Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 1).djvu/44

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
25

rights by which the king is king, and if he finds an opportunity to rob him of them. Then come chaos and anarchy bringing in their train the hellish fiends of murder, vengeance, fire, and sword, in order to destroy and slay the friends of the throne, the nobles and the priests. Oh! my father, to this only then their doctrine tends. Can my king be no more to me my visible god on earth, to whom I blindly and unreservedly submitted my whole heart with all its impulses, can I no longer believe, that to him alone belongs all responsibility? In this case I can neither act, nor think. Must my church, for which innumerable miracles, and thousands of the sublimest spirits speak and confirm it, yield to contemptible communities of yesterday, out of whatever corner they creep, who seek with gross deception and delirious ravings to cover and decorate their pitiful wretchedness;—no, I would just as soon fly to the unenlightened heathens of the North Pole, and attach myself to their absurd faith."