Vaudois Missionaries and Colporters.
“Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 15:26. Of all its opponents Rome most hated the Vaudois. To bind one of the primitive Christians to the stake seemed to give strange satisfaction to their modern persecutors. In September, 1560, Pope Pius IV. and his holy college gathered at Rome to witness one of their favorite spectacles. A pile had been raised in the square of St. Angelo, near the bridge over the Tiber. The people assembled in a great throng. The condemned, a pale and feeble young man, was led forth; when suddenly he began to speak with such rare eloquence and force that the people listened; the pope grew angry and troubled, and the Inquisitors ordered the Vaudois to be strangled lest his voice might be heard above the flames. Pius IV. then saw the martyrdom in peace, and directed the ashes of his foe to be thrown into the Tiber. The martyr was John Louis Paschal, a young pastor of great eloquence, who had been called from Geneva to a congregation of Vaudois in Calabria. The post of danger had a singular charm for the brilliant preacher. He was betrothed to a young girl of Geneva. When he told her of his call to Calabria, “Alas!” she cried, with tears, “so near to Rome, and so far from me!” Yet she did not oppose his generous resolve, and he went to his dangerous station. Here his eloquence soon drew a wide attention. He courted by his boldness the crown of martyrdom. He was shut up in a deep dungeon, was chained with a gang of galley-slaves, was brought to Rome, where Paul had suffered, and was imprisoned in a long confinement. His persecutors strove to induce him to recant; but no bribes nor terrors could move him. He wrote a last fond exhortation to Camilla Guarina, his betrothed; his eloquence was heard for the last time as he was strangled before the stake. Innumerable martyrdoms now filled the valleys with perpetual horror. It is impossible to describe, it is almost inhuman to remember, the atrocities of the papal persecutors. Neither sex nor age, innocence, beauty, youth, softened their impassive hearts. Mary Romaine was burned alive at Roche-Plat; Madelaine Fontane, at St. John. Michel Gonet, a man nearly a hundred years old, was burned to death at Sarcena. One martyr was hacked to pieces with sabres, and his wounds filled with quick-lime; another died covered with brimstone matches, that had been fastened to his lips, nostrils, and every other part of his body; the mouth of another was filled with gunpowder, the explosion tearing his head to pieces. The story of a poor Bible-seller from Geneva is less revolting than most of these dreadful scenes. Bartholomew Hector wandered among the peaks of the highest Alps, selling the printed Scriptures to the poor shepherds, who, in the brief summer, when the mountains break forth into a rich growth of leaves, grass, and flowers, lead their flocks to the higher cliffs. They bought the Bibles readily, and the colporter climbed cheerfully from peak to peak. The police seized him and carried him to Pignerol. He was charged with having sold heretical books; he insisted that the Bible could not be called heretical; but the holy office condemned him, June 19, 1556, and he was sentenced to be burned alive; some alleviation of the penalty was afterward made, and the judges permitted the executioner to strangle him before the burning. He was offered his life and liberty if he would recant; he replied by preaching in his prison, with wonderful eloquence, the pure doctrines of the book he had loved to distribute. Amidst the brilliant palaces of Turin, in the public square, the happy martyr died, surrounded by a throng of people who wept over his fate. The priests were unable to suppress that proof of a lingering humanity. Five Protestants from Geneva were traveling toward the Vaudois valleys. They were warned that the police were watching for them, yet they still pressed on, and were arrested in an unfrequented road where they had hoped to escape pursuit. Two of them, Vernoux and Laborie, were pastors of the valleys. They were all taken before the Inquisitors at Chambery, and convicted as heretics. They were next brought before the civil court to be condemned. The judges, touched by their innocence, strove to prevail upon them to recant. “You need only give us a simple confession of your errors,” said the court, “and this will not prevent you from resuming your faith in the future.” They refused to consent to the deceit, and were sentenced to die. “Anne, my beloved sister and spouse,” wrote Laborie to his young wife, “you know how well we have loved one another. I pray you, therefore, that you be always found such as you have been, and better, if possible, when I am no more.” Calvin, hearing of their danger, wrote them an austere exhortation. In the stern spirit of that age of trial, he urged them to bear a testimony to the faith that should resound afar, where human voices had never reached. The five died full of hope. They were strangled, and their bodies burned. In this fatal period the public square of Turin was constantly made the scene of touching martyrdoms and holy trials; the Jesuits and the Franciscans everywhere urged on the zeal of the Inquisitors; no village of the Vaudois valleys but had its martyrs, no rock nor crag but witnessed and was hallowed by some joyous death; the rage of persecution grew in strength until it could no longer be satisfied with less than a perfect extermination of the Vaudois. Thus around the simple Christians of the valleys seemed to hang everywhere the omens of a dreadful doom. In the general tide of persecution, they could scarcely hope to escape a final destruction. From the towers and cathedrals of Turin the Jesuits looked with envious eyes upon the gentle race who neither plotted nor schemed; to whom cunning was unknown, and deceit the ruin of the soul; who never planned a persecution, fomented religious wars, or guided the assassin’s hand; who read the Scriptures daily, despite the anathemas of Rome, and who found there no trace of the papal supremacy or the legend of St. Peter. The Vaudois, indeed, had never concealed their opinions. For centuries they had said openly that the pope was antichrist; they had condemned each one of the papal innovations as they arose; they denounced the crusades as cruel and unchristian; they gave shelter to the persecuted Albigenses; they smiled with gentle ridicule at the worship of saints and relics; they scoffed at the vicious monks and priests who strove to convert them to the faith of Rome. Yet now they consented to claim the clemency of their sovereign, the Duke of Savoy, and humbly begged for freedom of worship and belief. They were so innocent that they could not understand why one Christian should wish to rob or murder another.—Historical Studies.