The Missionary by S. N. Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 20, 1883

The Missionary.

By S. N. Haskell

Sale of Scriptures by the Waldenses.

During the sixteenth century many noble spirits gave their lives for the truth they had professed. Many who were engaged in the common avocations of life, felt the burden of selling the Scriptures and other Protestant publications, and often it cost them their lives. The monks lay in wait for those who dared to preach the truth and distribute portions of the Scriptures. One Barthelemy Hector "would take his seat on the slopes of the mountain, and gathering the herdsmen and agriculturists of the Pra round him, would, by reading passages to them, induce them to buy his books. Portions of the Scriptures also would he recite to the grandames and maidens, as they watched their goats or plied the distaff. His steps were tracked by the inquisitor, even amid these wild solitudes. Barthelemy Hector was dragged to Turin to answer for the crime of selling Genevese books."

"You have been caught in the act," said his judge, "of selling books that contain heresy. What say you?"

"If the Bible is heresy to you, it is truth to me," replied the prisoner.

"But you use the Bible to deter men from going to mass," urged the judge.

"If the Bible deters men from going to mass," responded Barthelemy, "it is a proof that God disproves of it, and that the mass is idolatry."

The judge, deeming it expedient to make short shift with such a heretic, exclaimed, "Retract."

"I have spoken only truth," said the bookseller, "can I change truth as I would a garment?"

He was placed for months in prison, in the hope that his recantation would save them the necessity of burning him. At last, despairing of his abjuration, they brought him forth and consigned him to the flames. His conduct at the stake "drew rivers of tears," says Leger, "from the eyes of many in the popish crowd around his stake, while others vented reproaches and invectives against the cruelty of the monks and inquisitors."

Thus the papists singled out the champions of the truth, and many were put to death in various ways. Some had their entrails taken from their living body, and a fierce cat thrust in their place to torture them further. Women were buried alive; bound hand and foot to perish by cold and hunger; others were gashed with sabers and had the wounds filled with quicklime, and thus perished in agony; some had their tongue torn out for having praised God; some were covered with sulphurous matches, which had been forced into

the flesh under the nails, between the fingers, in the nostrils, in the lips, and over all the body, and then lighted; some had their mouth filled with gunpowder, and then lighted, which blew their head to pieces. "Maria Monnen, taken at Louisa, had the flesh cut from her cheek and chin bone, so that her jaw was left bare, and she was thus left to perish. Paul Garnier was slowly sliced to pieces at Rora. Thomas Margueti was mutilated in an indescribable manner at Miraboco, and Susan Jaquin cut in bits at La Torre. Sarah Rostagnol was slit open from the legs to the bosom, and so left to perish on the road between Eyral and Lucerna. Anne Charbonmer was impaled and carried thus on a spike, as a standard, from San Giovanni to La Torre. Daniel Rambaud, at Paesano, had his nails torn off, then his fingers chopped off, then his feet and his hands, then his arms and his legs, with each successive refusal on his part to abjure the gospel."—Muston, Israel of the Alps, Chap. 2.

But these were those who were standard-bearers. Many very interesting incidents are mentioned, showing that at certain times, when the papists decided to persecute them relentlessly, and they would make sport of the devotion of the Waldenses, God, at such times, in a most marked manner, would vindicate his chosen people. At one time, when the enemy had made much advance upon the Waldenses, had driven them back upon the side of the mountain, and both parties were wearied with skirmishing, and had camped for the night, suddenly the people were startled by a derisive shout that arose from their enemies. What caused these shouts of derision? In the heights above them they saw the figures of the Vaudois upon their knees, and the Waldensian warriors were supplicating the God of battles. Hardly had the scoffs died away when a drum was heard to beat in a side valley. A child had gotten hold of the instrument and was amusing itself with it. The enemies, in their imagination, saw the whole army rushing upon them. The Waldenses imagining that their enemy was coming upon them to attack them, seized their arms. The result was that great confusion came into the ranks of the enemy and they fled, throwing away their arms, chased by the Waldenses, and thus losing in half an hour the ground that it had cost them a day's fighting to gain. Weapons of warfare were much needed by the fugitives, and this gave them an excellent opportunity to supply themselves. As the result of this battle the Waldenses lost three, while the others had sixty-seven men slain. They saw the fires of persecution again kindling upon them; but intrigues that were laid by their enemies proved oftentimes successful in bringing destruction upon themselves Finally the heads of families assembled, and, standing upright, with their families kneeling around, they pronounced these words:—

"In the name of the Vaudois churches of the Alps, of Dauphiné, and of Piedmont, which have ever been united, and of which we are the representatives, we here promise, our hands on our Bibles, and in the presence of God, that all our valleys shall courageously sustain each other in matters of religion, without prejudice to the obedience due to their legitimate superiors.

"We promise to maintain the Bible, whole and without admixture, according to the usage of the true Apostolic Church, preserving this holy religion, though it be at the peril of our life, in order that we may transmit it to our children, intact and pure, as we received it from our fathers.

"We promise aid and succor to our persecuted brothers, not regarding our individual interests, but the common cause, and not relying upon man, but upon God."

They thus consecrated themselves anew to God, and when called upon to make a choice between mass and the penalty, they were prepared to stand for the truth. The next day they were invited to go into a neighboring church, one which had been taken from them, and say mass. The papists had decked the altar and lighted the tapers for the Vaudois to hear their first mass. They entered the building, and for a moment they stood as though greatly dismayed at what their church had undergone; but instead of saying mass, they extinguished the tapers, pulled down the images, and swept into the street the rosary and crucifix, and all the other paraphernalia of the popish worship. This was but the work of a few moments. The minister then ascended the pulpit and read his text from Isaiah 45:20: "Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations; they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save."

This sermon struck the key-note of a coming campaign. Success began again to crown the arms of the Vaudois, and they labored with the zeal of men who feel that their cause is a great and righteous one, and were prepared to sacrifice all for it. On one occasion six Waldensian warriors took their stand in a narrow pass, determined to stand as immovable as their own Alps. They not only checked the advance of an immense host, but drove them back in a panic-stricken mass. At another time, when the numbers of their enemies were immensely greater than their own, and every precaution had been taken to bring great destruction upon the Waldenses, they cried as a signal; "Haste, haste! Angrugna is ours." The Vaudois, starting up and crying out, "It is you that are ours," rushed upon them, sword in hand. Their persecutors were so completely discomfited and destroyed, it is said, that many more would have been slain had not the leading men of the Waldenses, who were witnessing the scene, cried for their brethren to retreat, as the others became helpless, for they had made it a principle not to take life or bring any subjugation by force of arms when their enemy had no means of escape.

All through these terrible conflicts their valleys resounded with the voice of prayer and praise far more than with the din of arms, while their opponents came from cursing, from blaspheming, from murdering, to engage in battle. The Waldenses would arise from their knees to unsheath the sword and wield it in a cause which they firmly believed to be that of Him to whom they had been in supplication. S. N. HASKELL.