tese historian, and a Roman Catholic, for the assumption that the separation of the two churches took place not long subsequently to the death of Claude. "This Bishop of Turin," writes the Marquis Costa de Beauregard,[1] "a man of eloquence and austere manners, had a great number of partisans. These persons, anathematized by the Pope, and persecuted by the lay princes, were chased from the open country, and forced to take refuge in the mountains, where they have kept their ground from that time, always checked, but always endeavouring to extend themselves." And there they have remained, a line of protesting witnesses, verifying their own significant motto, "LUX LUCET IN TENEBRIS;" their lamp throwing its bright though shaded light through the gloom of the Middle Ages. Thus, as the Roman Church apostatized, the Vaudois Church was developed - as the bishops seceded, the barbes[2] came forward.
Is, then, the Vaudois Church of Episcopalian or Presbyterian origin? The question has been often canvassed; for each denomination has claimed her, and each with some reason. If the proofs of her apostolic antiquity be ad mitted, it must also be conceded that she was early gathered, and long remained under the guidance of the bishops of Italy; and that the separation did not take place until after the death of Claude, Archbishop of Turin, in whose diocese the valleys of the Vaudois were comprised, and whose evangelical writings are in strict accordance with those of their Church.
The conscientious deference to authority evidenced throughout the history of the Vaudois Church, together with the silence of their early writings and ecclesiastical
