Even as late as near the end of the seventeenth century, in 1685, France
revoked the Edict of Nantes, that had granted toleration, and
persecution raged as of old. The church was driven again to the desert.
Speaking of the early decades of the eighteenth century, Kurtz says:
"In France the persecution of the Huguenots continued.... The
'pastors of the desert' performed their duties at the risk of
their lives."--_"Church History," Vol. III, p. 88._
There was severe persecution of the Moravians in Austria, in these
times, many of the persecuted finding refuge in Saxony. It was in 1722
that Christian David led the first band of Moravian refugees to settle
on the estates of Count Zinzendorf, who organized through them the great
pioneer movement of modern missions.
But by the middle of the century, the era of enlightenment and the force
of world opinion, in the good providence of God, had so permeated the
Catholic states of Europe that general violent persecution had ceased.
One incident will suffice as evidence of this.
The scene was in France, where alone, of all the Catholic states, there
were any great numbers of Protestants.
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