The Vaudois Revisitd

The Vaudois Revisited By Archibald F. Bennett n morning last September Pres- their vindictive encircling enemies. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN ident James L. Barker of the Burned at the stake, buried alive, stoned, PIEDMONT OFrench Mission and I set out sawn asunder, hanged, herded into vile from Paris. By assignment from and disease-laden dungeons, the Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, President Alma Sonne of the European repeated objects of pitiless crusades, whose bones Mission we were to visit the Vaudois in their homes burned and possessions Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains their homeland amid Alpine valleys. plundered, hunted down by cold; Even them who kept thy truth As the car sped across France bloodhounds, pursued from glen to glen. so pure of old, toward northern Italy, President Barker over rocks and crags and icy mountains, When all our fathers worshiped stocks refreshed my mind on the history of this yet they defied their assailants, defended and stones, unique and valorous people.* their rugged defiles, putting whole Forget not. In thy book record their Aptly described by one author as armies to rout, and maintained their groans "Israel of the Alps," the Vaudois or ancient faith. Who are thy sheep, and in their Waldenses are probably the oldest Thirty-five or more persecutions ancient fold continuous Protestant community in the have been launched against them. Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that world, and their church influential Francis I ordered their extermination in rolled Mother with infant down the among other reformed churches. By 1541. In 1655, their overlord, the Duke rocks. Their moans tradition they are credited with a line of of Savoy, issued his dread edict, The vales redoubled to the hills, and pastors running back even to the time of proclaiming that all his Vaudois subjects they To heaven. Their martyred the apostles. All other dissenter groups must renounce their religion or be blood and ashes sow were crushed by the massacred. The tale of atrocities which O'er all the Italian fields, where still power of Rome. brought death to thousands horrified all doth sway Detested by popes and monarchs as Protestant peoples. The poor Vaudois The triple tyrant; that from these may teachers of dangerous doctrines, they who were able to escape, concealed in grow A hundred-fold, who having have suffered centuries of horrible and their Alpine fastnesses, sent to Cromwell learnt thy way Early may fly the desolating persecution, scarcely a in England for relief. It was then that Babylonian woe. generation escaping barbarous torture Milton, in righteous and indignant and massacre, or the fire and pillage, remonstrance, penned his great sonnet: (The reference in lines seven and eight, famine and treachery and assaults of we are told, is to an actual incident. ) Cromwell, the Protestant champion, several, put others in chains, and was the signal for renewed persecution. was aroused and called a general fast in compelled the rest to fly into Another horrible edict decreed that all England, and a national contribution of desert places, and to the Vaudois churches should be destroyed mountains covered with snow, and every Protestant should publicly where some hundreds of families renounce his error within fifteen days are reduced to such distress, that under penalty of death or banishment. it is greatly to be feared they will There were then only 15,000 of this in a short time all miserably people, with 2,500 capable of bearing perish through cold and hunger. arms against the combined might of France and Savoy. But from the Touched with "extreme grief and mountains rang their cry of defiance, compassion for the sufferings and "Death rather than the mass!- In solemn calamities of this afflicted people" he assembly, under the leadership of a called upon the duke to vouchsafe to valiant pastor, Henri Arnaud, with abrogate this edict and put an end to hands raised to the sky, they swore to their oppressions. To the rulers of the defend their homes and their religion to United Provinces of the Netherlands, the death as their fathers had done Milton wrote for Cromwell: before them. Enemies from all quarters poured in But if he still persist in the same upon them. The king of France assailed obstinate resolutions of reducing them from his side, and an armed force to utmost extremity those people marched against them from Turin. For (among whom our religion was three days the embattled Vaudois either disseminated by the first valiantly withstood this sanguinary MARGUERITE STALLE doctors of the Gospel, and invasion and were victorious in every BARKER preserved from the defilement of engagement. Against overwhelming superstition, or else restored to odds and lured by false promises they £40,000 was raised to aid the sufferers. its pristine sincerity long before were compelled to submit. Their He called upon the heads of other other nations obtained that surrender was followed by devastation reformed states to voice with him their felicity), and determines their condemnation of these outrages. utter extirpation and destruction; Milton, as his Latin secretary to the we are ready to take such other council of state, wrote in powerful course and councils with protest to the Duke of Savoy. yourselves, in common with the rest of our reformed friends and Letters have been sent us ... confederates, as may be most wherein we are given to necessary for the preservation of understand, that such of your just and good men, upon the royal highness' subjects as brink of inevitable ruin, and to profess the reformed religion, make the Duke himself sensible are commanded by your edict, that we can no longer neglect the and by your authority, within heavy oppressions and three days after the calamities of our orthodox promulgation of your edict, to brethren. Young women in Valdese costume depart their native seats and habitations, upon pain of o great was the terror of Cromwell's in every hamlet and unheard-of capital punishment, and for name, backed up by his threat to barbarities even upon women and feiture of all their fortunes and Ssend forces to the rescue, that the infants. Over half the survivors, estates, unless they will give persecution was stopped, and the crowded to suffocation in thirteen security to relinquish their surviving inhabitants of the valleys were prisons, perished of hunger and thirst religion within twenty days, promised restoration of their homes and and disease. After six months only and embrace the Roman freedom of worship. three thousand remained alive. Catholic faith. And that . a But Cromwell died, and the rulers These were pardoned and released, part of your army fell upon broke faith. In 1685, Louis XIV of but banished forever from their homes them, most cruelly slew France revoked the Edict of Nantes. This and habitations. Hundreds of children were forced from their parents to be As I contemplated [while in Arriving in Genoa, Italy, on July 1, reared as Catholics, never to see their England) the condition of Italy, with 1850, he sent Elders Toronto and families again. The destitute remnants deep solicitude to know the mind of the Stenhouse to visit the Protestant valleys crossed the mountains to Switzerland, Spirit as to where I should commence of Piedmont. Three weeks later, in a hundreds more perishing on the roads my labors, I found that all was dark in letter to President Franklin D. Richards of cold and hunger. Sicily, and hostile laws would exclude of the European Mission, he reported: Three years later occurred "The our efforts. No opening appeared in the Glorious Return of the Vaudois to cities of Italy; but the history of the I have felt an intense desire to Their Valleys." An intrepid band of Waldenses attracted my attention. know the state of that province exiles, eight hundred strong, led by Amid the ages of darkness and to which I had given them an their warrior-pastor, Henri Arnaud, cruelty, they had stood immovable appointment, as I felt assured it assembled on the shores of Lake almost as the wave beaten rock in the Geneva, and recrossing the Alps retook stormy ocean. When the anathemas of SHAFT OF WORDS their homelands at the point of the Rome shook the world and princes fell By Christie Lund Coles sword and maintained themselves there from their thrones, they dared to brave until less than three hundred were left. the mandate of the Pope and the armies I SENT a shaft of words At this juncture they were saved by a of the mighty. To my mind they Out thoughtlessly, quarrel between France and Savoy, and appeared like the rose in the wilderness, Words harshly cruel the duke recalled and reinstated their or the bow in the cloud. The night of With irony. exiled brethren. A portrait of the hero time has overspread their origin; but I saw a heart in pain, Arnaud bears this inscription: these dissenters from Rome existed ages Hurt and bent more low I preach and fight-I have a before Luther was born. During the Because my words echoed. double commission, and these fierce persecutions to which they have Added to its woe. two contests occupy my soul. been subjected, their limits have greatly Zion is now to be rebuilt, and decreased. I picked a gentle phrase the sword is needed as well as A few narrow valleys, which in some Softly to be said, the trowel. places are only a bow's shot in breadth, Full of faith and courage. are all that now remain in their One found them bread, possession except the mountains by which they are engirdled.

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