4 OCTOBER 1902, Page 41

" L'Eglise Wallonne " at Southampton. By William W. Portal,

MA. (Hampshire Chronicle, Southampton. 7s. 6d.)—Mr. Portal tells us that the earliest settlements of Protestant refugees were made in London, Norwich, Canterbury, and Southampton, and that this last place has the distinction of possessing the earliest records, dating from 1567 and continuing to 1797. (The Southampton registers have been edited for the Huguenot Society of London.) The first document in point of date is a list of "les moms de ceux qui out faiet professia de leur foy et admis a la Cene le 21 de Deckbre, 1567." Most of them came from the coast of Normandy and the Channel Islands (this last fact needs explanation). Discipline was exercised. In the first year a member of the congregation was excluded from Communion for selling a blind horse without informing the purchaser. Even martyrs are corrupted by the horse. There is an entry of the "St. Bartholomew,"—" ens horibte masarre et Sacre." "Between twelve and thirteen thousand" is the estimated number of the victims,—and the writers probably had means of knowing. The register has many other interesting entries. Arch- bishop Land compelled the congregation to Conformity, but soon after fell from power. It is painful to read that in 1712 Queen's College, Oxford, to whom the chapel belonged, threatened to forbid its use unless the congregation conformed. But then the 1 Russians there can be no question ; they behaved like savages of Landian policy was in the ascendant. The congregation sub- the worst kind ; but the well-bred Germans, and the French, whose mitted, against the advice of their brethren in London. Mr. mission is to teach mankind, described as uncivilised ! What next P Portal suggests that they were moved by the kindness whieh was the tradition among the Bishops of Winchester. But it was a bad business, particularly when one remembers that the Huguenot ministers had stuck to their duty in the plague year when the Anglicans fled. The volume is full of interesting facts and well illustrated.