; and scarcely was it accomplished till they
were raised to life again, in the appearance of numerous churches both
north and south of the Alps. Why is it that all persons and systems in
this world of ours must die in order to enter into life? We enter into
spiritual life by the death of our old nature; we enter into eternal
life by the death of the body; and Christianity, too, that she might
enter into the immortality promised her on earth, had to die. The words
of our Lord, spoken in reference to his own death, are true also in
reference to the martyrdom of the Waldensian Church:--"Verily verily, I
say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

The first question touching this extraordinary people respects their
origin. When did they come into being, and of what stock are they
sprung? This question forces itself with singular power upon the mind of
the traveller, who, after traversing cities and countries covered with
darkness palpable as that of Egypt of old, and seeing nought around him
but image-worship, lights unexpectedly, in the midst of these mountains,
upon a little community, enjoying the knowledge of the true God, and
worshipping Him after the scriptural and spiritual manner of prophets
and apostles of old. He naturally seeks for an explanation of a fact so
extraordinary. Who kindled that solitary lamp? Their enemies have
striven to represent them as dissenters from Rome of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; and it is a common error even among ourselves to
speak of them as the followers of Peter Waldo, the pious merchant of
Lyons, and to date their rise from the year 1160. We cannot here go into
the controversy; suffice it to say, that historical documents exist
which show that both the Albigenses and the Waldenses were known long
before Peter Waldo was heard of. Their own traditions and ancient
manuscripts speak of them as having maintained the same doctrine "from
time immemorial, in continued descent from father to son, even from the
times of the apostles." The Nobla Leycon,--the Confession of Faith of
the Vaudois Church, of the date of 1100,--claims on their behalf the
same ancient origin; Ecbert, a writer who flourished in 1160--the year
of Peter Waldo--speaks of them as "perverters," who had existed during
many ages; and Reinerus, the inquisitor, who lived a century afterwards,
calls them the most dangerous of all sec