The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 219

Berquin was conducted to the place of death. An immense throng
gathered to witness the event, and there were many who saw with
astonishment and misgiving that the victim had been chosen from
the best and bravest of the noble families of France. Amazement,
indignation, scorn, and bitter hatred darkened the faces of that surging
crowd; but upon one face no shadow rested. The martyr’s thoughts were
far from that scene of tumult; he was conscious only of the presence of
his Lord.
The wretched tumbrel upon which he rode, the frowning faces of his
persecutors, the dreadful death to which he was going—these he heeded
not; He who liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore, and hath
the keys of death and of hell, was beside him. Berquin’s countenance
was radiant with the light and peace of heaven. He had attired himself
in goodly raiment, wearing “a cloak of velvet, a doublet of satin and
damask, and golden hose.”—D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in
Europe in the Time of Calvin, b. 2, ch. 16. He was about to testify to his
faith in the presence of the King of kings and the witnessing universe,
and no token of mourning should belie his joy.
As the procession moved slowly through the crowded streets, the
people marked with wonder the unclouded peace, and joyous triumph,
of his look and bearing. “He is,” they said, “like one who sits in a temple,
and meditates on holy things.”—Wylie, b. 13, ch. 9.
At the stake, Berquin endeavored to address a few words to the
people; but the monks, fearing the result, began to shout, and the soldiers
to clash their arms, and their clamor drowned the martyr’s voice. Thus
in 1529 the highest literary and ecclesiastical authority of cultured Paris
“set the populace of 1793 the base example of stifling on the scaffold the
sacred words of the dying.”—Ibid., b. 13, ch. 9.
Berquin was strangled, and his body was consumed in the flames.
The tidings of his death caused sorrow to the friends of the Reformation
throughout France. But his example was

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