In the track of the storm; a report of a visit to France and Belgium, with observations regarding the needs and possibilities of religious reconstruction in the regions devastated by the world war

Foreword

In the spring of 1919 I visited France and Belgium, at the request of the Board of Managers of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, to ascertain, if possible, what should be done to assist the evangelical churches of those countries in their reconstruction work after the great war. From France and Belgium I wrote several letters to the Board of Managers, which I am now requested to release for publication. Often these letters were written late at night, when the brain was feverish, or on crowded railway trains, which fact, I trust, will serve as a sufficient excuse for any apparently hurried composition.

Since these personal letters are to be published, it seems well to add portions of the more formal report of my visit to France and Belgium, and other related material. However, the small volume is intended as nothing more than a recital of a few personal observations and impressions. It is in no sense a handbook on any phase of reconstructive effort in the track of the storm.

James H. Franklin.

Boston, Mass.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. First Days in France i

II. A Journey into Devastated Areas.. 8

II Hotel Continental, Paris, March 22, 1919

At nine o'clock this evening I returned from a thirteen-hour motor trip (two hundred and ten miles), whose objective was Chauny and La Fere, in that large area in northern France made silent and desolate through the unspeakably terrible havoc of the German armies. At Chauny and La Fere there were Baptist churches with substantial houses of worship before the towns were laid in ruins.

I had not intended going into any of the devastated regions before seeing something of the Protestant work in southern France, but M. Recher, an engineer who is conducting the reconstruction of railways in a section of northern France, invited Pastor Philemon Vincent and me to be his guests today for a tour of that region in which he was reared. M. Recher is a member of the Baptist church at La Fere, serves on the Committee of the Franco-Beige Association, and represents^ his denomination on the Union Protestant Committee for War Relief.

Before eight o'clock this morning we were off in a light flurry of snow, which quickly disappeared, and soon we were being driven rapidly past the outer line of the defenses of Paris and northward over the great stone roadway along which Von Kluck marched with his army in early September, 1914, in confident expectation that he would see Paris fall in a few days. Quickly we were at Senlis, twenty-five miles north of the center of Paris, which was burned on September 2, 1914, the first town thus destroyed in the hope of terrorizing the metropolis itself. A few moments later we stopped in front of the ruins of the massive wall which the crown prince of Bavaria erected for the protection of his own precious body from the shells of the French. Near the roadway were the chateaux where German officers made their headquarters.

Our first stop of length was in the city of Compiegne to note the wreck of the home of Rev. H. Andru, pastor of the Baptist church at La Fere, one of the many results of air raids in that vicinity in 1918. The Reformed (Presbyterian) church building near-by was shattered. These, however, were almost forgotten two hours later when we reached the region of utter desolation. After the battle of the Marne, in September, 1914, when the enemy was only fourteen miles from Paris, Von Kluck was compelled to retreat to a line a few miles north of Compiegne. You will recall how for three and a half years neither side could advance very far, despite the desperate fighting. We were not long, therefore, in reaching what was for more than three years a sector of " no man's land," with its maze after maze of barbed-wire entanglements between the trenches, and the countless dugouts and shell-holes. Fields for miles on each side of the lines are still uncultivated, partly because men are not yet free for that work, and partly because so many unexploded shells are buried there that it is not safe to use the plow until an instrument with sensitive needle can be used to locate the danger-spots. From some fields many shells have already been dug, that lie piled along the roadside like cord wood. Here too began to appear the little groups of white crosses, making for me the most solemn moments of the day. The lines that were known everywhere in America a year ago, kept coming into my mind :

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved ; and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe, . . If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, etc.

With the exception of a few soldiers tramping along the road here and there, an occasional army truck, and once in a while a wagon loaded with the furniture of some one trying to find the old home (if the walls were still standing), there were few signs of life anywhere in that area where cannon thundered, shells shrieked, and waves of men were cut down a few months ago. The stillness and absence of life at present are painful, and the blackened dead trees stand like ghosts, if they stand at all, after the destruction wrought by the Germans as they retreated in 191 8.

We stopped next at Noyon, where John Calvin was born. Seven thousand people lived there before the war. Now not more than one thousand can find homes where the city lies in ruins. But people will come back, and; some have found a corner in the ruins of their structures. With boards for doors and paper in the window-frames, and such furniture as they have secured elsewhere, they are starting life again. I saw perhaps six or eight places in the ruins where very humble efforts were being made to open shops. In one there were little packets of seeds on a rough table (not in lithographed bags, if you please, but in scraps of old newspapers), and women dressed in black were there to find some germs of life to plant in the desert, since the wild flowers here and there on a roadside remind them that spring is here. In the same shop was a basket of hens, with this card over it, " Poultry for reproduction." And about all that some of these women in black can hope for very soon is the shelter of a perpendicular wall, a chicken-

[in coop, a few seeds to make a garden, a black shawl, and several fatherless children. When our hearts had been moved by it all, we recalled that we were looking for the birthplace of John Calvin, and M. Recher, who had known the place well, at last located the spot in the ruins. But visitors to Noyon in days to come will not find the house in which the great Reformer was born. Strange to say, even before the war there was not a Protestant living regularly in the city that gave John Calvin to the world.

A few German prisoners were picking away on the heaps of ashes and stones in the ruins of Noyon, and a French airplane was buzzing directly overhead, when M. Recher said we might as well go on, for we should see far worse destruction a little later. The destruction was more complete farther on but, strange to say, it seemed less painful. When the most of a city has been leveled to the ground and no person is in sight to claim a heap of stones as his own, and there are no jagged broken walls that rise like phantoms, with a few black-shawled women smiling — yes, smiling — at getting back home, somehow it is not quite so harrowing to one's soul, in the complete absence of signs of life.

By noon we were at Chauny, which was a lovely little city of twelve thousand people before the war. One section of the town was not destroyed. In the remaining three-fourths I saw not a single place in the entire area that could be occupied except the

The Village of Esnes, Back of Verdun

The Cathedral at Chauny

Baptist church, whose walls were left standing, and the military authorities have placed a roof on it for their own use. The house whose walls joined the church was completely demolished. I think I saw nothing in that area suggestive of furniture except a piece of the pulpit in front of the Baptist church. There was not even a picture-frame, nor a broken chair, nor a knife-blade. The Germans left complete destruction there and elsewhere. In themselves many of the spots would be almost as devoid of human interest to a visitor unacquainted with their story as are piles of sand in a desert. Even the wells were filled with stones if the water had not been poisoned instead.

In Chauny I stood in front of what was the Hotel de Ville (city hall), and next I stood inside of what once was a splendid cathedral. All was as still as death. No person was in sight, besides our party. I have not heard a bird chirp all day. It is springtime too, and I have walked through forests and over the fields. Seriously, I wonder if the songsters have not been scared away for a time by the guns. I have been surprised all day at the silence almost everywhere north of Compiegne, and the absolute silence becomes oppressive to one in the midst of ghastly ruins, on roads bordered with deserted bomb-proof holes so deep that they are lost in shadows, or with woods bestrewn with shell caps, munitions, knapsacks, and occasional helmets that one is afraid to touch lest they be connected with

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hidden bombs. The silence is equally oppressive when one finds the rough tables around which the German soldiers sat in the woods, underneath trees that have been cut with shells, or bunks in the damp dugouts, or the long stretches of rusty barbed wire, or the shell-holes thirty feet in diameter and of equal depth — all so suggestive of the great tragedy.

Tergnier, a railway center on our road to La Fere, is literally razed to the ground. Great shops and factories and bridges are leveled to the earth, and protruding from the dust and stones are the twisted frames of iron and steel and broken machinery.

In the Baptist church at La Fere M. Recher first heard the evangelical message. When he entered the badly damaged building today he pointed to a spot and said, " There is where I used to sit." Again, " In that baptistery all the members of my family were baptized/' We sought the " pleasant home " of one of his friends. The Germans had used it as a stable. Across the square from the wreck of the Baptist church building is the school where Napoleon Bonaparte received his military training. Chauny and La Fere are (or were) important little cities. Besides the Baptist there was no other evangelical church in either place, nor within forty miles of La Fere. No Baptists are left at Chauny, and only a few at La Fere under present conditions. But few people of any belief are left in any of the cities in this region.

Having reached the two towns in that region

[Hi where Baptist congregations were worshiping before the war in their own substantial and neat buildings, we veered a bit to the east on the return journey in order to pass through Amigny-Rouy, where M. Recher had made his home in boyhood. His family in Paris had asked him to see if he could identify the grandfather's grave near the church which is in ruins. A fallen fir tree, killed in the rain of shells, identified the spot for him. Then we found the ruins of the old home — " My mother's home," he said. He took from his cardcase a kodak picture made a few years ago, showing a beautiful brick cottage with vines on the walls and shrubs in the garden. In the ruins there was just one distinguishing feature that could be seen in the picture. Going to the fireplace in a wall that was not totally destroyed, he pointed to a corner of the hearth and said : " That was my place. I used to sit there when I was a boy. My room was up there." Finding a rusty, twisted iron frame, which was the nearest approach to any kind of furniture I saw remaining in any ruin today, he said, " That was my aunt's bed." Almost all the trees in the orchard seemed dead. The ground was full of shell-holes. Going into what was once a beautiful garden he found a wild plant in bloom, which he took up by the roots, saying, " A flower for my house." As we walked away I heard him murmur : " Finished ! Finished ! Finished!"

A peasant dressed in a soldier's old uniform

[IS]

came out of ruins on a hill in the village as we started to our automobile. During the seven months of German occupation of Amigny-Rouy he had subsisted chiefly on dandelions, chard, and turnips, with no potatoes, meat rarely, and only a little bread. He said many of the people would come back, " For they love the dust of their village." It is well they love the dust their feet have trod, for there is little left besides. Before we reached our car we found a shelter made by some French soldiers out of stones from the ruins and sheets of rusty iron. Over the doorway was this sign, "Villa des Henreux" (Cottage of the Happy Ones). One other man found us in that village. He too was dressed in a soldier's old uniform. For four years the Germans had kept him in Belgium. His wife had fled with the two children to Brittany when the Germans destroyed the town. After the armistice was signed the family was united and the husband had built a big board shack for a home. He told me with interest that he had been in America twice with Buffalo Bill, as chief of the French cavalry in the Wild West show. I remembered that we had left a big sandwich and a half-pound cake of chocolate in our lunch-box. As the boy unwrapped the sandwich he licked the paper for the crumbs that stuck to it before he began work on his half of the long crusty roll that was split and spread with cheese. The mother gave it all to the little ones.

Back Home Once More

A Ruined Section of Noyon, the Town in Which John Calvin

Was Born

Possibly what I have written you late at night, when my brain is feverish from all that I have seen and felt the last twenty-four hours, will seem inappropriate in a report on a visit to France to secure information regarding the condition of the churches, but it may be well for you to be given, as far as I can reproduce it, the atmosphere in which I am beginning to secure that information, and these are the conditions I found today (yesterday now) as I journeyed to Baptist church buildings. Nor is it exceptional. As we separated tonight Pastor Vincent said, " This state of things exists in two thousand cities, towns, and villages on a front seven hundred kilometers (about four hundred and fifty miles) in length." One feels like apologizing to the original Huns for giving their name to those who set the world afire in 1914. Tonight as I came up to my room and mentioned to an elevator operator, who wears an artificial arm as a result of the war, that I had spent the day in the ruined towns to the north, he expressed my feelings in his abbreviated English, " Impossible to believe without seeing."

Ill

A Great Protestant Meeting in Paris

Sunday, March 23, 1919.

After the scenes of yesterday it was pleasing to be in houses of worship in Paris today, and see all of them crowded with people. At 11 o'clock I attended service at the American Church, whose pastor, Rev. Chauncey W. Goodrich, D. D., kindly called at my hotel last week and offered to assist me in any possible way to secure the information I desire. The building, which will accommodate about five hundred people, was filled with Americans, most of whom were in khaki. Secretary Lansing and Ambassador Sharp were present.

I was peculiarly fortunate in reaching Paris in time to attend the great Protestant meeting held this afternoon in celebration of victory. The large hall known as the Trocadero was packed with enthusiastic people. Doubtless thousands of others would have been present had there been room for them. Since only five thousand could be seated, admission was by ticket. M. Du Barry and I were given excellent reserved seats in the same box, which made it possible for me to understand

A GREAT PROTESTANT MEETING IN PARIS

the spirit of the addresses in French. The Hon. Jules Siegfried, senior member of the Chamber of Deputies, presided and delivered an eloquent address in which he made much of the part played in the war by Protestants, calling especial attention to President Wilson and Lloyd George. I am told that the French people are much impressed with the virility of Protestantism as illustrated in America, and that there is a corresponding lack of appreciation of the course of the Vatican during the war. At the same time agents of the Vatican are said to be claiming large credit for the war, declaring that the best soldiers from England and America were Roman Catholics.

In the program at the Trocadero today there was large recognition of America. A noted actress, a Protestant, recited Victor Hugo's prophecy that some day America would join hands with France to save Europe, which was received with great applause, as were letters from President Wilson and Lloyd George. But the moment of most intense enthusiasm came when a pastor from rescued Alsace came forward for an address, accompanied by two girls dressed in the old Alsatian costume.

One could not attend the great meeting this afternoon without feeling that there is real strength in the Protestant movement here. Ambassador Sharp publicly pronounced it one of the finest occasions he has attended in France. Two of the hymns which were used were written by our own

Doctor Saillens, who has been the best and most prolific hymn-writer in France. I have been told here that years ago the most prominent and popular Reformed church pastor in Paris wished Doctor Saillens to become his successor, where he could have preached to thousands instead of to hundreds as pastor of a Baptist church. He is a Baptist at large personal cost, although he gives his efforts chiefly now to the general evangelical movement.

In view of the large meeting of Protestants at the Trocadero at 2.30 o'clock, I questioned the wisdom of attempting a meeting at a later hour the same afternoon, at Avenue du Maine Baptist Church (Franco-Beige Association), but the room which accommodates two hundred and fifty or three hundred people was filled, and I have seldom had such a sympathetic hearing when speaking through an interpreter. Rev. Philemon Vincent, an able man, is pastor there. Members of Rue de Lille Baptist Church, the largest organization in the Franco-Swiss Association, were present in good numbers, their pastor among them.

IV In the Old Huguenot Country and Across to Alsace

Hotel Continental, Paris, April 3, 1919.

I have just completed ten days of touring, which included the old Huguenot country in southern France* several points near the Swiss frontier, and a portion of Alsace. After my day in the desolate regions north of Paris, a change to sunny southern France was most welcome. The warmth of springtime was over the towns and fields that had escaped the havoc wrought elsewhere by the war. But the journey was tiresome, since it began with a full night in a second-class compartment with seven other people, and most of the next day was spent on a train which was run in several long sections in order to handle the soldiers, who crowd even the corridors and vestibules at times.

My first stop after leaving Paris was at Nimes, where Rev. R. Du Barry is pastor of the Baptist church of sixty members, worshiping in a rented hall. Here too Rev. Ruben Saillens, D. D., has made his home with his wife and daughter every winter for the last five years, going out to various points for series of meetings with the evangelical churches, which in that section are almost exclusively the Reformed. After seeing what doors are open to him there, I do not wonder at his fondness for labor much of the year in the Huguenot country.

Nimes itself is an important city of over eighty thousand inhabitants, one-fourth of whom are Protestants. Here are to be found some of the best of all the Roman ruins. Nothing of like age in Rome is better preserved than the Maison Carree (two thousand years old) in Nimes, from which the Madeleine in Paris was designed. The gate of Agrippa, the baths, and the Coliseum are full of interest for the archeologist. And on the hill overlooking the city is the great stone tower which is said to have been erected a thousand years before the Romans came to that region. However, I had little time for archeology. After a late afternoon arrival and evening meeting, I was hurried away e&rly next morning for a visit to the Huguenot country, whose proximity to Nimes is responsible for the large Protestant community in that city. The hall in which I spoke there was packed with fully five hundred persons, who showed the utmost heartiness in their reception of the visitor. Probably not more than fifty in the audience were Baptists.

Colonel Goodfellow, in command of the detachment of United States soldiers at Nimes, which is one of the numerous points in France where our men are permitted to go on leave, kindly placed an army automobile and his own chauffeur at our disposal for the journey to several points in the Huguenot country. The Desert, which is the name given to the hills and fastnesses where the early Protestants defended themselves against their persecutors, was our first objective. Just outside of Nimes we passed the stone quarries where thousands of Protestants were accustomed to gather for worship at a single service, with some of their own number posted on the hills to warn them of the approach of the soldiers who might be sent at any hour to arrest them. At that time death was the penalty for the Protestant preacher, and imprisonment for his hearers. Under such conditions it was impossible for them to possess houses of worship. In those days the Roman Catholic bishops compelled every king of France at his coronation to swear to exterminate the Protestants. Yet the Protestants met in large congregations in the hills, with watchmen at observation points, or in small homes, or in caves. When one considers the great influence of the Huguenots on our own life it is strange that so few Americans find their way into The Desert. At several places the pastors said they could not recall other American visitors to their churches besides Secretary Macfarland, of the Federal Council of Churches, and myself. Doctor Saillens said he had never until now heard of an

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American Baptist going into The Desert. This unanticipated feature of my tour, which has been of such value in a study of Protestantism in France, was arranged for me by Doctor Saillens when he heard of my coming.

I was most fortunate in having Doctor Saillens as my host for the days in the Huguenot country. He is of Huguenot descent, was born and reared near The Desert, and is welcomed by large congregations wherever he is invited. We passed through several towns that day in which the largest halls are filled at the announcement that he will speak. For instance, at the village where we made our first stop on the automobile trip, there is a Reformed church building that will accommodate at least fifteen hundred people, and Doctor Saillens has it crowded whenever he can go there. Leaving that village, we proceeded to the beautiful home of a M. Hugues, of Huguenot descent, at the gateway to The Desert. Here the American flag was displayed at the doorway, and a very hearty welcome, including refreshments, was given to the visitors. M. Hugues is the directing force in the development of the Museum of The Desert, which is being established in the heart of the wilderness region in the old residence of Laporte, the Huguenot leader during the fierce persecution that was inflicted by Louis XIV more than two hundred years ago. In this extremely plain house, in a small hamlet in the hills, may be found numerous reminders of those

" who died for the defense of the gospel and liberty," as tablets on the walls proclaim. M. Hugues had arranged for a group of people from the wilderness to come into the Museum and sing some of the old Huguenot hymns for us. As I looked at the band of simple folk gathered in the plain rooms containing reminders of their ancestors who suffered for freedom of conscience and to secure an open Bible, there came the words, " Of whom the world was not worthy." " Resist " was their motto, and many in that very region did resist even unto death. My heart was greatly moved by the thought of the sufferings of these early Protestants, whose fight for religious freedom has blessed the entire world. Nothing could have been of greater value to me in my study of Protestantism than this visit to the Museum, the large public meetings which I had the privilege of addressing at other places in that section, and conferences with numerous pastors.

Home after home was opened to us that day, if for nothing more than a few minutes of welcome, with a cup of coffee everywhere. In the late afternoon we reached St. Jean du Gard, a town of three thousand people, where Doctor Saillens was born, a mountain near-by still bearing the family name. Flags were displayed on the streets and a company of Boy Scouts greeted the visitors. The pastors of the Reformed Church gave us a beautiful dinner at the little hotel, the colors of France and the United States being displayed freely. At the church fully twelve hundred people (Doctor Saillens estimated fifteen hundred) gave us a welcome that the American visitor can never forget. Flags of the two nations were in evidence again. How queer it seemed to be standing in a box far above the heads of the people, speaking down to them! But how easy it was to speak to such a responsive audience, even through an interpreter! It was nearly ten o'clock before the meeting was ended, but we must go to one more home for tea and cake before the automobile was permitted to leave the assembled crowd that cried: "Vive I'Amerique! Vive I'Amerique! " As our car passed along the narrow streets the people stood in the doorways to bid us a cordial farewell. In that town ninetenths of the people are Protestants, and the record for sobriety and rectitude is truly remarkable. I was told that nearly every person in the audience that evening could claim a martyr somewhere in his line of ancestors. We saw the spot where some of them were put to death for being Protestants and preaching their convictions.

Midnight found us at Alais, a city of forty thousand people, one-fourth of whom are Protestants, where Doctor Saillens had arranged some time before to begin next day a series of meetings. Here too we had a reception that warmed the heart. At the evening service the great stone church was packed with at least twelve hundred people. They said I was the first American preacher to occupy their pulpit.

I was not foolish enough to suppose that the reception given me was in any sense personal. Partly it was because I had come from America at a good hour. At one place the girls sang a stanza of the " Star Spangled Banner," in English. But the reception was due principally to the fact that I was with Doctor Saillens, who as an evangelical preacher has such a great hold on the hearts of those people. I have seldom seen such a readiness to listen to a gospel message. I am inclined to feel that the descendants of the Huguenots may yet have a very special mission to France if only they are fired with a new zeal. At present many of them are very backward in their methods and are in great need of a revival within their churches. If they were aflame with zeal, and if Christian educational institutions were within their reach, France might feel again the force of the Huguenots. There is latent power in this group of possibly one hundred thousand Protestants in southern France. I would have remained longer in the old wilderness country, but appointments had been made for me in churches near the Swiss frontier for the approaching Sunday, and I was compelled to hurry away.

Sunday, March 30, found me at Montbeliard near the Swiss frontier, where Pastor Blocher, of the Rue de Lille Church in Paris, joined me as pilot and interpreter. The snows of the Alps seemed to fall on eastern France that day. The people could not remember such a storm in springtime. Before the hour for the church service arrived, telephone, telegraph, and electric-light wires were on the ground and no trains were running. In spite of the storm the Baptist church building was about half filled. Most of the ninety members live in the villages in the hills. But the visit with Pastor Jaccard and family would have been well worth while, even had there been no other opportunity to learn something regarding religious conditions in that part of France. An automobile succeeded in reaching Valentigny with us in time for an evening meeting that was well attended, although the storm made attendance difficult. Arrangements had been made for a popular gathering in a large auditorium, which Pastor Lucian Louys declared would have been crowded under different conditions. I mention these details that you may understand how friendly is the attitude of many toward evangelical movements. I was much touched at seeing Pastor Jaccard, wife, son, and daughter, of Montbeliard, who had walked five miles after the storm to attend the evening meeting at Valentigny, and started back home at ten o'clock. A Baptist family living on the Swiss frontier started in the early morning to walk to a point where a train usually can be found. Finding the trains held up by the storm, they trudged on for the ten miles. The father was i