few months m
dug out of the tomb at Westminster, and
the noisy multitudes that hailed the restora-
tion of a debauchee were dancing around the
May-Pole in the Strand. Charles Stuart,
not obliged, as he said, "to pay the debts of
a Usurper," applied what remained of the
great Vaudois Fund-about £16,000-to
supply the wants of his mistresses.

more, and his bones had been to the Vaudois to which we shall allude be-
fore considering their recent history and
present position. We mean their doctrine
and ecclesiastical discipline.

We cannot trace the introduction of "heresy" into the Valleys to Valdo, nor Claude, nor Vigilantius. We cannot assign a date at all, and the parties who have assailed the VauWe refer to Sir Samuel Morland's history dois have not been able to point to the time particularly, as it is the one great English when their doctrines were first introduced. book on the Waldensian Church. It takes We accept the language which the Waldenits place with the great works of Gilles and ses themselves addressed to their princes; Leger. But it is remarkable that even in "We are descended from those who, from the Valleys there have been no great writers father to son, have preserved entire the aposto continue the histories of Pezzin, Gilles, tolic faith in the Valleys which we now occuand Leger. It is true there was one brilliant py. Permit us, therefore, to have that free episode in the "Glorieuse Rentrée" of Henri exercise of our religion which we have enjoyArnaud; and we have no want of modern ed from time out of mind, before the dukes books on the subject of the Vaudois, but none of Savoy became princes of Piedmont." The has "attained to the first three.' Among strong presumption from such fragments of Englishmen who have in our days investi- Piedmontese history as have been preserved, gated the Waldensian history, and laboured is, that the Cottian Alps received the Gospel heart and soul for the Waldensian Church, in the second century. Through that region. the first place is due to Dr. Gilly. It was lay the great Roman road by which the lehe who revived the sympathy of the Eng-gions of Italy marched to Gaul: it was by lish nation for a Church that had been almost these Valleys that Hannibal led the Numiforgotten. By his graceful sketches, his dian army that conquered at Lake Thrasymore elaborate researches, and above all by mene. The highway from Rome to Lyons his unwearied labours on their behalf, he has lay across these mountains; and Irenæus, done more for the Vaudois than any living or some of the early preachers of the writer. They are also indebted to the labours faith of Christ, may have passed over them literary and otherwise, of Mr. Sims, Sir when carrying the Gospel to lands beyond Hugh Dyke Acland, and Dr. Henderson. the Alps. It was likely in this way that the We might speak of others who are remem-"glad tidings" were first heard in the Valleys. bered with gratitude, or known as living be- And we have some scanty notices too, in the nefactors by the Churches of the Valleys; old histories which have lately come to and if we pass them over, it is not from the light, of refugees from the Italian lowlands, slight esteem in which we hold them. The who found a shelter in these regions from modern Vaudois are not writers, but hard- the persecution of the Pagan Emperors. The working men, who have no time for author- facts then remain, whatever may be said of ship. And the few who have ventured on Valdo or Claude, that Christianity in its the field of literature have made no attempt purest form had taken root in the Valleys of to trace with minuteness of detail the more upper Italy in the first centuries of the recent affairs of their Church, but rather to Church, and that it has remained there till present a popular survey of its history, "de-onr own times. puis son origine jusqu'à nos jours." The The THEOLOGY of the Vaudois Church need four flashy volumes of M. Muston, entitled not detain us long. M. Bert, speaking of "L'Israel des Alpes," are of this kind; and the early Church, gives a fair summary of so also are the two carefully written vol- the dogmas which the Vaudois uniformly reumes of M. Monastier, which we have put jected: "Then there existed neither the at the head of this article. We take it for Papacy, nor Monachism, nor rites of priestgranted that our readers are acquainted with craft: neither Lent nor vigils, nor distinctions the general outline of Waldensian history, of meat, nor veneration of the cross, nor and therefore do not mean to enter on it at adoration of images, nor invocation of Mary all. It is of more importance to begin and the saints: then there were neither where the ordinary histories break off,-at masses, nor belief in purgatory, nor plenary the overthrow of the Sardinian government indulgences, nor auricular confession, nor -and the establishment of the French power celibacy of priests. The symbol of the Apos. in Piedmont. And here M. Bert's book, tles was the compendium of the faith: the being the most recent, serves our purpose Sacred Scriptures were read by all, and best. But there are two questions relating Christianity, free as yet from the imposition D-14

VOL. XXII.

of dogmas and the spirit of sect, guided the The religionists of the Alpine Valleys faithful only to this to love God, and to were, from an early period, denounced as worship him in spirit and in truth."-Pp. 6, heretics, but the system of open persecution, 7. Such were the dogmas which the vales- by crusades and the inquisition, was not put men rejected. We have no confessions of in force till the time of Innocent III. It was faith of that early period, but Claude's Com- against the Albigenses of Languedoc that mentary on the Epistle to the Galatians may Dominick of Guzman sent forth his preachperhaps be referred to, as presenting a fair ing friars, not with peace but with the sword, outline of the doctrines which were held in and that the Church first undertook a war of the Valleys. But the Nobla Leyczon, bear- extermination. The Albigenses,* ceased to ing the date of 1100, (a date which has been exist as a distinct sect after the murderous accepted even by M. Raynouard, as worthy crusade of Simon de Montford, and such as of entire confidence,) presents a genuine out-escaped became merged in the Waldensian line of the Waldensian faith. A transcript Church. But from that time the history of of it has been preserved in Sir Samuel Mor- the Waldenses is a history of persecution; land's history. Seven volumes of the an- so that Morland says, in his graphic way, cient MSS. which were deposited by him in that if we had no other light to guide us in the library of "the famous University of the dark and cloudy night of the middle Cambridge," have been lost. But those ages, "the fires wherewith those Cadmeans, which Leger and others deposited three years or generation of vipers, have burned the later, (A.D. 1661,) in the public library of Geneva, still remain.

rocks, and the secret places of the stairs of these Valleys of Piedmont, that the dove of Christ was hid." A pure Christianity was thus preserved in that corner of Italy, till the Reformers rose up to preach in all the kingdoms of Europe.

bodies of the saints, would serve us as so many torches to keep us from losing our The fundamental doctrines of the Bible way between the days of the Apostles and the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, those of Calvin and Luther." The Church the work of the Spirit-were always held by was in the wilderness. The caves of the the Vaudois of the Alps. They acknow- earth were her hiding-place, and the perpetledged no rule of faith but the Word ual hills her refuge. As the Puritan loved of God-no sacrifice but the one atoning to express it, "it was in the clefts of these sacrifice of Calvary-no mediator but the Man Christ Jesus. The fable of purgatorial fire, the dogma of transubstantiation, the rule of priestly celibacy, the worship of the Virgin and the saints, and the adoration of images, they rejected as inconsistent with the teaching of the Scriptures of truth. Mr. A word on the CHURCH ORDER which has Faber has done good service by dissipating prevailed in the Alpine Valleys. Until the the charges which the Bishop of Meaux had union of the Diocese of Italy with the Church brought against the Albigenses and Wal- of Rome, (A.D. 1059,) the Vaudois were denses, in what his admirers call "his im- probably recognised as a part of the great mortal history of the variations of Protest-Catholic Church, though opposed to the antism." The Christians of Languedoc and new doctrines which had arisen within it. Piedmont were neither Gnostic nor Mani- Their oldest writings belong to a later date, cheans; they held neither the principles of (A.D. 1100.) What their precise position Maricon nor of Manes. Mr. Faber's book may have been in relation to the dioceses of must hold a high place in this controversy Turin, Milan, or Embrun, we are unable from its ponderous and effective learning. to tell, except that the Valleys were freThe ghosts of Bossuet and St. Bernard, with quently referred to as a nest of heresy. The monks and inquisitors in their train, are at- Romish Church departed gradually from the tacked as eagerly as if they were living men, early, faith, and thus became schismatic. who could blush for their detected calumnies, We do not test the Church by the mere or hide their heads from ridicule. And the possession of numbers. If there was schism, honest prebendary, when dealing with such it was not on the part of men who at out-of-the-way people as Peter of Clugny, length became separate by their continued and Jonas of Orleans, and Alanus the uni- adherence to the doctrines of the New Tesversal doctor, becomes even merry at times, tament. Before that separation, the Vauand indulges in ponderous jokes in Latin dois, protesting against the corruptions of and witticisms expressed in Greek deriva- the Church, were not, as it seems, a comtives. We may be allowed to smile at his munity apart, with a church order of their pugnacity, while we love the man for his own. The history of Peter Waldo, who, earnestness, and honour him for the noble use to which he has turned his erudition in doing battle for the truth of God.

They were so called after the Synod of Albi in 1176.

whether he was a Vaudois or not, undoubt- | Church was governed by consistoires, or edly held the faith which was professed in kirk-sessions and synods. We learn also the valleys of Piedmont, may serve to illus- from the documents preserved by Morland, trate their position. Waldo began his la- that latterly the fourteen churches of the bours about the year 1160, and died about Valleys composed two colloques or classes, A.D. 1179, or 1181. His followers, the i. e., Presbyteries, and that these two collopoor men of Lyons, were a missionary com-ques formed the Synod. The barbes were munity; and it seems that some of them not confined to the Valleys. They amountapplied to Pope Alexander III. in 1179, for ed at one time to as many as 140, and had permission to act as preachers. They made a house in Geneva and another in Florence. the journey from the Rhone to the Tiber for They were not merely pastors, but missionthat purpose, and laid their French psalter aries, and took their place in the Synod just at the feet of the Holy Father, but obtained as a Vaudois missionary does in our day.* little for their pains. Again, in the year 1212, they made a second application to *Mr. Faber, in a long note to one of the last chapPope Innocent III. It was refused, with ters of his volume, shews, from the authority of Jestrange want of wisdom and consistency, rome and others, that bishops and presbyters in the one might think, on the part of that wily early Church were the same; that the Church was Pontiff, who sanctioned the two orders of at first ruled by the common council of presbyters, St. Francis and St. Dominick, and turned sake of order and good government; but that the -that bishops were afterwards appointed for the the fanaticism of both to the service of the subjection of the presbyters to the bishops, was Church. The refusal, however, was not in- "rather by ecclesiastical custom than by the verity consistent after all. St. Francis went forth of the Lord's disposition." (Pp. 553-562.) He acas a beggar, but he was entirely possessed succession by Episcopal ordination. Of course he knowledges that he cannot prove a regular apostolic with the spirit of Romish superstition. St. cannot. The Waldenses, on Mr. Faber's own shewDominick's mission was to root out heresy; ing, had protested against Romish errors from the the poor men of Lyons, who otherwise would days of Constantine and Pope Sylvester; and there have been the very stuff out of which to form is not a word in the old histories to indicate their an order of begging friars, asked leave to not attach much importance to the vague story, that precise relation to Claude, Bishop of Turin. We do preach the gospel of Christ, and to proclaim the Bohemian separatists sent three pastors about to men in their own tongue the wonderful the year 1450 to the Valleys of Piedmont to be or works of God. These followers of Peter dained by Stephen, bishop of the Vaudois, and that Waldo were converts from Romish super- three pastors by imposition of hands. said Stephen, with others officiating, did ordain the stition, and had scruples about Church au- of course discussing the question of Presbytery We are not thority; but Waldo himself had sought no versus Prelacy; but we cannot see that this story such sanction from the Roman pontiff, at proves that the Vaudois had a succession of "bishleast till the last years of his labours, and ops" in the Episcopal sense, for they hold and teach he even acted in open opposition to the ec- bishops and presbyters in the word of God are the till this day, that all their pastors are bishops; that clesiastical powers when forbidden to preach same; and the Moderator of the Synod, in conjunction in the name of Jesus. Yet it is clear that with his brethren of the same presbyterial rank with all that Waldo and his disciples sought, in himself, ordains to the office of the ministry by prayer the first instance, was liberty to act accord- and imposition of hands, even though the person or dained may have before received sacerdotal orders ing to the convictions of their own con- in the Church of Rome. Still less can it be proved sciences. It was persecution, and the unjust that they had prelates from their saying, in their conexercise of power, that drove them into se- fession to Francis, that "bishops and pastors shall paration. And such, we suppose, was very dependent preacher and the Scotch Presbyterian use be blameless." Everybody (says the same; the Inmuch the case with the Waldenses in Pied- similar language. Besides, we know as a fact, that mont, whose doctrines Waldo had embraced. they had not prelates at that time. The theory that We are able to trace their history distinctly the change from Episcopacy to Presbytery took enough for our purpose from the thirteenth place in the year 1630, when all the Vaudois pascentury. The old Vaudois held firmly the tors but two were cut off by the pestilence, and right of electing their pastors, and of consti- mere theory without any historic evidence in sup Swiss pastors were imported to fill their places, is a tuting elders in their churches. Their his- port of it. Had the fifteen pastors of 1629 had a tory uniformly speaks of barbes, and elders, bishop, surely Giles, their own historian, who was and deacons, and except in times of persecu- terrible plague-year, would have known something himself one of those pastors, and who survived that tion, they had an annual synod in true pres-about it. They lost thirteen pastors, and were byterial order. The "barbes" were the obliged to fill their places with pastors from France pastors and teachers, the elders were the in- and Switzerland belonging to the same Church order spectors and directors of the congregations, with themselves, though unable to preach in the and the deacons had charge of the alms of patois of the Valleys. This is surely very intelligithe Church. They had no bishops resemb- an organic change in the constitution of the Church, ble; but the idea that the Swiss pastors introduced ling the Roman or Anglican, but their has no foundation whatever in their history, as

But it is time to proceed with our account of the recent history and present condition of the Vaudois.

In 1814, Victor Emmanuel returned from the Island of Sardinia, after sixteen years of exile, to ascend his ancestral throne. Like most Italian kings, he had learned nothing from adversity. In reference to the Vaudois, everything returned at once by royal edict to the old condition. The liberties which they had enjoyed for fifteen years were ab

We do not mean to enter at length into

It was the dominion of Napoleon that first introduced liberty into the Alpine Valleys. But as soon as the Vaudois became subjects of France, the English Royal Bounty, which had been paid regularly (with a few exceptions) since the time of William rogated at a stroke. and Mary, was withdrawn. The pastors of the thirteen parishes were in consequence an account of the indignities to which the ⚫ reduced to great straits. But when Napo- poor Vaudois were subjected in consequence, leon went to Milan to receive the iron crown until the period of their "emancipation" in of Lombardy, he was met by a Vaudois de- 1848. The Waldenses were no rebels-no putation, who represented to him the loss movers of sedition. In all Italy there was they had sustained. Napoleon caused the no other people trained as they had been to pastors to be enrolled among the clergy of fear God and honour the king. They were the empire, and at the same time made over pre-eminently a moral people. For a cento them the revenues of the Hospice of Ca- tury there had been no case of a Vaudois techumens at Pignerol, and of a few Roman convicted of a capital offence. In days past Catholics churches of the Valleys, which he their criminals were their martyrs. No suppressed as useless. The Waldenses, as fault was found with them, except in respect French citizens, were at once freed from the to the law of their God. They needed but barbarous edicts by which they had been one thing, they were told, to be perfectoppressed for centuries. They were free; they were not Catholic. They clung tenabut we cannot say that the day of their ciously to the religion of their fathers. The political enlargement brought with it any zeal of Romish bishops had not changed religious advancement. The new French them; the Inquisition had failed to terrify ideas were not favourable to the progress of them; the armies of France and Savoy had an evangelical Church, and the able men not rooted them out from their fastness in among their clergy were very unlike the the mountains. Their numbers had indeed old barbes of Pra del Tour. The venerable been reduced, and their ancient limits had Moderator, Peyrani, pastor of Pomaret, was been narrowed. They had lost their valley undoubtedly a remarkable man, and of no of Pragela, which had ceased to be a Walcommon erudition. In his youth he had densian territory since 1727. They were been secretary to Voltaire at Ferney, a confined to the three valleys of Lucerne, St. strange preparation for the Christian minis-Martin, and Perouse; and in the nineteenth try. But he was a man of commanding century, in the heart of civilized Europe, character, and he fought bravely, in a time of the most moral people in Italy were forbidtrouble, the battles of his Church. We cer- den to acquire lands beyond their ancient tainly should not trust very much to his re- boundaries. They were prohibited from presentation of some points in the doctrine practising as physicians, surgeons, apotheand discipline of his Church, in which he was caries, attorneys, or advocates, except in plainly contradicted by the old constitution their own community. The land became and confessions, and in which he evidently too narrow for them, and many of them led astray Dr: Gilly; but in many labours were forced out to seek employment elsein their cause he merited and obtained the where. They were to. be found among the gratitude of his people; and we cannot for- silk-looms of Lyons, or in the workshops of get how much the sympathy of the English Nismes; among the herdsmen of Dauphiny, public towards the poor Vaudois clergy, a or the street-porters and waiters at Marquarter of a century ago, was excited by seilles. Some of them passed over into Dr. Gilly's graceful picture of the spare Switzerland, to teach schools or make figure and grey hairs of the aged Rodolphe watches at Geneva. That good old city had Peyrani.

ceased to be so hated as it was in Sir Samuel Morland's days, "for the sincere, conGiles and Leger have given it. Mr. Faber is need. lessly perplexed with the attempt to make out a stant, and painful preaching of the word;" regular apostolic succession, which yet he acknow- but the Vaudois, who might have found ledges he cannot make out. He concludes by de- profitable occupation at home if they had claring, that whatever the polity of the Albigenses and abjured their faith, were careful to seek a Waldenses may have been, they were the two habitation where they could worship after Churches of the Apocalypse, witnessing for God against the great apostasy. This, we should ima the manner of their fathers. Besides this gine, is more satisfactory than apostolic succession. plan of hemming them in within their an

eient limits, it was the policy of their perse-In 1836, he published at Paris a volume, cutors the plain word is the best one-to entitled "Recherches Historiques sur la force in among them the professors of an- véritable Origine des Vaudois," which far other faith, with higher civil privileges, so outdid the well-told lies of Bossuet both in as to establish a Roman Catholic influence in quantity and in quality.* The Vaudois, every parish. And the suffering Vaudois, thus attacked in high places, could not deburthened with taxes, and scarcely able with fend themselves, as they dared not print a all their toil to win the scantiest sustenance defence of their faith in Piedmont. But the from the slopes of the mountains which they bishop said they had the press of Protestant cultivated, were compelled to observe the countries at their disposal. And so they countless saints-days of their Catholic neigh- had, but M. Muston was banished ten years bours. At the same time, other means for printing his history of the Vaudois at were tried to win them over to the religion Paris, and the example was not very enof the State. They were tempted with the couraging. The bishop pursued his advanlure of gold; apostasy was the first step to tage remorselessly. The Protestant worship honour and emolument. They were forbid- in the Valleys was disturbed by Roman den by the laws of the State to offer any Catholic processions, drowning with their opposition to the perversion of their friends. clamour the voice of the preacher, and beTheir children were carried off and baptized yond the limits the old edicts were not in the Romish Churches, or inveigled into allowed to lie dormant. The Vaudois who the Hospice of Catechumens at Pignerol, died out of the Valleys, or of Turin, were and the bereaved parents were forbidden to not allowed to contaminate with their reclaim them. The laws of the State af unholy ashes the consecrated ground of the forded them no protection against the arti- Papal cemeteries, but were buried by the fices of the Church. At that time, in Pied-road-side or by the running stream. Charlesmont, the Church dared to defy a stronger Albert interfered to retrieve such an indigpower than theirs. Many of our readers nity in the case of a Vaudois soldier, and at may remember the sensation which was his own expense he caused the body to be produced in 1844, by the case of Mademoi- exhumed, transported to the Valleys, and selle Heldervier, the daughter of the Dutch interred with niilitary honours at La Tour. ambassador at the court of Sardinia. This When the long-expected civil code of Piedyoung lady, at the romantic age of seven-mont was published in 1838, it simply conteen, had formed an attachment to an advo-firmed the old laws, and the condition of the cate in Turin; and to get quit at once of the Vaudois became worse. Their benefactors, opposition of her father, and the difficulties of the church, she fled from her family, took refuge in the monastery of Santa Croce, and professed herself a Papist. The father reclaimed his child, but the authorities refused to give her up. He appealed to the King, but Charles-Albert declared he could not interfere! All the Protestant ambassadors at Turin protested against the insult offered to a Protestant power in the person of its representative, and the Dutch minister sent back in indignation the Grand Cross of the order of St. Maurice, with which he had been recently decorated by the King.

who had been long waiting for some amelioration, were almost wearied out; hope deferred had made their hearts sick. And hence proposals were made to the Protest ants of the Alps to leave that Italian land which had been to them a hard step-mother, and to seek a home elsewhere; to emigrate to Prussia; to settle as a colony in Algiers; to cross the Atlantic, and people the Carolinas with the descendants of martyrs. But such proposals were not likely to commend themselves to men who cherished the memory of Henri Arnaud. Their land was theirs by every right under heaven, and We have no wish to speak hardly of every rock and mountain, from the Balsille Charles-Albert. He did what he could, but to the Col de la Croix, was associated with the Church was still too powerful. When the imperishable history of their race. he came to the throne in 1831, the Wal- vine that had been planted so long ago in denses had expected much from his kindly that land of hills and valleys, had not ceased disposition and his early liberalism. He to grow, though sorely trodden down. The had been educated, they knew, by a Protest- boar out of the woods had wasted it, and ant professor at Geneva. But there was the wild beast of the field devoured it, but a power behind the throne," fiercely op- God might yet return and visit it. posed to the Waldensian heretics. Andrea Charvaz, tutor to the two sons of the King, became Bishop of Pignerol in 1834, and from the first threatened openly to put in force the old edicts against the Vaudois.

The

*It is to be regretted that Mr. Fuller, instead of

spending his strength on Bossuet, had not examined Charvaz. A living bishop was more worthy of at the more recent and more formidable book of Bishop tack than "a dead lion."