Crona Temple

“ Now they had reached the foot of the most gigantic of the Alps, whose heads are hoary with eternal snows, and whose precipitous sides are scored by a few perilous paths by which no traveller can come without danger. The Vaudois had to traverse the forests of the lower grounds, to clamber rocks surmounted with silver snows, hollowed out with dazzling glaciers and torrent waterfalls; they came not into this sublime scenery to admire the works of God, but to shun men and cities, to breathe free air—as did the chamois bounding on the heights above them, or the eagle that soared over their heads. ”

“ Night had fallen on the Valley of Luserna.
Behind the ivy-sprays and the clinging rock plants there was a path on the face of the cliff widening as it rose, until—some fifty feet above the stream—it spread into a platform or tiny amphitheatre completely hidden from any prying eye that might search the cliff from below.
From above one might perhaps peer into its recesses; but then no living thing ever did look from above, save the falcons and the ravens, or perhaps a wild goat, tempted by the tufts of mountain flowers which bloomed against the edges of the snow. ”

“ Inaction and waiting were the hardest of trials to this girl, child of the mountain as she was.
Patience, Rénée! The time for doing will come. The blood of heroes does not flow uselessly in your young veins; ‘to do’ comes by nature to hearts like yours; ‘to wait’ is a lesson taught by care Divine.
Some stray reports penetrated even to the far recesses of this valley, the most southern of all the Vaudois dwelling-places. Some wandering folk would come from Vigne or Villaro, outcasts like themselves, whom they might question. ”

“ GASPARD AND RÉNÉE.
‘Shall it be in the spring time, dear?’ Gaspard said, as he stood in the house that his hands had builded for his bride, and let his glance rest lovingly on her bright face. ‘Say, dear, shall we light our fire on this hearth when the snows melt on Mount Friolent, and the flowers bloom under the hedges yonder?’
If she did not answer him in words, he was nevertheless well contented. And it was settled that so it should be: for not even the neighbours could disapprove of such a marriage. Were not the two born for each other? ”

“ The evil mood that had tried her faith was gone, and in its place had come the nameless Light that shines from the Spirit of Comfort. She was dreaming, not of Gaspard, nor of happy days past or come, but of her Mother-Madeleine and her ‘Psalm of Confidence.’
Yet all about that ruined hut were cruel and violent men, the hired soldiery of the duke. Men little better than brigands, who had been sent expressly upon work of rapine and slaughter, that a ‘strong hand’ might crush the Vaudois now and for ever. ”

“ And to all the sighs and burden of prayer that has gone up from the valleys these centuries past? Does He hear us at all, our God? or are the places of His dominion too wide for Him to have thought to spare for the narrow shelters where the Vaudois have tried to hide from the spoiler and oppressor? Look there, mother! see where the head of that mountain lifts itself into the skies; it is the same, always the same, silent and cold and cruel, though our forefathers were hunted across its ridges in the past years, and we are now creeping wearily towards its feet. It cares nothing. ”

“ Why should Rénée be afraid of aught but the danger which the blaze might bring—the danger of cruel men who were thirsting for their blood: men who had sworn that no remnant of the proscribed race should be left in the valleys, and who had swept the fields and forests again and again in their search for any Vaudois in hiding there? Rénée, child of the mountains as she was, why should she fear anything but this? The winter was past, and the prowling wolves had withdrawn themselves; the shy black bears that haunted the hills were not creatures to be greatly affrighted at. ”

“ They had passed, those two women, through terror enough to try any mortal nerves, and privations sufficient to exhaust the strongest frame. It was small marvel that Rénée trembled as she remembered the past.
‘Sing, mother,’ she said again; ‘Gaspard was always wont to say that your songs uplifted his courage.’
So ‘The Psalm of Strong Confidence’ was chanted once more, the notes of the woman’s voice filling the place with its rich volume of sound. The quick blaze had died down, and the dark shades fell across the cavern. But without, beyond the stooping pines, the sky was brightening. ”

“ There was the hoarse note of pain ringing through the valleys, the boundless pain of desolation and distress. Why, then, should such thoughts come to him, one of those smitten ones who had suffered, and who yet must suffer? Gentleness—love? surely here on the south slopes of the Alps there was in those terrible years more evidence of the outpouring of God’s wrath!
But into the young man’s soul there stole some glimpse of the Light that shineth in darkness, of the Love that is behind all wrath, of the Joy that is greater than pain. ”

“ What was it that Henri Botta’s parched lips were murmuring as he lay in uneasy sleep across Gaspard’s knees? The young man bent to listen, and the broken words he caught were of peace and of beauty, of rest for the weary ones, of the waters of comfort, and the loving-kindness of God.
The old herdsman’s rugged nature had also found some trace of gentleness and love amid all this chaos of dismay. ”

“ And over and over the tale was repeated how the enemy broke and fled, leaving behind them provision, ammunition, and baggage; a welcome store for the men who came empty and poor in all things save belief in their cause and faith in their God.
Before the sun set the Savoy guard were fugitives on the mountain side, and the Vaudois stood shoulder to shoulder on the Col di St. Guliano, gazing down on the Luserna Valley, the very heart of their fatherland, the goal of their dearest hopes. ”

“ She crossed the pass this morning at the sunrising, and saw where the enemy lies to bar our path. There is a way, a toilsome and dangerous way truly, but still one that can be trodden by Vaudois’ feet, and it will lead us out beyond the crown of the defile, beyond the garrison that holds it against us.’
‘It is really so,’ said Madeleine, speaking out simply before them all. ‘The path is scarcely more than a track for wild goats, but it will serve.’
‘Aye, it will serve,’ said Arnaud. ‘Gaspard Botta, do thou go with thy mother in advance. ”

“ Storms of cruelty and the bitterness of superstition had swept the valleys at various times, but never a storm so devastating and terrible as this. From Fenestrelle to Rora, from the Pra Pass to the plains of Piedmont, fire and sword had driven forth the remnant of the Vaudois. Hundreds had fallen, fighting for their faith and for their homes; hundreds had perished under the white pall of the winter snows ”

“ Gaspard heard the deep tones of his father’s ‘Amen.’ The old man’s face showed sharp against the gleam of the sky, and upon it was a look that silenced Gaspard’s fears. Henri Botta was asking for the strength that is greater than all human powers, the strength that is never denied. One sharp pang shot through Gaspard’s heart, and then the bitterness of his anxiety was gone for ever. Failure, death itself might be before them ”

“ And the young man’s haggard eyes gleamed with the look that it is ill to see on mortal face as he counted out what that ‘unless’ might mean.
His search was long, and his heart grew heavier hour by hour. Perhaps they had already been driven off to prison in Turin; or, perhaps—and if he were not to find them Gaspard knew that he ought to pray that it might be so—perhaps they had already joined Emile in the land where fighting and desolation and death is over for ever, where God Himself will give comfort and the calmness of His peace. ”

“ Men and women lived and died believing that pope and priest could forgive sins and wipe off all offences, and that a handful of gold pieces could purchase their entrance into paradise.
It was through these dark days that the Light of the Truth burned clear in the hearts and homes of the simple race dwelling on the confines of Savoy, where the frontier lines of Switzerland and France met on the white-hill peaks. And this race it was, this ‘nest of heretics,’ that the Roman power resolved to crush and kill. ”

“ Suddenly a woman’s voice rose on the air, clear, and very sweet. It came through the sprays of creeping plants that veiled a crag so steep that one might marvel how human being could have climbed there. It was a haunt fit only for the chamois or the hill-sheep; and on either hand spread dense forests and ravines where the snow-wreaths lay yet unmelted.
The song rang forth. It was no wavering strain, no uncertain sound, but a chant of triumph that held also a note of defiance—
‘God’s Name is great! ”

“ Henri Botta stood in the doorway, looking down on the old man’s face, and he silently thought that neither age nor death would quite rob the Vaudois of Joshua Janavel; such names and memories as his linger long in the hearts of men, and being dead, yet speak in those voices which have far echoings. ”

“ Some semblance of peace had come to the country-side; the professors of the ‘new religion’ had been driven out with sword and with fire: and there must needs be cessation of persecution when none are left to be persecuted. Even such refugees and stragglers as had hidden in the mountains had mostly perished or been seized ere this, and even the priests and preaching friars were content with their finished work, and let their energy in heretic-hunting slacken down.
Madeleine and Rénée ventured occasionally into the empty villages, and walked abroad upon the upper slopes, even by daylight. ”

“ The planning and the caution were mostly left to Madeleine, for Rénée still looked round her with indifferent eyes, and seemed too hopeless, too miserable to care whether they ever reached Switzerland or not. She walked by her foster-mother’s side, gentle, indeed, and sweet and bidable, but unlike the gay girl whom Gaspard had wooed before the fury of this last persecution had burst upon Savoy. ”

“ Every day would raise fresh difficulties for them—every mile of ground must be gained by battle, and held by costly strife; and as the struggle swept here and there through the valleys how were the wounded to be tended, or the dead to have Christian burial?
It was no wonder that Arnaud’s brow was lined with anxious thought, as his glance swept the country lying before the entrance to the pass. There was stern work in front of his men, and he knew it.
The next day the Vaudois took Bobbio without much difficulty, and they attacked the large town of Villaro in the midst of the Luserna Valley. ”

“ Rome was once more to whet her savage sword. And the mountaineers, helpless, defenceless, could only die, since submission to such edicts could not be.
They remembered 1655, and the way in which a handful of men had beaten back Pianezza and his hordes.
The courage that had nerved Janavel and his heroes was still alight in the valleys. They too would fight for their homes and their churches, for the honour of their wives, for the faith of their little ones. ”

“ No illusion deceives them; the hard reality, with its dangers and privations, is before their eyes, stern as the truth. But no one draws back. The prize of the conflict seems to them worthy of the highest sacrifices; it is a terrestrial home, to the recollection of which they have attached their faith and hope of salvation in Christ Jesus. In setting out, sword in hand, to reconquer it their hearts are at ease, for their cause is just.... They desire to remain under the observation of God, the righteous Judge, and beneath His holy protection. ”

“ Is it not an awful thing that men have committed atrocities of which one cannot speak—that living bodies and tortured souls have borne what our ears cannot suffer to hear—what our minds cannot endure to conceive? Frail women, modest and gentle girls, the babies too young to know the terror of the sword that slew them, the old men whose white hairs were but signals for scoff and insult—all these helpless ones were the butt and playthings of the brutal soldiers, whose most merciful dealing was death. ”

“ Even in death he shall defend the valleys.’
Yet the heroism and devotion so lavishly poured out in those days and weeks of struggle were in vain. Once more the valleys were swept from north to south, from the Palavas Alps to the Po River—once more the red flames raged and triumphed above the cottage roofs; and over the fields, and by the swift torrent water, the flying people were hunted down and slain. ”

“ Some rumours of what was happening in the great centres of life, in Paris, and Vienna, and Turin, penetrated as far as Luserna, and echoes reached the friendly cottage on the Casina road, and finally were heard by Madeleine.
Savoy was stripped of troops; the duke had need of all his soldiers in Piedmont; the King of France was fighting with the emperor and the Dutch; and the Vaudois were massed in the cantons of Switzerland, looking with longing eyes at the hill-ranges of their native land. ”

“ They counted twelve thousand captives that were held in the vile durance of the gaols; if it were so, death had opened the prison gates to hundreds upon hundreds of the suffering souls, for it was but three or four thousand men, women, and children whom the Duke of Savoy at last set free. Did he call it ‘freedom’?
They were free to leave Piedmont, to take their wretched lives and their precious faith to other lands, but they were not free to return to the valleys. Homeless exiles, ruined wanderers, they might go north or south, east or west ”