the Dukes of Savoy, their own princes; but the real authors were the popes and their agents. This poor and loyal people would probably have suffered no harm from the court of Turin but for the pressure ceaselessly brought to bear on it by the court of Fome. The choice the papists gave them was, to use the words of their cruel and bloody persecutors, "Death, or the Mass !" In a territory where almost every spot is famous, let me invite the reader to the Vale of Angrogna, the scene of some most stirring events. Except at its upper extremity, the mountains are wooded to their summits; bold masses of rock rising from out the foliage into splintered peaks. The lower portion has considerable patches of tilled ground. The meadows are enamelled with the white, sweetscented narcissus, gleaming like pearls on green velvet. Above rise vineyards and little fields of rye or maize, intersected by mulberry-trees for the silkworm while the dwellings of the peasant proprietors, with their overhanging roofs and rude verandahs, rise amid the few acres they cultivate. As the valley narrows, the path winds under cliffs, where saponaria and the rhododendron display their flowers, while moist nooks offer abundance of the Alpine auricula, and deep blue gentian flowers. One cannot imagine a more delightful combination of wooded mountain, and nestling hamlets, and craggy peaks, and, far beyond these, dazzling snows which rise over all into the deep blue sky. "This," said our guide, "is the site of Champforans." To that famous Synod of the Waldensian Church, Farel came across the Alps to greet this ancient branch of the Christian family, and bring news of the Reformation to men among whom the lamp of truth had been kept burning through long dark ages. Every visitor to La Tour must be struck by the picturesque rock which rises behind the little town. This is the Castelluzzo. We look on it as on the old tower in Paris, where the bell hung that signalled the massacre of St. Bartholomew. These valleys have had many “St. Bartholomews ;" and it was from Castelluzzo that, on April 27th, 1655, the signal was given to execute the orders of Christina, Regent of Savoy, who-acting for her son, Charles Emmanuel II., and under her holy father, the Pope -sent 15,000 soldiers to massacre every Protestant the valleys contained! "Children," says Leger, an eye-witness, "torn from their mothers' breasts, were seized by the feet and dashed against the rocks or walls, which were covered with their brains, while their tender bodies were cast on the common heaps; or one soldier, seizing one limb of these innocent creatures, and another taking hold of the other, would tear them asunder, beat their mothers with them, and at last throw them into the fields. The sick and aged, both men and women, were either burnt in their houses, or literally cut in pieces; or, stripped of their garments, were tied up like a ball, with their heads between their legs, and rolled over rocks." Then the malice of Rome had full scope; but such work would not hide. The news spread like wildfire. The Swiss cantons, Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Denmark, joined in one loud remon strance. Oliver Cromwell, on hearing the news, proclaimed a fast through England and Scotland; ordering a collection to be made for the suffering remnant. This yielded £30,000-a large sum in his days-of which £2,000 were given by Oliver himself. Cromwell did more. He despatched an envoy to the Duke, commanding him to express in terms of stern remonstrance the indignation of England. It was then Milton wrote those imperishable lines : "ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT." "Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; E'en them who kept Thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship'd stocks and stones, Forget not; in Thy book record their groans; Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold A hundredfold, who, having learn'd Thy way, The Waldensian pastor's work is severe, but his worldly recompense very small. It comes chiefly from our own country-from part of the funds raised under Cromwell, and from grants made by William and Mary, and also by Queen Anne. Those who spend, perhaps £20, on one sumptuous entertainment, should know that that sum is onethird of the whole income (including house and garden) these pastors enjoy. 66 One sees in their little patches of land how poor the Vaudois are. Generally the windows are unglazed; but the leaves of children's copy books," supplying the place of glass, prove how much these poor mountaineers prize education. To see a truly primitive Waldensian home, we ascended * We rejoice that this sway is broken. But, alas! alas! besotted England is paying Jesuits to teach us to bend our neck to the "triple tyrant."-ED. by an outside stair, and, emerging from a dark. narrow passage, found ourselves in a low-roofed room, lighted by one small window. Here was the summer quarters of the family. In winter the household migrate-as do half the families in the parish-to the cow-house, below; and there, while the snow for six or seven weary months lies many feet deep around, they live beside their cattle, for the sake of the warmth the brutes give forth. Yet on a few shelves of this mean abode lay thirty books; and among them, translated by a French Evangelical Society, some tracts by Mr. Ryle, and two of Spurgeon's sermons! We were among the God-fearing and intelligent Waldenses, whose motto is, Lux lucet in tenebris,”—“ The light shineth in the darkness." Their present hopeful position is, under Providence, a result of the political changes of 1848 and 1859-61. In 1848, their King granted a free constitution, emancipating the Waldenses from all disabilities, and securing them the free exercise of their worship throughout his kingdom. A kingdom with four millions then, it numbers twenty-two millions now. God has cast down the Italian despots; and, while Victor Emmanuel retains the throne of his sires, he also wears the crown of United Italy; so that now the Waldenses may go forth through the whole land preaching the faith of their martyred fathers. May results more and more prove that God's intention in hiding the Waldenses so long among their mountain recesses, in preserving the truth there during the dark ages, and through centuries of persecution, was, that He had a great work for them to do in Italy. That land of such surpassing beauty and interesting associations is a region that war and pro gress, in the mysterious providence of God, have given to the Church to occupy. The field is vast, and full of promise. May the Christians of our highly favoured country feel it a privilege to aid in giving to a noble but long down-trodden people "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God !" [We by no means must be understood as advocating the claims of the Waldensian efforts, from a full agreement with their views. This fact, however, we must rejoice in, that they are setting on high the blazing torch of God's word in the tongue of the long priest-blinded Italian people, and are preaching the Saviour in the place of Sacraments. While referring to their Mission we cannot help feeling to long to see traversing the lengths and breadths of our land a Mission against Ritualism. We hear that a Society is being formed to resist this enemy of Gospel light. We think it could hardly do better, if suitable men can be found, than to send to every town and village in our land men who shall openly turn on the light of Bible truth upon the dark deeds of Popish error that are being performed almost everywhere in our Protestant churches.-ED.] BRUTAL MINDS. "A MERCIFUL MAN IS MERCIFUL TO HIS BEAST." I HAVE just quieted down from the agitation of rebuking a company of naughty lads, whose fun and pleasure consisted in tormenting a pretty black and white cat, by setting a black retriever upon her. I saw them coaxing poor puss out of the hole in a broken window, where the instinct God mercifully gave her for self-preservation had led her to retreat. I little thought what they were about, or would have |