Note 453 — CCCXXIX.—To the Believers in the Isles.[453]

"To the faithful dispersed in some isles of France." The peninsula of Arvert on the coast of Saintonge, peopled by fishermen and pirates, received the first seeds of the Gospel from some refugees driven away by persecution from the neighbouring towns. "The seed sown was afterwards fertilized by some monks preaching a kind of half truth, as regarded doctrine, and reproving vices; so that in a little time we saw (in that country) a strange alteration."—Beza, Hist. Eccl., tom. i. p. 101. From the point of Arvert, the Reformation spread into the adjoining islets, and there made numerous disciples, in spite of the rigours of the Parliament of Bourdeaux. A great missionary, Philibert Hamelin, regulated this movement. From Tours originally, he at first preached the Reformed doctrine with success at Saintes. Seized in that town, he miraculously escaped death, and sought an asylum at Geneva, where he followed the calling of a printer. But the ardour of his zeal soon led him to betake himself once more to the perilous apostolate, which was to close with martyrdom. He revisited La Saìntonge, visited his brethren dispersed among the islands, organized their churches, and taken a second time, he perished at the stake at Bourdeaux, the 18th April 1557. The journal of another glorious missionary of the Reformation, Bernard Palissy, may be consulted as to the ministry and death of Hamelin.