VII.

A PEEP INTO A WALDENSIAN VALLEY.

HEY are a noble-looking people the Italians. The

THE

fire darting from their black eyes, combined with the dark-brownish shades of their complexion, imparts to them a graceful mixture of juvenile liveliness and manly dignity. There is something knightly, nay princely, in their bearing, expressive of a deep feeling of liberty, which seems to proclaim, “We are a free people; we may have been an oppressed people, but we never were slaves, and never shall be."

Such were the thoughts that crossed my mind as I stood one afternoon at the corner of the Via Carlo Alberto and the Corso del Rè at Turin. I was looking at the stream of people who were promenading under the magnificent avenue of chestnut trees, enjoying the cool shade and the fresh air, and obtaining glimpses of the splendid cafés, which, lining the road on both sides, teemed with crowds of visitors, who took their sorbet in-doors and out, and moved to and fro as bees move in and out of their hives.

"A noble set of people," I thought; "worthy to rank among the foremost of the free nations.”

My meditation was interrupted by a monotonous noise that seemed to come in the direction of the Via Carlo Alberto. It sounded like the humming of an immense swarm of bees. I turned round: it was a procession. Under a canopy supported by four men clad in white linen, a priest was carrying the monstrans or some other idol. A boy, dressed as a chorister, walked in front, ringing a shrill-toned bell. Its piercing notes were accompanied by the continuous buzz of the Paternosters and Ave Marias which the priests and a few poor people in their rear kept mumbling as they passed. Every one, rich as well as poor, noble as well as vulgar, took off his hat and bowed reverentially: but before it had occurred to me to do so, the procession had passed, and all went on as before.

"And yet a poor enslaved people!" I sighed. "No knowledge of true liberty can dwell in their souls so long as a piece of wood or stone can command their obeisance."

A hand was gently pressed on my shoulder, and a well-known voice whispered in French, "I congratulate you on the happy escape of your hat, Mr -" I turned round. "William! is it you ?" Of course we cordially shook hands. Waldensian friend, William

It was my

whom I had become

acquainted with two years ago at Berlin, where he was

tutor in a family with which I was staying.

"And where are you going?" he asked.

"To Milan, and then back to Switzerland, round by the Simplon."

"Of course," he said, with a a slight shade of bitterness in his smile. "That's like all you tourists. When far away you speak of us, you pray for us, you collect money for us; but when in our immediate neighbourhood you seem to forget all about us, and not one in a thousand of you thinks of looking in upon us in the valleys. The Cathedral of Milan is honoured with the visits of more Protestants in one year, than our valleyswhich are the head-quarters of Italian Protestantism— are in ten."

I must confess that I was not prepared for such an onslaught. But I felt that his remark was but too true, and I was ashamed of myself and all my Protestant fellow-travellers, who, in the prospect of seeing a temple made by man, and teeming with idols, allow ourselves to forget the magnificent temple which the hand of God has reared in the midst of the Piedmontese Alps, and where thousands worship Him in spirit and truth.

"Could you not go with me," my friend said, “and stay at least one day with us? It is only a short journey from here to Pomaret. We shall arrive there before it is dark, if we take the three o'clock train."

How little man is master of his own plans! That morning I awoke with the purpose of spending my afternoon on the top of the Superga, and lo! before the clock struck three, I found myself at the station taking a ticket for Pignerol.

"And do you really mean to say that my hat was in danger?" I said to William, when we were comfortably seated in our railway carriage and moving on at the rate of twenty miles an hour.