There was refreshment for soul as well as
body in the daintily-clean, bare-floored rooms, redolent of apples set
out to dry, into which we were welcomed by Pastor Charpiot and his wife
at Pallons. The village is a mere group of Alpine huts, and the only
chance of shelter was at the presbytery. So much we had little doubt of
finding there, but we counted as little upon the warm and graceful
hospitality which greeted our application. And when our nationality
transpired it added new zest to the good-will of our host and hostess.
We were their first Transatlantic guests.
The valley of Fressiniere, at the entrance of which Pallons lies, is the
centre of those special interests which first prompted the pilgrimage I
am recording. With it are specially associated the earliest traditions
of Protestantism in France, and here Felix Neff spent the larger part of
his brief but memorable career as pastor in the High Alps. I suppose the
exact antiquity of the Protestants of Dauphine is one of the historical
problems that still await their final solution. The older chronicles
provide them with what seems an unbroken line of descent from the second
century, when Irenaeus preached in Lyons and Vienne. Christian fugitives
from those cities during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius may, it is
alleged, have taken refuge in the not distant Dauphine mountains, and
have transmitted to their descendants the primitive faith they had
received.
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