2. A Constitutional History of Jersey. By CHARLES LE QUESNE, Esq. London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans. 1856. 3. Chroniques de Jersey. Publiées par ABRAHAM MOURANT. Jersey: Philippe Falle. 1858. 4 Charles the Second in the Channel Islands. By S. ELLIOTT HOSKINS, M.D., F.R.S. In 2 vols. Lon don: Richard Bentley. 5. The History of Guernsey. By JONATHAN DUNCAN, Esq., B.A. London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans. 1841. 6. The History of Guernsey and its Bailiwick. By FERDINAND BROK TUPPER, Esq. Second Edition. Guernsey: Le Lièvre. 1876. 7. Recueil d'Ordonnances de la Cour royale de T'Isle de Guernesey. In 3 vols. Guernsey. 1852. 8. La Normandie inconnue. Par FRANCOIS-VICTOR HUGO. Paris: Pagnerre. 1857. In this article we shall relate, as far as our documents (many inedited) will per9. Histoire des Iles de la Manche. Par PEGOT-mit, the origin, progress, and fall of Pres OGIER. Paris: E. Plon. 1881. 10 L'Archipel de la Manche. Par VICTOR HUGO. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. 1883. 11. Tableaux historiques de la Civilisation à fersey. Par JOHN-PATRIARCHE AHIER. Jersey: C. Le Lièvre. 1852. 12. Les Manuscrits de Philippe Le Geyt, sur la Constitution, les Lois et les Usages de Fersey. 4 vols. Jersey: Ph. Falle. 1846. 13. La Discipline ecclésiastique comme elle a esté pratiquée depuis la Reformation de l'Eglise par les Ministres, Anciens et Diacres, des Isles de Guerneze, Ferze, Serk et Aurigny. Arrestée par l'authorité et en la présence de Messieurs les Gouverneurs des dites Isles, au Synode tenu à Guernezé, le 28e jour de Juin l'an 1576. (Manuscript kindly lent by the Rev. G. E Lee, M.A., Rector of St. Peter's Port, Guernsey.) 14. Registre des Actes et Affaires les plus mémorables qui ont esté traictées et arrestées ès Consistoires tenus par le Ministre et par les Anciens de Eglise de Saint-André (Guernsey). (Manuscript lent by the same byterianism in the Channel Islands. It The Norman isles would probably never have been Protestant if Frenchmen had not brought them the gospel. And the reasons are various. First, the English language was neither spoken nor understood in the sixteenth century, and communications with England were rare and difficult. Secondly, the islands were ecclesiastically connected with France, and formed a part of the diocese of Coutances in Normandy. Christianity in its Rom ish type was of French importation; so island all but impossible, were enacted. was it to be with Protestantism. The For instance, those persons who had no fierce persecution which the Huguenots regular means of existence were ordered endured from the Valois constrained them to quit the island under pain of being pubto seek places of refuge beyond the fron- licly whipped. These severities did not, tiers. The Norman archipelago, by its however, prevent a certain number of geographical position and its language, Huguenots from taking refuge there, and was providentially prepared to become disseminating the Reformed principles. one of these places of refuge. Protes- The only name amongst these gospel piotantism had taken a powerful hold of Nor-neers known to us is Denis le Vair, of the mandy, not only at Rouen, where a Hu- diocese of Bayeux. He had been a Romguenot was burned in 1528, and at Caen, ish priest: but, having embraced the new where a friar preached the new doctrines doctrines, he fled to Geneva, where he publicly in 1531, but also in the Cotentin learnt bookselling, and became one of and the Bocage, where nobles threw open those porteballes or colporteurs who, at their castles to the preaching of the pure the risk of their lives, introduced and disgospel. The Reformed principles must tributed in France the Holy Scriptures, have crossed the Channel by a slow and as well as religious tracts and the writings continuous process. The partial secular- of the Reformers. He went to the Chanization of ecclesiastical property under nel Islands to sell his books, which soon Henry VIII. had greatly lowered the pres- found eager readers in Guernsey, and the tige of the clergy, who shone neither by people, desiring to be instructed, asked their virtues nor their learning. And the the colporteur to act as their minister. people, tired of the clerical yoke, felt that Le Vair yielded to their entreaties, and peculiar uneasiness which precedes a without laying down his bale, he travelled great crisis. over the island doing the work of an evangelist. The first official mention of French Protestants in these islands goes back to The first period of Protestantism in the year 1548, when the Royal Court of these islands was purely Presbyterian. Jersey decided, by an act preserved in the Its ministers, its devotional books, its registers, to provide for the maintenance forms of worship, as yet in embryo, all of Maistre Martin Langlois and Maistre came from France and Geneva. NatuThomas Johanne, ministers come from rally the representatives of the English France,"to preach the word of God to government could not see with great satthe people, purely and faithfully, accord-isfaction the establishment of a form of ing to the text of the gospel." The rec- worship different from that approved by tors of the parishes (curés) who, as now, the divines of Edward VI. So Sir Hugh sat in the States of the islands, not only Pawlet was sent over in the fourth year took part in this resolution, but promised of the reign of Edward, as royal commisto contribute personally towards their sal- sioner, to inquire into the state of the isl ary. Some no doubt were carried away ands. The report he presented to the by the movement, whilst others possibly were afraid of incurring the displeasure of the Duke of Somerset, then governor of Jersey, if they did not aid the movement. The rector of St. Saviour's, who refused to renounce Popery, was deprived of his living, and the rector of Grouville, being found faulty in his ministry, was publicly admonished by the court. In Guernsey the refugees were not at first welcomed by the local government. Several ordonnances, such as were designed to render their residence in the king described the inhabitants as won over to the Reformed doctrines. That was partly true. But it stated also that they were ready to accept whatever form of liturgy it should please his Majesty to order. This was going too far. Nevertheless, the first edition of the Anglican Liturgy, or service book, as it was called, was translated into French, and sent to the young churches of the Channel Islands, together with an order of the king in council dated April 15, 1550, and thus worded: The death of Edward VI., and the accession of Mary the Catholic, suddenly brought to an end this first period of in Wee have beene informed at good length of | come down to us with those already menyour conformity, as well in all other things tioned of Langlois and Johanne. wherein the said Sir Hugh hath had conference with you, touching his commission, as alsoe in your earnest following and imbracing his Majestie's laws and proceedinges, in the order of divine service and ministration of the sacraments; for the which we give to you, on the behalfe of his Majestie, heartilie thankes, praying you, as you have well begun and proceeded, to continue in the same; and with all due reverence, devotion, quiet obedience, and unitie among you, to observe and use the service and other orders appertaininge to the same, and to the ministration of the sacraments, set forth in the book sent you presentlye. Doubtless, the liturgy was adopted without much reluctance by the curés who had become Protestant, and had been left in possession of their livings, but it is not so likely that the ministers from France and Geneva, who were accustomed to a simple form of worship, would submit to a ritual tainted, in their opinion, with Popery. Sir Hugh Pawlet himself, who now returned as governor of Jersey, soon perceived that the Reformed principles could be strengthened in the islands only by appealing to the devotedness of these men, but that in order to obtain their services, a liturgy which they were loath to accept must not be forced upon them. He determined to do away with what remained of Popery. He confiscated, for the benefit of the crown, the rents for masses, obits, luminaries, fraternities, etc.; he pulled down the statues and images adorning the interior of the churches, and even the crosses in the churchyards and on the public ways; he sold the chalices, crucifixes, censers, and other Church ornaments, as well as the bells, leaving only one bell for each church. The Royal Court of Jersey did its best to second the governor. By an act dated March 20, 1552, Pierre Fallu was impris oned because his wife Martha had brought her beads to church. But more powerful than all the decrees made by the court, or the iconoclastic zeal of the governor to advance the interests of the Reformation in Jersey, were the labors of the Huguenot preachers, Martin, Maret, Moulinos, Gérin, Baptiste, whose names alone have The min sular Protestantism. The Romish reaction swept over Great Britain like a hurricane, laying waste also the Norman archipelago in its evil course. isters were obliged to leave the island precipitately, and to go back to France or Geneva, where they were followed by many from amongst their flocks, whose lives were in danger in their own country. Mass was again established, and the Catholic priests, who had changed their religion to retain their livings, once more said it in Latin. A few of these men had married and now found themselves encumbered with their wives and children. In Jersey, the reinstating of the former incumbents was not, however, all-sufficient to draw back the people to Romanisın. If a part of the population did return to its old religious forms, the principal families of the island, such as De Carteret, De Soulemont, Lemprière, Gosselin, Hérault, Poingdestre, "ne voulurent jamais," says the chronicler, "assister à la messe ni aux idolâtries et superstitions des papistes, quelques menaces ou épouvantements qu'on leur seust faire." Their attachment to the Reformed faith was so earnest that in order to partake of the Lord's Supper, they did not shrink from crossing the sea and seeking some Reformed centre in Normandy- St. Lô, for instance, where an important church had been es tablished. The governor, Sir Hugh Pawlet, was still at his post, notwithstanding the change of sovereign and policy. Though outwardly gone back to Romanism, he still secretly favored the Reformation, and he executed the rigorous orders issued concerning the new doctrines with great moderation. Strange to say, his own brother, John Pawlet, was the Catholic dean of the island, who encouraged the Popish reaction with all his might. The Royal Court took the opportunity of showing its independence with respect to the clergy by punishing with death a priest charged with adultery and infanticide. |