Fontaine, James, b. 1658; Maury, Ann, 1803-1876; Fontaine, John, b. 1693; Maury, James, 1718-1769

“ You who assemble nightly at balls, where they dance, speak evil of their neighbors, squander their money, and perhaps lose in gambling that which is wanted at home for the support of wives and children, to whom they prove a burden and a curse, rather than the blessing they ought to be. You, I say, who are now sitting in judgment upon others, will one day stand before the just Judge of all the world, and in that awful day, think you that He will condemn those who have worshipped him in spirit and in truth, or those who have frequented your assemblies? ”

“ In the history of the past we look in vain for any record of cruelties such as were inflicted upon the unoffending and unresisting Huguenots. They were not accountable to any one for their acts; each dragoon was a sovereign judge and an executioner; he who had ingenuity enough to invent any new species of torture was sure of applause, and even reward for his discovery. My blood boiled under the sense of injury, and I desired earnestly that the Protestants should take up arms in a body, and offer resistance, instead of waiting quietly to be slain like beasts at the shambles. ”

“ I was always persuaded that a middle station was the happiest, in which condition it has pleased God in mercy to place me, with thousands of blessings—even in the midst of his chastisements—on my head, the least of which is more than I deserve.
As to perfect happiness, it is not, it ought not to be looked for in a valley of tears, or in a state of trial. Our good God has, in mercy, denied it to every station of life, lest we should anchor here, and not long for that better life, where tears and pain and want are strangers, and where friends are never parted. ”

“ My brother Peter's first wife Lizzy was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw. God had endowed her with all the virtues of a good Christian, a good wife, and a watchful mother. She never let the least thing pass in her children that had any appearance of evil in it, and was very tender of them. She was an obliging neighbor, charitable to the poor, beloved of all them that knew her, and most dear to us. The girl she left I brought up, named Mary Ann, and to my great comfort she inherits the character of her mother, as also does her brother Peter, so that they are loved and respected of all. ”

“ O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away." God's favors are showered upon us abundantly, I may say, as the dew of the morning; but to what purpose, if we are unmindful of them, and suffer the cares of the world to stifle our gratitude? Can we be so unreasonable as to imagine that he will for ever give, if we continue to forget? ”

“ Let us then love the Lord and trust in him. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is; for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." "Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." For of him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. ”

“ Dear brother, the best thing we can do for one another at this distance, is to send up our petitions continually to the centre of our hope, love, filial affection and fear, where they meet in an instant, join us to our Heavenly Father, to our blessed Redeemer, and one to another. Thus we shall be disposed to turn our faces now towards our heavenly rest, where we shall ere long meet, see one another, and by God's grace and mercy live for ever. When our thoughts take this direction the darkest scenes of life disappear, or are only noticed as small rubs on our journey thither. ”

“ The Archers were themselves struck at the scene they beheld. "What are you about?" said they. "Do you set no value upon life? What fury urges you to the gallows? Think for a moment of your wives and children! What will become of them?" They tried every expedient to intimidate them, and swore to them, by all that was sacred, that if once they were taken to prison they would only exchange it for the rack, the gibbet, or, at any rate, the galleys. They adduced numerous instances of such and such persons, who, for similar offences, had been hanged, broken on the wheel. ”

“ You must know that in France, an individual of noble family cannot engage in trade or the mechanic arts, without forfeiting his claim to nobility.
I have insinuated that our family was of noble origin, and it is true; but I would not have you glory in that knowledge, but rather in the much greater and more glorious nobility which I am going to lay before you—the suffering and martyrdom for the cause of true religion of those from whom we are descended. ”

“ We have seen this army of torturers and persecutors, fly from the face of an enemy whom they formerly scorned, and seen them driven from their intrenchments. and forced to precipitate themselves into the water, like the swine of the Gadarenes, in the fear of enemies who once dared not quit the shelter of their fenced cities to encounter them. The glory of Louis, called the Great, whose ambition aspired to universal monarchy, departed from him when he raised his hand against the people of God, and he lived to reap his reward in seeing himself despised in his old age, as he deserved to be. ”

“ Great as is my debt of gratitude for the things of this life, its manifold comforts and conveniences, how incalculably greater is it for the mercy to my immortal soul, in God having shed the blood of his only begotten Son to redeem it! ”

“ I had heard my father read from the Scriptures, that God inhabited a light which no man could approach unto, and also that St. Paul had been caught up to the third heaven. I was satisfied that the dwelling-place of God was above the sun, the moon, and the stars, and all resplendent with the light that his glory diffused around him. I thought that the floor of the third heaven must be of a solid substance, in order to sustain the weight of the celestial court, which I understood consisted of an infinite number of angels and glorified saints. ”

“ I shall be for ever grateful to you for it; and I will not make you such an unkind return for those favors as holding you to your contract would be, and thus condemning you to poverty for life. Think no more of me; I am contented to remain as I am; only be so good as convey to Mr. Downe a request not to repeat to me himself that which I have heard from you, for I never will be his wife. ”

“ Near our own doors, a well-appointed army of disciplined troops fled before a contemptible band of savages and ragamuffins, and stained Monongahela's memorable stream with British blood; and not far from yours, Mahon was wrested from the nation in a manner which will greatly surprise posterity. In short, every attempt to annoy the enemy or secure ourselves miscarried, notwithstanding a great inequality of strength in our favor in those quarters of the world where the war chiefly centered. ”

“ Could we once raise our souls to that pitch of devotion, the world and all its false splendor would pass by us unobserved, and its necessary incumbrances would seem to be only small lets and hindrances to our divine contemplations. Virtue and religion would be our chief study, and we should leave them as an inheritance to our children. ”

“ General Ingoldsby, whose friendship for me was such that he was always on the look-out for something to benefit me, thought he had hit upon a plan that would be very agreeable to me. He had received orders to send all the half-pay officers, that were in Ireland, to Spain, and he entered the names of my sons Peter and John upon the list, without saying any thing to us until it was done. The boys were wild with joy at the idea of entering the army, and escaping from the drudgery of study. ”

“ I heartily condole with you, my sister, and the rest of our relations on the other side of the water, upon account of the loss of our dear niece, your daughter.
This world is a kind of warfare, where we meet with good and evil, and both dispensed by the same kind hand, to loosen our affections from it, and remind us that we have no abiding place here, but are reserved for a better. May we all make it our chief study to prepare for a blessed change. ”

“ It is excellently calculated to prevent the augmentation of the French power here, to finish the glorious work of stopping up all the avenues of communication between their northern and southern settlements, and to open a most lucrative trade with nations scarce ever heard of by the American English. And should the armaments, which, your prints tell us, are destined against their settlement of Louisiana, also triumph, Great Britain will then be in possession of what will one day prove a more copious source of wealth than all the Mexican and Peruvian mines. ”

“ It is the joy and happiness of angels, and their continual exercise by praise and thanksgiving, to glorify the Lord of the whole universe. Why may not we take the opportunity to imitate them, by joining our hearts and voices to the heavenly chorus? Our deliverances have been wonderful and miraculous, and why may not our thanks be accompanied with rapture? ”

“ I always correspond with all the family who will be so kind as to answer my letters, and have endeavored to instil the same maxim in my son Peter, and my nephews James Maury and Frank Fontaine, and I reap no small benefit from it; for next to being with my friends is the pleasure of hearing from them, and knowing how matters go with them in this inconstant and fluctuating world. ”

“ I would fain hope that the pious examples of those from whom we are descended, may warm your hearts and influence your lives. I hope you will resolve to dedicate yourselves, wholly and unreservedly, to the service of that God whom they worshipped at the risk of their lives, and that you, and those who come after you, will be steadfast in the profession of that pure reformed religion, for which they endured, with unshaken constancy, the most severe trials. ”

“ As Agoust had been brought up a Protestant, and had turned Papist to retain his office as attorney, I endeavored to rouse his conscience to some feeling of remorse. I put together the answers I have given above, and said to him: "Miserable wretch that you are; was it not enough that you should deny your baptism, and renounce your religion yourself, but you must also employ false testimony, to put temptation in the way of those whom God has sustained by his grace? Now, look at your own statement, and give God the glory. ”

“ May his wise Providence prevent those tragedies, which my very heart even bleeds at the thoughts of!
But, put the case (which is the most favorable supposition that can be put) that the Colonies at last submit to the galling yoke, every friend to Great Britain must even then find cause to detest and execrate the Act. For the execution of it, or of any other Act of Taxation, will affect her in the tenderest points,—her manufactures, trade, and naval power. The Colonies were poor before the war. They are much more so since. Additional taxes must increase their poverty. ”

“ There is no more picking for their ravenous jaws upon bare bones, but should we begin to thrive they will be at the same again. All our taxes are now laid upon slaves and on shippers of tobacco, which they wink at while we are in danger of being torn from them, but we durst not do it in time of peace, it being looked upon as the highest presumption to lay any burden upon trade. This is our part of the grievance, but to live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible. ”

“ Cardon,
"What devil placed you there?" said he.
I replied, "I entered under the auspices of the good fathers who are just gone."
He handed me the deed, and I gave him in gold the one-and-twentieth part of the sum he had demanded for furnishing the full number, and, much to my surprise, he returned to me five or six crowns.
"How is that? Are you satisfied?" said I.
"No," said he, with much bitterness, "nor shall I be until I see you with a halter round your neck."
"When people are hung for praying to God, I shall have reason to be afraid, and you will be able to sleep in peace." ”

“ A shoe-maker, who was a charitable man, fearing God, and in easy circumstances, received James into his house, treated him with much kindness and affection, and taught him his own trade, but without binding him to it as an apprentice. This was no time for pride of birth or titles of nobility to be thought of, but rather to be thankful to God for putting it in his power to earn his daily bread by honest labor. ”

“ There is no money but the small remains of our paper currency, which is almost all returned to and burnt in the Treasury; and in the midst of this our poverty, our mother country, which seems to have contracted a dislike to some of our proceedings, is laying a tax (the forerunner we fear of others) upon us, which it appears impossible to pay, as I learn it is to be collected in silver, of which there is almost none in the colony: so that peace, the ardent wish of the poor wretch who is involved in war, seems to threaten us with as great, if not greater evils, than even the war itself. ”

“ I have neglected to name that there was a small chapel attached to the prison, where the priest said mass every morning, and I had purposely selected the same time for our devotions, because the papists were then generally absent.
Two of the witnesses against me, whose ears had been offended by the holy name of God being pronounced within their hearing, were men who had waylaid a neighbor on the highway, murdered him and mangled his body, for which crime they were afterwards broken on the wheel. Oh! how infamous for a Huguenot to dare to pray to God in the presence of such worthy Catholics! ”

“ Marriage was the first divine institution, the only one with regard to our neighbor in the state of innocence, and consequently the best; joining again by the strictest ties of love and duty those who are separated in many degrees by descent from our first ancestors; thus, though by generation we are continually falling off one from another, yet the circle meets again, and we become one flesh. ”