Fenestrelle. Perosa. Pomaretto. The Grave and Epitaph of Peyrani. Second Visit to the Valley of San Martino. Pont de la Tour, and an attempt there at assassination. San Germano. Memorials of English buried there. Roccapiatta. Prarus- tino. Return to la Torre. Reflections upon the present and past condition of the Waldensian Church in France and Italy 490 DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES, MAPS, &c. The Pass of the Pra del Tor....... Diagram in illustration of ancient Roman Road over the Cottian Frontispiece ..to face page 56 80 Map of Country of Ancient and Modern Waldenses, (at the end of 544, 547, 560, notes, and p. 559, 1. 27, for del Pozzo read Dal Pozzo. WALDENSIAN RESEARCHES. INTRODUCTORY ENQUIRY INTO THE ANTIQUITY AND PURITY OF THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH. In the summer of 1829, in company with part of my family, I re-visited those scenes in the valleys of Piemont, which had made so deep an impression upon my mind six years before. Perhaps it would be thought more worthy of the sacred cause, which is so identified with the Vaudois, to write a history of the Waldensian Church in regular order, than to introduce it piece-meal, in the form of a personal narrative. This may be done at some future period, but now, having an immediate object before me, the taste and temper of the times must be consulted, and information must be conveyed through channels, by which it is likely to be received by those for whom it is intended. Volumes, of the character which this is meant to assume, find their way more rapidly into the hands of general readers than those of ecclesiastical history, and as I am B anxious to make the Waldenses thoroughly known, not only to the theological student and the more erudite, but also to persons of ordinary pursuits, I have chosen to re-appear, like Scheharasade, in the Arabian Nights, with a continuation of my former entertainments. I will, however, take care that these entertainments, mixed up as they must be with adventures of the dead, and anecdotes of the living, shall be instructive, upon one of the most important of all topics to a Christian enquirer, the transmission of the pure faith from the apostolic times to our own. They shall be useful also to him upon another point of view, they shall shew that the beautiful life, which history assures us was led by the early Christians, is not uncommon among many of his fellow-creatures, who are at this moment acting their parts upon the stage of human existence. The primitive Church! The one little lamp and its light, shining in the middle ages! The struggles of the first Reformers,-Protestantism, in its uncompromising firmness and integrity!— What a crowd of ideas rush into our minds when we think of these!-How we try to imagine the scenes, the characters, the events of antiquity, when Christianity was at its purest and simplest degree, then to trace its course through the dark epochs of Romish usurpation, till it emerges into clear day again, at the æra of the Reformation!Many of the images, which we conjure up when 2 |