Vaudoyism

“ He who shrinks from this test bears it not, is not a Christian. "He is nothing," to use the words of the Apostle.
It is upon these principles that I beg all that I have advanced in the history of the Vaudois may be judged. If I have expressed myself warmly against their enemies, it is only when they have violated the first duties of Christianity; then I neither wish or ought to spare them, for truth, in the judgment of an honest man, is one and immutable. He ought to purchase it, to use the words of the gospel, to publish and defend it, at the price of all he has in the world. ”

“ This word Vaudois, which they first acquired from their geographical situation, they have preserved as a token of their religion in all countries, as the Vaudois of Provence, and of Bohemia, and the Walloons of the Low Countries. Since the Reformation the names of Lutheran, Calvinist, and Reformed, have served to distinguish all those who rejected the papal doctrines, and the inhabitants of our valleys, the only people who have never been affected by these opinions, have alone retained their original name of Vaudois. ”

“ An English monk, quoted by Boxhornius, also gives an example of the purity of Vaudois manners, in the answer of a young woman to the solicitations of her lover; "God forbid, O young man, that I should love thee so much as to become eternally miserable for the gratification of thy wishes."
This admirable purity is still respected in the valleys, and, notwithstanding the corruption of the age, we must look through a long series of years to find one or two females who have not observed it. Those who have fallen are become the objects of universal contempt. ”

“ Like the Quakers, the Vaudois were a quiet, even a timid people. They did not seek the notice or the glory of the world. The life they loved the best was that of their lonely Alpine valleys, the simple days of shepherding among the fairy-haunted hills, the evenings when the head of every house read, in his own dialect, the Bible to his assembled children; the bursting of the flowers in spring (flowers which the Fantines, the Vaudois fairies, watch and water every day until they blow) ; the long days out on the hills in summer, when the cattle are led to the upper meadows ”

“ I have only to cast a glance back upon our good ancestors, when our barbes studied the Bible alone, to be confirmed in my opinion. Is there now among the nations regarded as the most enlightened, any example of a society, which has attained to such a degree of perfection? Surely, if the answer is in the negative, we must not deny the source of the superiority of the ancient Vaudois over other nations, and even over the Vaudois of the present day. It is true that the studies of our young divines have not always been so simple. ”

“ What we can loudly proclaim is, that still in all Europe there does not exist a people of such good faith, simplicity, frankness, and kind-heartedness, as the Vaudois of the present day. They preserve a respect for religion, a love for their duties, and a purity of opinions and morals which may in vain be sought for among other nations called Christian ”

“ The sacred duty of an historian compels me to allow, that the effects of human frailty have sometimes shown themselves among them. Leger, who wrote more than a century ago, thus allows also, that "the Vaudois, his cotemporaries, no longer possessed that great sanctity and detachment from the world which distinguished their ancestors. But I must add," he continues, "that, compared with other reformed nations, there is none which surpass them in zeal for the word of God and constancy to their faith, at the peril of their lives and fortunes ”

“ 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. ”

“ O child, thou hast lost much, and even yet more may be asked of thee—home and dear ones are gone; food, raiment, life itself may be wrenched away—but, Rénée, do not give up thy faith!—thy faith in the rest that remaineth for the Vaudois—thy faith in thy Saviour, who loveth even thee and me!’
The girl was weeping. Not the burning tears of a passionate despair, but the blessed drops that ease the heart from whence they flow. Into her soul there came some faint fair imagining of the meaning of it all—this trial and torture, this desolation and weariness of waiting. ”

“ Let it be remembered that it is a Vaudois who speaks, a Vaudois, who, like his countrymen, absolutely recognizes no other religion than that of Christianity, and who believes that the unhappy distinctions of Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Calvinists, &c. &c., have done a thousand times more harm to the cause of the gospel, than all the manouvres of the wicked and unbelieving. ”

“ To all these testimonies there is one other to be added, of still more weight, namely, that of all the edicts which have been successively published by the court of Turin against the Vaudois; in no one is the smallest reproach to be found on the score of probity, good faith, or morals. This silence becomes an invaluable avowal from those who eagerly sought some pretext to give a colour to the horrible persecutions they authorized. ”

“ A race of shepherds and martyrs, not of heroes. They could not do battle for their faith and wrestle for centuries with a stronger power, like the indomitable Huguenots of La Rochelle. They could not fight, but they could suffer. And their mild persistence it was impossible to subdue.
In 1530 the tidings of the Reform had penetrated into these quiet valleys. The Vaudois heard with delight that the faith which they had held through pain and death for centuries had arisen, stronger and more able, in the crowded world outside. ”

“ No attempt should ever be made to convince heretics by the Scriptures, for they pervert them with such dexterity, as often to confound the most learned men, who attempt to answer them, and thereby they become more hardened.
A heretic must never be answered categorically; and in an interrogatory several questions should always be given at a time; so that in whatever way he may answer, he may be replied to, to his confusion.
If there are any who protest they never were guilty of the Vaudois heresy, they must be admonished, that there are proofs sufficient to convict them ”

“ Before the days of Wickliffe, and other reformers, we can trace the Vaudois by their sufferings; they were branded and burnt as heretics, because they would not conform to the doctrines of men, and the edicts of the Roman pontiffs: their steady adherence to the principles of their own faith, and obedience to the will of their Creator, rendered them instrumental to the reformation, which afterwards took place, and by which, in this country, the pure religion of our ancestors was restored. ”

“ Who were these Vaudois—this tiny people, springing from Lyons in the twelfth century, and settled among the valleys of the Alps of Piedmont—this scanty, timid herd of mountain folk, for whose destruction the Inquisition was invented? They were, indeed, a remnant, pursued with fire and sword from their earliest days; burned alive in the twelfth century; hacked to death in the thirteenth; suffocated by hundreds under Francis I.; roasted slowly, tortured, hurled like stones down the mountains, slaughtered in every diabolic fashion through the whole diabolic seventeenth century ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If ever a people fairly established their right to live in their own country, and to worship God after their own methods, the Vaudois had surely done so. They had held conscientiously and consistently to their religion for nearly five hundred years, during which they laboured under many disabilities and suffered much persecution. But the successive Dukes of Savoy were no better satisfied with them as subjects than before. They could not brook that any part of their people should be of a different form of religion from that professed by themselves ”

“ When read after the story of the Vaudois, the annals of Greece and Rome even, fruitful though they be in deeds of heroism, appear cold and tame. In short, we know of no other instance in the world in which a great and sacred object has been prosecuted from father to son for such a length of time, with a [Pg 70] patriotism so pure, a courage so unshrinking, a devotion so entire, and amidst such a multitude of sacrifices, sufferings, and woes, as in the case of the Vaudois. The incentives to courage which have stimulated others to brave death were wanting in their case. ”

“ In all the rest, their kindness of heart, frankness, benevolence, and zeal for religion, would enchant you. I have more than once visited all the parishes, and have resided in most of them, being acquainted with a great many of their inhabitants; and, by all this experience, I am confirmed in the belief that there does not exist, in our days, a people in morals so pure, life so irreproachable, and piety so exemplary, as the Vaudois."*
* The author's sister is still living in the valleys, and is the wife of one of the most exemplary pastors.—T. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Vaudois," says he, in another place, "are so called from their residence among the valleys and fastnesses of the Alps, and may well be considered as the remains of the purest primitive Christian church. Nor has it been possible to draw them within the pale of the Roman communion, notwithstanding the horrible persecutions exercised against them. At this time they have churches flourishing, as well in doctrine as in examples of a truly innocent life. I speak particularly of those of the Alpine valleys, of whom some are subjects of the king of France, and others of the Duke of Savoy." ”

“ The pope, Innocent XII., tried to invalidate the decree, but the Senate of Turin confirmed the edict of their sovereign, and prohibited the bull of the pope.
So, all the prospect seemed fair, and the Vaudois, so long and cruelly persecuted, might hope for an era of prosperity; for the time and means not only to cultivate their desolated vineyards, to lead their flocks again to pasture on their mountain slopes, and rebuild their thatched homesteads, but also to restore the pure worship of their own and their fathers' God. ”

“ No other country could be ‘home’ to them. They must return, and lift again—if such were God’s good will—the voice of praise and prayer from the glens and the hills which now lay desolate.
Men with the same anxiety in their hearts as Gaspard had might be reckoned by the score. There was scarcely a Vaudois who would not have willingly died rather than have surrendered the hope of getting home to the valleys, somehow, some day. ”