The Waldensian Church in the valleys of Piedmont/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
The Missionary Church
Missionary barbes, pedlars, and minstrels—History of the protestants of Favale.
WE have now to enter on a wider field; to quit the sequestered valleys of Piedmont, and accompany the Vaudois missionary over a large portion of Southern Europe. It might be imagined that the struggling Church had enough to do to provide for her own spiritual wants; but no, we find her from the earliest period laying
aside a part of her scanty means to minister to the more
urgent necessities of others. We find her sending forth her wisest and most hopeful on missions, although aware that danger and death tracked their steps.
Her pastors went, like the first disciples, two and two, the elder to guide the more youthful; who, after his probationary retreat and subsequent ordination, was usually despatched on a mission of two years’ duration.
The path of these mountain missionaries lay of old over some of the most romantic and classic ground in the world, paths trodden by the conquerors of the earth, and hallowed by apostolic feet. One of the most poetic of the Vaudois historians[1] has graphically described the route of the pilgrims, and the welcome they met at each well-known resting-place. Through their instrumentality the hidden ones of the Lord were to be found on many an olive-clad slope, beneath many a vine-embowered roof; on the Alpine snows, and in the fertile glade,—nay, even in the marble palaces of Genoa, and amid the seven hills of Papal Rome, there were thousands who no longer bowed the knee to Baal.
How like angels’ visits must the annual arrival of these good men have appeared,—“How beautiful on the mountains the feet of those that brought glad tidings!” There were physicians for the suffering body as well as the sin-sick soul amongst them, as there was one beloved Luke amongst the evangelists of Christ. The generality of readers, we believe, are not aware of the immense success which attended these early ministrations in the south; it is best computed by the bitter cry which echoed from every part of the Roman hierarchy against the spread of gospel truth, and the deep, deep curses invoked on the recipients, under each of the opprobrious names by which they were designated.
We tremble as we approach the period when the full malice of Satan was let out against them; and linger yet amid the sweet scenes of Christian communion presented by the early missionaries and their converts.
There is nowhere a more interesting account of their progress than that furnished by one of a profession little honoured amongst us, but from whose writings we have already made some extracts—the Inquisitor Reinerus Sacco. We cannot, at the same time, but acknowledge our obligation for what appears to us the very disinterested way in which he has reported arguments that so irresistibly condemn his own creed.
Our readers must be aware that the colporteurs of those days had no freight of printed and bound Bibles to bear from house to house; all the missionary possessed were a few manuscript copies of parts of the New Testament, which he was obliged studiously to conceal, and furtively to circulate; since the discovery of such in his possession would have subjected him to imprisonment, and probably to torture and death.
Another peculiarity of those times must also be remembered in the fact, that there were not then, as now, markets and shops at which every article of necessity and luxury could be procured. Shut up in their castles or remote villages, the ladies of those days, as well as their domestics and retainers, looked with impatience to the arrival of the travelling pedlar, whose pack generally contained the articles they most needed; and even when the annual stock of household luxuries, purchased at the distant fairs of Frankfort, Basle, Beauvais, or other large towns, was exhausted, the travelling merchant could supply them; but the Inquisitor shall tell his own story:
“They” (he is speaking of the Vaudois missionaries) “offer for sale to people of quality, ornamental articles, such as rings and veils. After a purchase has been made, if the pedlar is asked, ‘Have you anything else to sell?’ he answers, ‘I have jewels more precious than these things; I would make you a present of them if you would promise not to betray me to the clergy.’ Having been assured on this point, he says, ‘I have a pearl so brilliant that a man by it may learn to know God; I have another so splendid that it kindles the love of God in the heart of him who possesses it;’ and so forth. He speaks of pearls metaphorically; then he repeats some portion of Scripture with which he is familiar, such as that of St. Luke, ‘The angel Gabriel was sent,’ etc., or the words of Jesus Christ in John xiii. ‘Before the feast,’ etc. When he has succeeded in gaining the attention of his hearers, he passes on to that passage in Matt. xxiii. and Mark xii., ‘Woe unto you that devour widows houses,’ etc.; and when asked to whom these denunciations are to be applied, he says, ‘To the clergy and the religious orders.’ Then the heretic compares the state of the Romish Church with his own. ‘Your doctors, he says, are ostentatious in their dress and manners; they love the highest seats at table (Matt. xxiii.), and desire to be called Masters, (Rabbi) ; but we do not seek such masters.’ And again, ‘They are unchaste; but each one of us has his wife, with whom we live chastely.’ And again, ‘They are the rich and avaricious, to whom it is said, “Woe unto you, rich men, who have here your reward;” but as for us, we are content if we have food and raiment.’ And again, ‘They fight, stir up wars, kill and burn the poor; we, on the contrary, endure persecution for righteousness sake.’ Among them it is a rare thing to find a doctor who knows literally three consecutive chapters of the New Testament; but among us there is scarcely a woman who does not know, as well as every man, how to repeat the whole of the text in the vulgar tongue. And because we possess the true Christian faith, and all teach a pure doctrine, and recommend a holy life, the Scribes and Pharisees persecute us to death, even as they treated Christ Himself,’ etc.
“After this, or some such address, the heretic says to his hearer, ‘Examine and consider which is the most perfect religion and the purest faith, whether ours or that of the Romish Church, and choose it, whichever it may be.’
“And thus, being turned from the Catholic faith by such errors,” pursues this most ingenious or ingenuous King’s evidence, “he forsakes us. A person who gives credit to such discourse, who imbibes errors of this kind, and becomes their partisan and defender, concealing the heretic in his house for many months, is initiated into all that relates to their sect.”[2]
There is an interesting version of this incident from the pen of an American poet, which we insert in further illustration of the touching episode of the Pedlar Missionary.
THE VAUDOIS MISSIONARY.
“O Lady fair, these silks of mine
Are beautiful and rare;
The richest web of the Indian loom,
Which beauty’s self might wear.
And these pearls are pure as thine own fair neck,
With whose radiant light they vie;
I have brought them with me a weary way:
Will my gentle Lady buy?”
And the Lady smiled on the worn old man,
Through the dark and clustering curls
That veiled her brow, as she bent to scan
His silk and glittering pearls;
And she placed their price in the old man’s hand,
And lightly turned away;
But she paused at the wanderer’s earnest call,
“My gentle Lady, stay!
“O Lady fair, I have yet a gem
Which purer lustre flings
Than the diamond’s flash of the jewelled crown
On the lofty brow of kings;
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price,
Whose virtue shall not decay;
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee,
And a blessing on thy way!”
The Lady glanced at the mirroring steel
Where her youthful form was seen;
Where her eyes shone clear and her dark locks waved
Their clasping pearls between:
“Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth,
Thou traveller grey and old;
Then name the price of thy precious gem,
And my pages shall count thy gold.”
The cloud went off from the pilgrim’s brow,
As a small and meagre book,
Unchased with gold or diamond gem,
From his folding robe he took;
“Here, Lady fair, is the pearl of price;
May it prove as such to thee
Nay, keep thy gold, I ask it not,
For the Word of God is free.”
The hoary traveller went his way;
But the gift he left behind
Hath had its pure and perfect work
On that high-born maiden’s mind.
And she hath turned from the pride of sin
To the lowliness of truth,
And given her contrite heart to God
In the beautiful hour of youth.”
But such were not always the happy results of the missionary’s labours; even where the lord and lady of the castle favoured and protected him, there were found those of their household base or weak enough to denounce him to the priest. How often, when their two years of destined wanderings had expired, must the poor men of the valleys have looked in vain for the return of their venerated pastor and his young disciple! They went forth in pairs; they returned solitary, or not at all. We know not the names of the martyred multitude who perished in loathsome prisons or at the stake; but we know, from the testimony of three of the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Aix, Aries, and Avignon, that between the years 1206 and 1228, “so great a number of the Waldenses were apprehended that it was not only not possible to defray the charge of their nourishment, but to provide lime and stone to build prisons for them.”
This wholesale persecution did not take place, it is true, until the great slaughter-house of the Inquisition was raised, and the onslaught of the Albigensian crusade had commenced; but persecution had long before tracked the footsteps of the Vaudois missionaries, and cruelty gloated over the tortures which were secretly inflicted on them in those dark vaults, in which they were immured, ere their mangled remains were thrown into the cold river which flowed around its walls.
Two of the most celebrated missionaries of the twelfth century were Pierre de Bruis and Henri. Although not born in the valleys of Piedmont, they scattered the Vaudois doctrines throughout France, and were the fathers of the Albigenses, having commenced their mission some years before we read of that of the “poor men of Lyons.”
Pierre de Bruis was a priest, though of what order is not known; his disciple Henri was called “the false hermit,” probably from his secluded life and abstemious habits. Their dress is represented to have been, like that of their Waldensian brethren, “of coarse grey woollen cloth, and their whole appearance to have evinced poverty and simplicity.” Henri is thus described by an old writer: “He wore short hair, his beard shaved, was large in stature, but poorly clad; he walked rapidly, and went barefooted even in winter; he was affable, had a powerful voice, and lived differently from other people. His ordinary retreats were the cottages of peasants; he lived in the day-time under porticoes, ate and slept on some hill in the open air, and had acquired a great reputation for sanctity. He had natural eloquence, and a voice like thunder. He soon spread his errors in his sermons, and stirred up the people against the clergy.”[3] It is seen by the close of the quotation that the Reformer’s biographer was a Roman Catholic; but truly the Vaudois may be content to follow the wise man’s injunction, “Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips;” for their opponents are their best panegyrists; and but for their monkish adversaries little would be known of the early evangelical teachers, besides the immense success of their labours, as proved by the multitude of their martyrs.
Amongst this glorious band, Pierre de Bruis was called to receive the crown of martyrdom at the stake of St. Gilles, in Languedoc, A.D. 1126.[4] Henri, after labouring some time with his master, separated, the more widely to proclaim the good news of salvation, and went first to Lausanne, and afterwards with two Italians to Mans, about the year 1110. Arriving in hermit guise, barefooted, and bearing a staff surmounted with a cross, the missionary received permission from the bishop to preach in the cathedral, where his discourses made so powerful an impression, that the clergy, jealous of his reputation, soon found means, notwithstanding the opposition of the people, to silence the captivating orator. After continuing his pilgrimage and his exhortations through the south of France, he was arrested at Aries by order of the archbishop, who brought him before the Council of Pavia in the year 1134; but, though condemned and imprisoned, we find the heroic man again at large, and in active combat with the most renowned champion of the Church of Rome of that period—St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux.[5]
Flushed by his recent triumph over the equally celebrated Abelard, and in the full plenitude of his fame, he still thought the poor missionary a worthy object of his persecution. By his efforts, joined to those of the infamous legate, Alberic, Henri was brought before a second council, that of Rheims, in the year 1148, condemned and thrown into prison, where after his forty years of labour he entered into his rest and his reward.[6]
The Teaching Church of the Vaudois had yet other agents; at least, it has been conjectured that in those days, when the wandering minstrel was as frequent and as welcome a guest, both in castle and cottage, as his brother of the pack, the Vaudois missionary might avail himself also of the disguise and lute of the troubadour, and sing, not of “War’s alarms and lady’s love,” but portions of the “Nobla Leyczon,” and other Vaudois poems. An anonymous writer of the thirteenth century says positively, speaking of the Vaudois, “They have invented certain verses (measures), which they call the thirty degrees of St. Augustine, in which they teach, in some manner, the practice of virtue and to avoid vice, and have adroitly introduced their rites, that they may be learned more readily and impressed on the memory.” This, we own, is only presumptive evidence; but how suitable to the taste, the habits, and even the language of the people, was this mode of disseminating a religion of harmony and love! Still, we do not affirm, because we cannot substantiate, the existence of the missionary minstrel of former days. Here is a little history of one of a later date, for which we do vouch:
On a fine morning, in the summer of 1852, the town of La Torre, the little capital of the Vaudois, wore an unusual aspect of holiday cheerfulness. It was not the Sabbath day: but the elder women, as they sat at the doors of their houses and shops, had on their holiday gear, whilst their little children who played around them were dressed in their neatest frocks, and the young girls walked about with their fans held up to screen their ruddy faces from the sun, with eyes and cheeks as bright as the smart necklaces and kerchiefs with which they had adorned themselves. At this moment of leisure and expectation, an itinerant musician walked with somewhat weary steps into what is ambitiously called “the square,” and commenced tuning, not, we fear, a lute or lyre, but a violin. But
“In sooth, our minstrel was no vulgar boy,”
and might have been, had he lived in a more poetic age, no unworthy companion for Coeur de Lion’s faithful Blondell, or even unsuccessful competitor for the golden violet of the floral games of Clemence Isaure at Toulouse.
He was a young man of very pleasing deportment, gentle and modest. At first the inhabitants of La Torre paid no attention to the stranger, but as he proceeded, after a symphony played with some taste and execution, to accompany the instrument with his voice, one or two of the passers-by stopped to listen; and by the time he had finished, many had quitted their seats at their doors to gather round, and to purchase the printed copies of his song, which were soon exhausted. The poetry does not rival that of the before-quoted American bard, but the moral is the same, and our readers may like to see a specimen of the untaught effusions of the peasant minstrel of Chiavari.
CANTICO SUL TEMPO PRESENTE
Del Buon Esempio che ha portato G. C. in questa Terra.
Nacque al mondo il Redentore
Portator di libertà;
Ma per dare a noi esempio,
Abbraccio la povertà.
Ed è nato in una grotta
Nella piu cruda stagion,
E mori sopra la croce
Per la nostra redenzion.
Egli viene a dare esempio
Che se ci vogliam salvar,
Le ricchezze ed i piaceri
Noi dobbiamo abbandonar, etc., etc., etc.
It is probable that Stefano Cereghino (for that was the young musician’s name), had not a second time got further than this stanza, when he saw himself deserted by his audience, who, joining in the living stream which passed through the square, left him standing alone in the middle of it what had he to do but follow? This he did for some distance through a narrow street which opened into a wider space, admitting a view of vineyards and chestnut groves and swelling mountains, till before him rose the dark rocks of Castelluzzo. And now they pass a building from whose gates issues a procession of elders and youths; and a little further on, upon an elevation which is gained by ascending a short flight of steps, stood a modern building of some importance, but whose simple, though handsome façade, caused our young Italian some perplexing doubts. “Could it be a church?” There was no bell, no heavy screen to shade its portals—there they stood, open to all, Stefano entered. “No, it was not a church, for where was the decorated altar, the image shrines, the tapers, the officiating priests and serving acolytes? There were no crossings, no genuflexions, no chantings, no censers—it could not be a church.” Still, though the ministers spoke in an unknown tongue, and amid its want of all these essentials to a Romish church, the poor minstrel of Favale felt it was good to be there; and laying his violin and knapsack on the ground, he knelt down beside them. The day on which the young minstrel’s steps had been directed to the Protestant valleys was one of peculiar interest—the day set apart for the dedication of the new church; and many a Christian eye and heart overflowed with grateful joy as they looked round on the numerous and attentive congregation which crowded the building, and remembered the time when their forefathers were driven to worship their God in caves and dens of the earth. Poor Stefano knew nothing of this then; nor could he look into the future, and see that bonds and persecutions were in store for him also; but the Spirit was even then preparing him, by His inward stirrings, for his appointed work.
The morning service of the Temple (the name universally applied by the Vaudois to their places of public worship) was in the French language, of which the young Italian was ignorant; but he felt the earnestness of the preacher and the emotion of his audience, as well as the sweetness and solemnity of the psalmody and prayers, and in the afternoon was the first to enter the newly dedicated house of God. We do not attempt to describe the holy joy of the convert at hearing, for the first time, the glad tidings of peace and salvation proclaimed in the sweet accents of his native tongue! At the close of the service he knocked at the door of one of the pastors, asking, as Christian did of the Interpreter, to be directed on his way to the heavenly kingdom, and receiving as kind a reception.
He told his tale, and with so much simplicity and truth, that the pastor listened to it for two hours, unconsciously standing the whole time, so deeply did he feel interested in its details. We, too, must tell our young pilgrim’s history of his flight from “the City of Destruction” but it must be in briefer terms than those in which Stefano dilated on his mountain home amongst the ridges of the wooded Apennines, of its soft climate and fertile soil; nor can we dwell as he did on each member of his numerous and respectable family, though we can well excuse his honest pride and the satisfaction he derived from the high estimate in which they had been held, even by the priest, as duteous children of the Church. We can excuse, too, his detailed history of a recent time of discontent and riot, when the loyal clan of the Cereghini had saved those priests from outrage, and perhaps death. Stefano described their principal calling to be that of masons; but, having gained some knowledge of music in the choir of their church, and possessing a natural taste for that, and its sister art, they occasionally went the round of the provincial towns and hamlets, singing, as we have already shown, like the minstrels of old, their own compositions. It was an unusual source from which to derive an ardent longing for the living waters; but nevertheless, Andrea, the poet of Chiavari, Stefano’s cousin, having found amongst the writings of Father Liguori some texts of Scripture, thirsted to drink at the full fountain, and applied to his priest to supply him with a Bible.
But this was scarcely to he hoped for, though the promise was made from time to time, a promise never meant to be fulfilled. Andrea probably suspected this, and seeing one day at a little inn at Genoa a traveller engaged in reading the New Testament, he learnt where a copy was to be procured, and lost no time in getting possession of the treasure. Like the man in the parable, he called his friends and neighbours round him to rejoice with him over this recovered possession, which had been so long lost to them. This could not be hidden from the cure, who dissolved the little assembly, and prohibited the reading of the Bible. The timid neighbours, and the women of the Cereghini family, submitted to the dictum of their priest; but Andrea and his father, Giovanni, together with our young troubadour, could not thus yield up their new-found acquisition; nor, at the same time, could their conscience be at ease under the accusation of disobedience to their spiritual director. Amid these conflicting feelings, Stefano hears that there are “a people, called the Vaudois, inhabiting some distant valleys, who read the Bible;” and he instantly resolves to seek this favoured country, to lay his perplexities before them, and ask their counsel. It was distant and unknown, but we have already heard that he reached it at last at a most propitious moment, and gained the advice and Christian sympathy he sought and needed.
A year passed by, and once again the “Buon Esempio” was sung in the square of La Torre but this time it was Giovanni, and his younger son, Antonio, who played and sang, and dealt out the copies of the ballad, which were eagerly bought.
Never was there a finer personification of the Christian virtues than that presented by these remarkable peasants. Their commanding height and classic features, the sweetness and benignity of their countenances, the modest dignity of their manners, must have rendered them objects of interest to us, if we had not had our attention previously enlisted by the deeper attraction of their history.
In the evening, a party of Christian friends, strangers as well as natives, were invited to the house of one of the professors of the college, to hear the subsequent adventures of the Cereghini from their own lips. On leaving the valleys, Stefano informed us, he wrote to his parents the joyful account of his adventures. “We are no longer alone,” he tells them; “I have found others who read and love the Bible;” and they were comforted, though they had in the meantime been sorely pressed by the curé. This gentleman had sent for Stefano’s father and mother, and placing a crucifix before them, bade them swear on it never again to receive him under their roof, but to chase him from it with a parent’s curse. These simple and affectionate parents recoiled at the unnatural command. “What!” exclaimed the affrighted father, “curse my child! curse him who has been our stay and our pride! Never! That religion cannot be right which would demand such an unnatural sacrifice.” And the chain was for ever broken which had bound them to such a cruel superstition.
And now the priests, fearful for their craft, called in to their assistance four monks, with flowing beards and sandalled feet, who aided in various attempts of alternate threat and cajolery to move the stout Cereghini to give up their Bibles, and come to confession—but all in vain. “What, then, is to be done?” said they. “These heretics must be put down by a coup de main, or they will taint the whole community;” and a procession for the ostensible purpose of appeasing the anger of their patroness, the Virgin Mary, and for the secret one of dazzling and awing the peasantry of Favale and the surround ing villages, was proclaimed, in which all ages and ranks were to walk barefooted and crowned with thorns. The former part of the costume, if we may so term it, was easily adopted, and the latter was furnished by the priests from the neighbouring thickets. On the appointed day, four thousand persons assembled, and for many miles around no one wore shoes and stockings or hats but the Cereghini. The men of the clan went to their work as usual, but the women had not yet courage to resist the orders of the priest. Maria still went to confession, still shut her ears when her brother and cousins read the Bible, and her gentle mother walked in the procession in the prescribed costume, and went afterwards to the cathedral to mass. But the priest, as she approached the altar, refused to receive her, and uttered such fearful denunciations before the whole assembled multitude, that the poor woman was borne fainting from the cathedral, never, we believe, again to enter it.
We must not dwell further on the naive and touching account given by the Cereghini in their own sweet southern tongue, of the gradual opening of light, until the full day burst out in unclouded splendour. One early morning, on the 13th of November, two parties of carabineers arrived at Favale, and summoned five of the members of the Cereghini family from their beds to a prison. “Give us but a few minutes to pray once more together,” said they. The request was granted; and even the rough officials were moved as they stood by the kneeling confessors, and heard their supplications for strength in this hour of trial. And strength in no stinted measure was vouchsafed. The father of the family, his heroic son, the newly-married pair, and subsequently the young maiden who had withstood the truth longest, only to embrace it with greater fervour, were arrested, and went unmurmuringly to prison. Maria met her fate with a courage which surprised and moved all who beheld her; and this bashful girl of seventeen found arguments which silenced all who would persuade her to retract. One of the accused, Agostino, was not at home when the arrests came; but on his return, when his wife conjured him to seek some safe asylum, he comforted her by saying, “I only returned home to embrace you and our old people; our Father in heaven will take care of the rest. Teach me to fly from the wrath of God, and not from the wrath of men.” He stayed only to embrace his friends, and went to Chiavari, giving himself up voluntarily to share the captivity of his relatives their captivity, but not their prison. The family so united in Christ were separated in their bonds, and the same low artifices were separately practised on them which Rome has grown hoary in exercising. The prisoners were severally told that their companions had retracted, and when this falsehood failed, were threatened, if they did not, they should be burnt alive.
But, praised be God! the “prisoners of hope” are now set free; the law which immured them is abolished; and before two years had elapsed from the time that Stefano sang in the “square” of Torre Pellice, forty of the Cereghini had entered the Vaudois Church; nay, more, our Christian masons were employed, through the benevolent exertions of some English friends, in building themselves a modest “temple” at their native place, where the priests had just erected in their cathedral an immense pillar to the Virgin Mary, and placed themselves and the whole district anew under her holy keeping.
We now resume the thread of our history, leaving the story of the existing Church to be continued in our concluding chapter. We promised our younger readers to hang as many bouquets on it as we could, without interfering with the unity of a connecting thread; perhaps there may be some who will think we have exceeded our engagement. But the history of the Christians of Favale is but a continuation of that of the Vaudois Church; and we have introduced it as one instance amongst the many that are daily passing before our eyes, of the unchanged and unchangeable nature of Romanism. Moreover, in thus mingling our personal experience of the present with the history of the past, we are but carrying out the main object of our work, and that which sanctions, by its novelty, the addition of our slight sketches to the number of books of larger bulk and deeper research, which have been already published on the Waldenses and their Church.
- ↑ M. Muston.
- ↑ Reinerus, Maxima Biblioth. t. xxv. p. 275 and following.
- ↑ Sketches of the Waldenses, Religious Tract Society, p. 46.
- ↑ Centur. Magdeb. cent. xii. col. 832.
- ↑ Dupin, Nouvelle Biblioth., t. ix. p. 101.
- ↑ These particulars are furnished by Monastier; see his History for the references, chap. vi.