Extract for my forthcoming book on Jacques de la Fontaine:
The principle of suffering for the name of Christ was viewed
as the greatest honour or title that any Christian can possess. Early on, the family rejected the “de la”
prefix to the surname, not because there is any reason to doubt their ancestral
nobility, but “because it was full of vanity.” Empty man-made honours played no
part in their life and thinking.
Further, all his sons had dedicated themselves to the ministry, and, at
that time in France, ministers had the same privileges as the nobility. Prefixes were therefore superfluous. The Fontaine family knew what true honours
were, and what constituted true nobility, and that conferred by the world did
not come into it!
We see in this family the driving force of correct principle
when adhered to. It provides perspective on
life’s challenges, yes; but it also enables us to get other things into proper
perspective and to see the inestimable honour it is to be chosen to suffer
persecution for the name of Christ. What of titles
of state! What of academic
achievements! What of the wealth in this
world! What of a great ancestral
background! They mean little or nothing
when compared with the honour of suffering reproach for the Saviour outside the
camp. “For what profit is it to a man to
if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his
soul?”
You can now get your copy by visiting Hazlett Lynch.
You can now get your copy by visiting Hazlett Lynch.
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