ministers, assembled in synod, the 19th Oct. 1716. As it refers to a persecution subsequent to the age of some of the best historians of the Waldenses, I will here insert the substance of the manuscript, premising, however, that whilst every thing material is extracted, there are circumstances connected with the sufferings of some of the martyrs, refinements in the art of cruelty, of so horrid a description, that I forbear to relate them.

On the 3rd of January, 1686, appeared an edict forbidding religious worship, requiring their temples to be destroyed, their ministers banished and their children baptized and educated in the Roman Catholic Church. Shortly afterwards the troops of Savoy attacked the valley of Luzerne, and those of France the valleys of St. Martin and La Perouse. The Vaudois made at first considerable resistance, but, deceived by a false promise, that their persons and families should be safe, they threw themselves on the Duke of Savoy's clemency. This, however, proved no security. Their enemies still breathed threatenings and slaughter, and events continually occurred to remind them that they must take up their cross, nor love even life itself, if they meant to preserve an unshaken attachment to the truth as it is in Jesus." The following cruelties, amongst others, were exercised :

J. and Marguerite Maraude, of St. Jean, were murdered while defending Marguerite Maraude, a child aged fourteen.

Susanne Olivet, of St. Jean, and Marguerite Belin, of Latour, each, in resisting brutal violence, lost her life.

Jos. David was first wounded, then conveyed to a house and burnt.

Four women and three children, of Prarustix, were murdered in a cave where they had concealed themselves. Marie Roman, of Rocheplate, a young person promised in marriage to J. Griot, lost her life in defending her honour.

At Pumian were found numbers of little children cut in picces, aud wo men who had been massacred.

In the village of Perouse six men were killed in the presence of their wives.

Jean Ribbet, of Macel, refusing to

change his religion, had his legs and

arms burnt.

A poor infirm man was tied to a horse's tail, and dragged till he expired.

An aged blind woman was hanged before her own house.

Four women were violated and hewn in pieces, after first seeing their children massacred, at Fontaines; where also a great number of sick children were murdered, because they could not follow others to prison.

Twenty-two persons, chiefly women and children, were thrown over precipices at Mount Pelvon.

David Grand, of Bobbi, was hanged, and sang praises to God whilst led to execution.

Daniel Negrin, aged eighteen, and Pierre Mentinat, aged fifty, (of Bobbi) were led to the Alp of Pra, but so ill-treated because they would not change their religion, that they died on the way. Their dead bodies were then hanged and burnt.

Anne and Madeline Victoria, and several others, were burnt.

Daniel Moudon, elder of the church of Rora, after seeing his two sons beheaded, the wife and child of the one, and the two children of the other, massacred, was compelled to carry the heads of his sons upon his shoulders, to walk two hours barefooted, and was afterwards hanged.

Mr. Leydet, Minister of Pral, hid himself in caves, but was at length taken, and conveyed to Luzerne, to the palace of the Marquis D'Angrogne, where the Duke of Savoy was also at the same time. He was imprisoned and fed on bread and water; and, in addition to other hardships, was constantly assailed by the Monks, over whom he as constantly triumphed in argument. When threatened with death if he did not abjure his faith, he replied, that he could not be justly put to death, since he was not armed when taken prisoner; besides, the Duke of Savoy had promised a pardon to all his subjects: "Still," said he, "I am ready to die for the name of Jesus Christ." His example and exhortations exceedingly fortified his fellow-prisoners. When the sentence of death was pronounced, he heard it with Christian resignation. Although he begged to be left alone, in order to pray with freedom, the

Memoir respecting the Waldenses.

Monks still harassed him with disputes till the time of execution, which took place at Fort St. Michael, arrived. On quitting the prison, he said, "it was a day of double deliverance, that of his body from captivity, and that of his soul from imprisonment in the body; for he cherished the expectation of partaking shortly in full liberty of the joys of the blessed." At the foot of the scaffold he prayed in a manner that very much affected the bye-standers, and on the ladder said, "My God, into thy hands I commend my spirit."-A martyr worthy of the best ages of the church of Christ!-Even his enemies were compelled to admit that he died like a saint.

About fifteen thousand of the Waldenses, men, women and children, who threw themselves on the Duke's clemency, were confined in fourteen castles and prisons of Piedmont, with a scanty allowance of bread and water; and various means were used to render this bread and water unwholesome. They always lay upon bricks or rotten straw, and so many together that the very air was infected: seventy-five sick have been reckoned in a single room at one time. Eight thousand persons died in consequence of these barbarities. After suffering nine months, those who survived were permitted to retire into Switzerland; but not before threatenings and allurements had been artfully employed to induce them to forsake their religion-in general without effect: and those who did apostatize, instead of recovering their houses and property, according to a specious promise made to them, were conveyed to the distant province of Verceil. A great number of children, however, taken away and dispersed in Piedmont, were not allowed to accompany their relatives to Switzerland; and the nine pastors were removed to Verrue, Nice, and Montmeillan, deprived of the privilege of imparting religious consolation to their beloved people. Eighty of the men were forced to work in chains for three years in the citadel of Turin. Even those permitted to seek refuge in Switzerland endured great calamities. One company was required to set out late in the evening, and walk five leagues on the snow and ice more than one hundred and fifty died in the way

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without succour. Another company, foreseeing dreadful weather, entreated the officer who conducted them to stay till after the storm; but he obliged them to set out, and eightysix persons perished in consequence on Mount Cenis. Their friends were not suffered to remain and bury them. Others of the Waldenses, who followed, found their bodies amidst the snow; several women with their infants still in their arms. Many expired by the time they reached the gates of Geneva, and all exhibited marks of peculiar suffering. These poor destitute fugitives, while they remained in Switzerland, were supported by the charitable contributions of the English and Dutch, which were administered with so much fidelity by Isaac Behaghel, Minister of Frankfort, that he was afterwards presented with a gold medal by William III. Through the generous interference of M. Valkenier, they obtained grounds in the dominions of the Duke of Wirtemberg, on the estates of the Margrave of Dourlach, the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, and the Count of, Hanau, where they established fourteen churches, naming their villages after the beloved spots they once inhabited in the valleys. Seven ministers and schoolmasters were there supported by his Britannic Majesty. Others of the Vaudois went to the marquisate of Brandenburg; others settled in the county of Neufchatel, at Bienne, and at Schaffhausen. In 1689 a party of somewhere between six and nine hundred, joined, I believe, by three hundred French exiles, resolved to re-occupy the houses and lands of which they had been so unjustly deprived. For this purpose they met by agreement in a wood between Nyon and Rolle, towns situated on the lake of Geneva; and on the 17th of August, at ten o'clock at night, crossed the lake and landed in Savoy. They then directed their course through Cluse, Maglan, and Salenches; forced their way at the point of the sword; took hostages, in order to secure a free passage through the towns where they met with opposition (yet paid for the provisions they took on their journey); and in this manner passed through Entigne, Tegue, Mont Marienne, Bonneval, Bexas, Mont Cenis, marching over snow, climbing up rocks, sustaining

the attacks of troops sent against them; and, in short, overcoming every ob. stacle that presented itself in their progress. Arrived, at length, at the church of Guigon (a hamlet annexed to Pral), they engaged in worship, sang the seventy-fourth Psalm, and their colonel and pastor, Arnaud, preached on the 129th Psalm. But even after their return, they had frequent and severe skirmishes with their enemies, displaying upon all occasions a degree of valour and fortitude that has been seldom surpassed. One cannot, however, but regret, that M. Arnaud's account of their return affords too many proofs that they possessed more of the martial than the evangelic spirit; the same which at an earlier period characterized Zisca and those of the Hussites who followed his standard. After several unsuccessful efforts to dispossess this warlike company of Waldenses, the Duke of Savoy at length concluded a peace with them, and permitted the return of their wives and children. Hence the origin of the present race of the inhabitants of the valleys, a population of seventeen thousand souls, Since their return, their residence as before, has been attended with numerous hardships. To mention but a few they have been compelled to desist from work on the Roman Catholic festivals; forbidden to exercise the profession of physician or surgeon; or to purchase lands; and very often their children have been stolen in order to be educated in the Roman Catholic faith, in a large and not inelegant building at Pignerol, called the Hospice, established for the express purpose of converting the Vaudois. This last instance of cruelty, added to many similar atrocities, so ingeniously adapted to embitter the fountain of domestic happiness, too forcibly recalls that affecting language of the prophet: In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning: Rachael weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." Thoughts of this nature would naturally occur to the mind of a stran

The institution, however, has been attended with little success, the greater number of converts being persons who, for misconduct, were no longer respected in the valleys.

ger when finding himself actually in the valleys: the first evening especially, when I held in my arms the very lovely child of Mrs. P. of St. Jean, I could not but picture to myself, again and again, the agony of those parents "who wandered in deserts and in mountains, in dens and in caves of the earth," in that very neighbourhood, equally unable to succour themselves and their tender offspring. To whom could this "noble army of martyrs" look for support but to "the Holy Ghost the Comforter"? And what hope could sustain their souls but that of " a better country, that is, a heavenly"?

It may be thought by some, that the enemies of the Vaudois were chiefly tempted to injure them by avarice, and that they wished to rob them of their lands; but, however this may have mingled, as it did, no doubt, with other motives, the mainspring of the opposition seems to have been a rooted antipathy, because they professed doctrines and engaged in worship that differed from the Roman Catholic.t For, as to their lands, contrasting their bleak air, narrow valleys and barren mountains, with the soft climate and the fertile plain of Piedmont, they might much more

+ It is through the necessity of preserving a due regard to historic truth, and of maintaining the cause of a much-injured people, that circumstances of cruelty have been related so dishonourable to the Roman Catholic Church. It is hoped, howto foster that antipathy against its memever, that the writer will not be supposed bers which he has so strongly condemned when it has appeared on their part. The principles of their church are unquestionably such as promote a spirit of persecution; but, happily, many of its members Christian love which is a transcript of the dissent from its spirit, and cultivate that Divine Nature itself. Whilst bigots have agitated the church and the world, they have pursued their course of humble piety. The writer has been always delighted to see or hear of Catholics of this description, and he has had this happiness whilst on the Continent. Even with regard to the massacres mentioned in this memoir, some of the assassins, probably, through a blind zeal, thought they did God service. To excuse in such a case is impossible; but one would wish in some measure to extenuate, for so did our Saviour upon the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Memoir respecting the Waldenses.