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Readings from English History. Selected and Edited by JOHN RICHARD GREEN, M.A., LL.D. Three Parts in One Volume. 12mo. Part I., pp. 152. Part II., pp. 152. Part III., pp. 140. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1879. Shakespeare's Comedy of Twelfth Night: or, What You Will. Edited, with Notes, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M. With Engravings. Square 16mo., pp. 174. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1879.

Shakespeare's Comedy of the Winter's Tale. Edited, with Notes, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M. With Engravings. Square 16mo., pp. 218. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

The German Principia, Part II. A First German Reading Book. Containing Anecdotes, Tables, Natural History, German History, and Specimens of German Literature, with Grammatical Questions and Notes, and a Dictionary. On the Plan of Dr. William Smith's Principia Latina. 12mo., pp. 263. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1879.

Analysis and Formation of Latin Words, with Tables for Analysis, List of Roots, etc. By FRANK SMALLEY, A.M. 12mo., pp. 87. Syracuse, N. Y.: John T. Roberts. 1879.

12mo., pp. 212. Chicago: Pub

The Egotist. Essays of Life: Its Work and its Fortunes, its Joys and its Sorrows, its Success and its Failure. By HENRY T. KING. 12mo., pp. 270. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen, & Haffelfinger. 1880. Plain Talk to the Sick. By ADAM MILLER, M.D. lished for the Author. 1879. HARPER'S GREEK AND LATIN TEXTS: M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistula Selectæ. By RECOGNOVITZ REINHOLDUS KLOTZ. 18mo., pp. 286. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1879.

FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY, 4to., paper: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. By CHARLES DICKENS.-Poems of Wordsworth. Chosen and Edited by MATTHEW ARNOLD.-Cousin Henry, By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.-The Tiro Miss Flemings. By the Author of "Rare Pale Margaret.”—Miss Braddon's Mistletoe Bough for Christmas, 1879.-The Egotist: A Comedy in Narrative. BY GEORGE MEREDITH.-The Bells of Penraven. By B. L. FARJEON.-A Few Months in New Guinea. By OCTAVIUS C. STONE, F.R.G.S.—A Doubting Heart. By ANNIE KEARY. -Little Miss Primrose. By the Author of "St. Olave's," etc.-Donna Quixote. By JUSTIN M'CARTHY.

HARPER'S HALF-HOUR SERIES, 32mo. American Ballads. By THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH, M.D., LL.D. Pp. 155. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

Tyrol and the Skirt of the Alps. By GEORGE E. WARING, Jun., Author of “A Farmer's Vacation," etc. Illustrated. Small 8vo., pp. 171. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

EDITORIAL NOTE.-Our last Quarterly contained a biographical sketch of Rev. Dr. Nelson, written by Bishop Harris, containing some remarks upon the "trying ordeal" through which the Book Concern had passed at the time of Dr. Nelson's election as Agent. It is proper to say that in these remarks it was not the intention of either the Bishop (as we say by his authority) or the Editor to express or imply any censure upon the then Junior Agent, Dr. Lanahan, or upon any other person who was engaged in officially moving or conducting the inquiries into the condition and management of the Concern. The only allusion was to unofficial and irresponsible persons who took advantage of the investigations te malign the Church.

METHODIST

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

APRIL, 1880.

ART. I. -THE GLORIOUS RETURN OF THE VAUDOIS.

Histoire de la glorieuse Rentrée des Vaudois dans leur Vallées: Paris: Grassort,

1879.

A NOTABLE book is that which we place at the head of this article. It was mostly written by Henry Arnaud, "Pasteur and Colonel of the Vaudois," a man who, preaching, praying, and fighting "for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints," would have gladdened the heart of Cromwell, and who deserves to rank among the greatest heroes of history. The recent edition of the work is, as nearly a possible, a reproduction in form, typography, etc., of the original edition, issued about a century and three quarters ago. Its full title, almost literally rendered, is "The History of the Glorious Return of the Vaudois into their Valleys, in which it will be seen that a troop of these people, less than a thousand strong, sustained a war against the King of France and the Duke of Savoy; made headway against their army of twenty-two thousand men; opened a passage through Savoy and High Dauphiny; beat many times the enemy, and at last miraculously re-entered their heritage; maintained themselves therein, arms in hand, and re-established the worship of God which had been interdicted during three years and a half. The whole compiled from memoirs which have been faithfully made of all that occurred in this war of the Vaudois," etc.

We propose to narrate, though it must be in mere outline, FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXII.-14

the "Glorious Return;" but some preliminary pages are necessary. An American writer complains of the comparative ignorance of our Churches respecting the Vaudois-the most interesting people, perhaps, in the whole history of Christendom since the apostolic age. American Christians know in a vague way that somewhere in the mountains between France and Italy lived and still linger the "Waldenses;" that they have had a curiously antique history; and that, since the unification of Italy, they have been descending their mountains to propagate pure Christianity over the peninsula, for which they have peculiar advantages as Italians, with the national language for their vernacular. Only the best-informed minds among us know how surpassingly marvelous has been their history, and how equally marvelous seems their destiny; that in their valleys, up among the snows and clouds of the Cottian Alps, looking down to the south-eastward upon Italy, and to the north-westward upon France, they maintained their Church, pure in doctrine, morals and polity as that of Scotland itself, while all the rest of Europe fell away into paganized Christianity; that, according to their local traditions, their religious history dates from the time of Paul's preaching in Rome; that Paul himself possibly passed through their valleys on his way to Spain; that, at least, some of his Roman converts, or their early successors, fled at the outbreak of the persecutions to these mountains, and founded the faith which remains there to our day; that while, century after century, all the rest of the Christian world was sunk in moral death, and covered with the night of the "Dark Ages," the pure apostolic light shone undimmed on these mountain heights; that France on the one hand, Italy on the other, prompted by Rome, attempted age after age to break through the Alpine barriers and extinguish the strange heresy, as it was called; that the one terrible St. Bartholomew's of France went on here through successive generations, but in vain; that every valley, almost every cliff, has its traditions of martyrdom; that deeds of prowess by the mountaineers, hurling back whole hosts of Papal invaders, now on France, now on Italy, in at least thirty-three distinct wars, have given them an heroic history never surpassed in the military annals of any other people, dotting their territory with scores of Thermopylas and Marathons; that, after centuries of

praying, watching, and fighting for their faith, they stood, still in arms, amid the ruins of their homes and their churches, and laid down their weapons only when a solemn pledge from the enemy conceded their rights; that this pledge was immediately violated, nearly all their heroic men imprisoned in thirteen Piedmontese dungeons, their children put in Catholic schools, their women in nunneries; that the Vaudois were at last considered extinguished, their own historians, who had fled to other countries, declaring "the ancient Church of the mountains," the "Israel of the Alps," "obliterated," "irrecoverably lost," as one of them said; that of the fourteen thousand heroic prisoners of Piedmont all died of starvation or disease save three thousand, who, liberated at last, but forbidden ever to re-enter their valleys, made their way to Protestant Switzerland and Germany; that seven or eight hundred of them afterward combined under a vow to redeem their lost cause and· country, armed themselves clandestinely, marched, under the command of their pastor, Arnaud, through the most intricate ravines of Switzerland and Savoy, under the shadow of Mont Blanc, along the cliffs of Mont Cenis, through passages in which only mountaineers could make their way, with no commissariat, each man carrying his own ammunition and food, the Catholic towns and villages rising against them, but quailing before them, as if a terror from God had fallen upon the land; that France on the one hand, Italy on the other, sent armies to arrest their triumphant march, twenty-two thousand men in all; that they rolled back the enemy in victorious fights, entered their ancient valleys "with singing and shouting," fought the Catholic foe from rock to rock through months, supplying themselves with ammunition only by their victories, destroying ten thousand of the enemy in eighteen victorious attacks, winning peace at last, restoring their old homes, schools, and churches, receiving their expatriated wives and children, sheltering even their persecuting sovereign, who had to flee from his enemies below to seek their protection; and that, re-established in their mountains and enfranchised by their government, they are now bearing the Gospel over Italy, and are thus displaying before the eyes of this skeptical age the providential meaning of their history.

Such are a few mere allusions to this remarkable history

the most remarkable, we are inclined to think, on record. We delay not to discuss the questions which have excited so much inquiry among European scholars respecting the date of the origin of the Vaudois, a date lost in the obscurity of remote time. We have mentioned their own traditions on the subject, as attested by Arnaud, in his history of the Glorieuse Rentrée. We know that centuries before the Reformation they were a pure Church; that their doctrines, forms of worship, Church government, show no traces of ever having been reformed, as they show none of ever having needed reform. We know, also, that as early as the fourth century St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, testifies that the Church corruptions of Italy had not penetrated these mountains, and that about one thousand one hundred and twenty-five Catholic writers allude to them as soiled by inveterate heresy. These evidences are sufficient for our present purpose, and we can now approach our main subject.

The Glorieuse Rentrée originated in the persecutions which attended the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Vaudois on the French side of the Cottian Alps were, of course, included in that most impolitic and disastrous measure of Louis XIV. The king was determined to extinguish Protestantism in France. According to the historian Capefigue, (himself no friend to Protestantism,) no less than two hundred and thirty thousand Protestants fled from their country to escape the persecution; nearly one thousand six hundred of these were preachers, two thousand three hundred were elders of the Churches, fifteen thousand were "gentlemen," the others mostly merchants and artisans-the best in the kingdom. Capefigue's figures were taken from official statistical returns made at the period; the emigration continued years later. Charles Coquerel says that the Revocation "kept France under a perpetual St. Bartholomew's for about sixty years," and that more than a million of the best citizens were either driven abroad, or put to death, or sent to the galleys or to dungeons. A single province (that of Languedoc) was officially reported to have sacrificed a hundred thousand by the wheel, the gibbet, or the sword. Three years before the Revocation the Protestant pastors reported to the Government one million eight hundred Protestant households in the kingdom; in about twenty-five years after the Revocation the king declared that.

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