sockets to burn before the kneeling Joan. I left my flaming candle in the Church of the Sacred Heart! I, a non-Catholic, offered my fire to Joan, not because she had been canonized—for I never wait for the consent or the approval of the Pope before paying homage to anybody—but because her sweet, sad story is one of the most moving of modern times, and her vindication one of the most stupendous conquests of modern thought.

The Church of the Sacred Heart is one of the most beautiful in Paris. It is built on the highest point in the city and commands a wonderful view. As I have told you before, I have two friends who dwell on this summit—really, a superb location. It is approached by a long flight of stairs, or by a cog-wheel train. Before it, and all around it, sweeps the Paris of to-day, as did the Paris of Clovis and Charlemagne, nearly fifteen hundred years ago; the Paris of Julian, Emperor of Rome, older still; the Catholic Paris, when kings and parlements bowed low to kiss the great toe of the Italian Christ, or his vicar; the Paris of the Medici—red and bloody; the Paris of the Huguenots, of Henry of Navarre, of Conde and Colligny—sad, desolate, and in the throes of a new faith; and the Paris of the philosophers, whose smile softened its barbarities, lit up its darkness, and made it a city of light—La ville Lumiere! There, on that splendid elevation, live my two young friends. They are both at the age of nineteen. One of them a lad, the other a maid. The girl is housed; the boy is exposed. Joan of Arc lives in the church—the cathedral is her home. The Chevalier de La Barre stands on the edge of the hill, with sun and shower falling upon his head. The Catholic Church burnt them both at the stake—the boy and the girl; the one because he did not tip his hat to the priest at a street procession, the other because she believed in herself! But modern thought has vindicated both of these outcasts. Joan now dwells in a white church, perfumed and lighted; and the Chevalier crowns the brow of the hill with his youthful figure and appealing gesture. The chain which tied these children to the stake in a dark age has flowered! Is not that wonderful? I believe in the forces, the ideas, the movement—the thought that can cause a chain to flower!

I am not going to speak this morning of the Chevalier de La Barre, to commemorate whose memory the nationalists of France have erected this monument, close to the Church of the Sacred Heart. He will be my theme on another occasion. In this lecture I shall confine myself to the story of Joan of Arc. And a strange story it is! A young girl of seventeen marches at the head of a dilapidated and demoralized army, and leads it on to victory against the best fighters of the world, the English, who, in the fifteenth century, were trying to annex France to England; she is captured by traitors, sold to the enemy for ten thousand pounds; and then she is handed over to the church to be tried for heresy. She is tried, convicted, and sentenced to be burned alive. This sentence, the most revolting on record, is carried out in all its literalness, and in broad daylight, and under the shadow of the Christian cross, and at the very doors of a great cathedral. All this transpired in the city of Rouen, on the thirtieth day of May, fourteen hundred thirty-one.

In order that I may enter into the spirit of the thrilling events of which Rouen was the stage, I repaired to that city, and reverently visited the scenes of the trial and the martyrdom of this latest saint of the Catholic world. Words cannot convey to you the emotions which, like a storm, burst upon me suddenly as the conductor on my train called out, "Rouen!" It was then about a half hour to midnight, and, jumping into a carriage, I was quickly driven to my hotel. What thoughts, and how they crowded in upon me, as soon as I laid my head upon my pillow. My brain was too active to permit of sleep. I imagined I was living in the year fourteen hundred thirty-one, and that I had just reached this city on the eve of the martyrdom of Joan. "To-morrow," I whispered to myself, "Joan of Arc will be led to the stake." Again and again I repeated to my pillow this shuddering intelligence. "What," I exclaimed to myself, "a young woman who saved France by her courage is going to be committed to the flames in this very city tomorrow!" I could not believe it possible. I could not believe that there was folly enough, or hatred enough, or stupidity enough, in the world for so desperate a deed. But, alas, it was true. With my eyes closed, I fancied I saw the throngs marching through the streets—consisting of peasants, of merchants, of priests, of princes—to see a girl of nineteen burned in the fire, and in all that throng there was not one who had either a kind word or thought for her—her who had given them a country to live in. Abandoned, hated and spat upon, she was left to suffer the cruelest punishment that human inhumanity could devise, or the most perverse imagination invent. A girl of nineteen burned alive! "Oh, God!" The words escaped my lips in spite of me. Then I turned about and called upon Humanity. But in the fifteenth century God and Humanity were both hard of hearing. Then I called upon Science and Reason. But these were not yet born. "There is no help then," I whispered to myself, and my heart swelled within me with indignation, and I became desperate, realizing my helplessness.

With my head upon my pillow during that first night I spent in Rouen, I tried to penetrate into the motives for the persecution of Joan. This brave girl was feared because she was superior to her age. She provoked the jealousy of her inferiors. Her independence and originality alarmed both the Church and the State. Her ability to take the initiative, and her courage to disagree with her spiritual teachers was a menace to the authority of the priest with the keys, and the king with the sword. The English would not admit that a mere girl, a Domremy peasant, tending her father's cows, could have the genius to whip them—the most powerful warriors of Europe. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, would not forgive Joan for distinguishing herself without their help. For a woman to eclipse the Holy Church and humiliate a powerful State, was a crime punishable by death.

In less than two years' time Joan had saved France, after the prayers of the Church and the armies of the nation had failed ignominiously. In the opinion of the world of that day there was only one power, the devil's, that could outwit the Church. It was not denied that Joan had driven the victorious armies of the enemy out of France, and made a conquered people free again; but it was argued that she had achieved this triumph, not by the help of God, but by the instrumentality of the devil. In those days, anything, however praiseworthy, if accomplished without the permission and cooperation of the Church, was the work of the devil. Joan had consulted her own heart, instead of the village confessor. That was her heresy. Joan had seen visions and heard voices on her own account. That is the independence which, if encouraged, or even recognized, would overthrow the Catholic Church. No one is allowed to receive revelations at first hand. Even God is not permitted to speak except through his vicar on earth. In short, Joan was a protestant, inasmuch as she not only had direct relations with heaven, but she refused to allow the Church to be the judge as to whether her voices were from God or from Satan. During all the agony of her long trial, every effort was made to induce her to allow the Church to be the judge of the nature of her visions. Joan refused the test. There was no doubt about her heresy. She believed herself capable of judging. That was her unpardonable sin.

Still imagining myself in Rouen, in the year fourteen hundred thirty-one, I said to myself, "I must arise early in the morning and go to the old market place to catch a glimpse of the wonderful woman when she leaves the tower for the stake." As the picture