Closing Sketch by Stephen N. Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 29, 1883

Closing Sketch.

By Stephen N. Haskell

The history of the Waldenses from 1690 is briefly told. They had everything to begin anew. Their numbers were greatly reduced; they were in extreme poverty; but they had good courage; and their brethren in England and Germany hastened to assist them in re-establishing themselves in their native land. At this time England took a noble part. Within two years they had twelve churches in the valleys. Prosperity seemed to come to them. The rugged mountains and everlasting hills would fitly represent the character of a people who had received the instruction which they had received from God's word for many generations. Holland lent material aid, while the Protestant cantons of Switzerland appropriated their academies to the students from their valleys.

The year 1789 brought with it astounding changes. "The French Revolution rung out the knell of the old times, and introduced, amidst those earthquake shocks that convulsed nations and laid thrones and altars prostrate, a new political age. The Vaudois once again passed under the dominion of France. There followed an enlargement of their civil rights, and an amelioration of their social condition; but unhappily, with the friendship of France came the poison of its literature, and Voltairianism threatened to inflict more deadly injury on the church of the Alps than all the persecutions of the previous centuries."

But from time to time deliverance came, until this people obtained a full emancipation. In 1808 a visit from Felix Neff was to them the first dawning of a new day. A visit from Dr. William Stephen Gilly, in 1828, also gave them great encouragement and help. "The result of Dr. Gilly's visit was the erection of a college at La Torre, for the instruction of youth and the training of ministers, and a hospital for the sick; besides awakening great interest in their behalf in England." General Beckwith also proved to be a friend. He had fought at Waterloo; was ambitious and brave; but in that battle-field he had received a wound in the leg from the discharge of a musket drawn at a venture. While upon a bed of pain he drew forth his neglected Bible and embraced the truths of the sacred volume. After reading the history of the visit of Dr. Gilly to the Waldenses, his sympathy was enlisted in their behalf. He devoted his fortune to their interests, building schools, and churches, and parsonages. He provided improved school books, and suggested better modes of teaching. He was their advocate at the court of Turin. And thus God favored this down-trodden people.

The revolution of 1848 overthrew all their restrictions. They fell in one day, and "the Waldensian church became the door by which freedom of conscience entered Italy. When the hour came for framing a new constitution for Piedmont, it was found desirable to give standing-room in that constitution to the Waldenses, and this necessitated the introduction into the edict of the great principle of freedom of worship as a right. They had contended for this principle for ages. For it they had suffered martyrdoms, and now God had turned their captivity and given them the freedom they so much desired. The whole of Italy, from the Alps to Etna, the States of the Church excepted, the result of the brilliant campaign of Garibaldi in Sicily and Naples, now became the field of the Waldensian Church. The result of the brief but terrible campaign of 1870, in which the French Empire disappeared and the German uprose, was the opening of the gates of Rome. And let us mark—for in the little incident we hear the voice of ten centuries—in the first rank of the soldiers whose cannon had burst open the old gates, there entered a Vaudois colporteur with a bundle of Bibles. The Waldenses now kindle their lamp at Rome, and the purpose of the ages stands revealed."

One wonderful feature among this people at the present day is their reverence for the Bible, and although much error and superstition has crept in with them, as with all denominations, they yet revere that sacred book as we have seen in no other people with whom we have ever become acquainted. And while visiting this people last summer, every family, with the exception of one or two, had children who were devoting themselves, or about to do so, to the gospel ministry. The missionary spirit still lives, and no doubt from this people will be gathered, in the great day of God, a large representative number that will stand upon Mount Zion.

S. N. HASKELL.