that doubt and dejection caused them to mistrust the sudden flash of hope so often baffled, so nearly extinguished? The limbs of the captive, long fettered and disused, do not regain their muscular spring at the first touch of the emancipator’s hand.
The humane and judicious physician, aware that the galling pressure acts long after the chain is removed, will not urge premature exertion until he has administered his gentle restoratives, and the outer air has circulated around the nerveless form.
Thus was it necessary to deal with the captive of centuries, and to minister to the revival of those sick ones, into whose soul the iron yoke of bondage had entered. Soon the precious fruits of love and gentleness were reaped; soon the languor of protracted suffering began to pass away, and hope and activity revived.
It is well that we should pause here to observe God’s dealings with this suffering people, that we “may understand the loving-kindness of the Lord” towards them, in the way in which He prepared them to enter in at the open door He was so soon to set before them.
In 1823, just a quarter of a century before the proclamation of the edict of emancipation, Dr. Gilly, vicar of Norham, visited the Waldensian valleys, and surely he did so by Divine guidance. His work, Waldensian Researches, found a place in many a library, and, among others, in that of the Duke of Wellington. It was here that a brave soldier, wounded and maimed at the battle of Waterloo, met with it—can we say by chance? He had found the Lord as he lay on his bed of suffering; and rising from it a new man, he desired to live for God’s glory and for the good of his fellow-men.
