thither, in so generous and Christian a manner, that it merits all, the honourable remembrance that can be made. of it. The ministers and others that had been condemned, not only found here a kind reception, but all the support that could be expected, and, indeed, much more than could reasonably have been expected. They assigned to the French ministers a salary of five crowns per month, if single, and encreased it to such as have wives and families, so that some have been allowed more than ten crowns a month. And in this last total and deplorable dispersion of the churches, the whole country has been animated with such a spirit of love and compassion, that every man's house and purse has been opened to the refugees, who have passed thither in such numbers that sometimes there have been more than two thousand in Lausanne alone, and of these there were, at one time, nearly two hundred ministers; and they all met with a kindness and frankness of heart that looked more like the primitive age revived, than the degenerate age in which we live."*

Here, however, I think I may pause and draw this narrative towards a conclusion, which I shall do by offering a few obvious reflections on the whole of this interesting history. And the first thing that suggests itself is that, however. we may be inclined to blame the conduct of the Duke of Savoy, that of Louis XIV, who compelled him to these sanguinuary proceedings, is entitled to our chief condemnation. Referring to this final extirpation of the Waldenses from Piedmont, our countryman, Dr. Burnet, who was then making the tour of the Continent, has the following remarks, in a letter which he dates from Turin, to a friend. in this country &

"I will not engage," says he, " in a relation of this last affair of the vallies of Piedmont; for I could not find

* Dr. Barnet's Letters from Italy, Letter I. p. 57 and 58.

particulars enough to give you that so distinctly as you might probably desire it. It was all over long before I came to Turin; but this I found, that all the court were ashamed of the matter; and they took pains with strangers, not without some affectation, to convince them that the duke was, with great difficulty, forced into it-that he was long pressed to it, by repeated entreaties, from the court of France-that he excused himself from complying therewith, representing to the court of France the constant fidelity of the Waldenses ever since the last edict of pacification, and their great industry, so that they were the most profitable subjects that the duke had, and that the body of men which they had given his father in the last war with Genoa, had done great service, for it had saved the whole army. But all these excuses were unavailable; for, the court of France having broken its own faith which had been pledged to heretics, and therein manifested how true a respect it paid to the Council of Constance, now wished to engage other princes to follow this new pattern of fidelity which it had set the world. So the duke was not only pressed to extirpate the heretics of those vallies, but he was also threatened that if he would not do it, the king would send his own troops to extirpate heresy, for he would not only not suffer it in his own kingdom, but would even drive it out of his neighbourhood. He who told me all this, knowing of what country I was, added, that probably the French monarch might very soon send similar messages to some others of his neighbours!

If Louis XIV. had any such favours in contemplation. for our own country, as those that are hinted at in the the conclusion of the foregoing paragraph, Britons have reason to be thankful to God whose over ruling providence

Dr. Burnet's Letters from Italy-Supplementary Letters, p. 162. Written in 1687, and printed the following year.

frustrated such sanguinary projects :-and had the race of the Stuarts continued to fill the British throne, it is more than probable that the horrible scenes of Piedmont had, indeed, been reacted among our forefathers in this happy land. But the glorious revolution which gave us a Protestant monarch, took place in 1688, the very year after Dr. Burnet wrote his Supplementary Letters, from which the foregoing extract is taken; and happily saved us from all danger of the tyrant's rage. And here, with a few reflections, I close the history of the Waldenses.

Enough, I presume, and more than enough, has appeared in the preceding pages to satisfy any unprejudiced reader, that the extermination of the churches of the Waldenses in Piedmont was the act of the King of France; or, if the shadow of a doubt should exist upon that subject, it must for ever be removed by a careful perusal of the Duke of Savoy's letter to the Duke of Orleans, which will be found in the Appendix to this volume.* In fact, the whole of the correspondence between the court of Turin and that of France, which I have there given, affords such damning proof of the overwhelming despotism of Louis XIV. towards the Duke of Savoy, that the indignation which at first sight one is tempted to indulge against the latter, is converted into pity and compassion for him; and horrible as were the transactions committed under his reign, every liberal man will regard him as a sovereign

more sinned against than sinning." But let a reflecting mind contemplate these events as instigated by the counsels of France and perpetrated by the power of her arms; let them be connected in idea with the cruelties inflicted upon the Protestants in France, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, which took place only a few years before; and if he believe "there is a God who judgeth in the earth," he will find little difficulty in See Appendix, No. 16.

tracing the hand of distributive justice in the series of calamities which have now, for nearly thirty years, afflicted that unhappy country. These are topics that Christians are but two apt to overlook, but they are of serious import and deserve consideration.

But what shall we say of the court of Rome, the great moving spring in all this machinery of complicated villainy: that "holy mother church," which kept the conscience of Louis XIV. and of the other crowned heads who, from time to time, obsequiously lent their aid to massacre the Waldenses! I trust I may be permitted, without arrogance, on this occasion, to adopt the language of an unknown writer, who reviewed the former edition of this history." The narrative which we have been perusing," said this liberal and enlightened critic, "leaves on the mind impressions of the utmost detestation for the spiritual tyranny exercised by the court of Rome. Providence never made use of so terrible a scourge to chastise mankind. No power ever outraged the interests of society, the principles of justice, and the claims of humanity, to the same extent. Never did the world behold such blasphemy, profligacy, and wantonness, as in the proceedings of this spiritual domination. It held the human mind in chains, visited with exemplary punishment every inroad on the domains of ignorance, and sunk nations into a state of stupidity and imbecility. Its prescriptions, massacres, and murders, and all the various forms which its cruelties assumed; the miseries which it heaped on the objects of its vengeance; its merciless treatment of them, and the grasp of its iron sway, seemed, at one time, to leave no room to hope for the liberation of the human and surely nothing can appear more hideous than this power in its true colours: it leaves the mind full of horror at its cruelties."* In all this I have the happiness

race;

* MONTLY REView, June, 1814, p. 204.

to agree; and though I have rarely ventured to express myself in terms so forcible as this writer has done, I have no hesitation in saying, in the words of an apostle"THIS WITNESS IS TRUE." But I desist: and now take leave of the subject with presenting to the reader one extract more from the learned Dr. Allix.

"Never," says this excellent writer," did the church of Rome give a more incontestible evidence of her own antichristian spirit, than by her insatiable thirst after the blood of those Christians, who, şix hundred years ago, renounced her communion: and to allay which she has made the blood of these poor innocent creatures every where to run down like rivers, exterminating, by fire and sword, those who were not terrified by her anathemas, During this long interval the Waldenses have ever been in the condition of sheep led to the slaughter, by their continual and uninterrupted martyrdoms maintaining and adorning the religion of Christ our Saviour, which the church of Rome having forsaken, now sought to accommodate to her corrupt and worldly interests, and to the design she had formed of making it a stalking horse to the pomp, lordliness, and tyranny of her Pope and clergy. "Whatever reflections the members of the church of Rome may indulge relative to the circumstance of God's having apparently relinquished these poor churches to the fury of their cannibal adversaries, I am fully persuaded, that those who have made the conduct of divine Providence towards the primitive church their study, will not be stumbled at this apparent desertion of the Waldenses, and their being abandoned to the outrageous cruelty of their persecutors, nor regard the ostensible triumphs of that apostate church as any indication of the weakness of the truth professed by the Waldenses. For notwithstanding the extreme rigour of their persecutions, we find that God hath tenderly preserved them till the Reformation; and