from the days of Nero the primitive Christians may have begun to gather
round those mountains to which the ark of God was ultimately removed,
and amid which it so long dwelt.

"I go up to the ancient hills,
Where chains may never be;
Where leap in joy the torrent rills;
Where man may worship God alone, and free.

There shall an altar and a camp
Impregnably arise;
There shall be lit a quenchless lamp,
To shine unwavering through the open skies.

And song shall 'midst the rocks be heard,
And fearless prayer ascend;
While, thrilling to God's holy Word,
The mountain-pines in adoration bend.

And there the burning heart no more
Its deep thought shall suppress;
But the long-buried truth shall pour
Free currents thence, amidst the wilderness."

How could a small body of peasants among the mountains have discovered
the errors of Rome, and have thrown off her yoke, at a time when the
whole of Europe received the one and bowed to the other? This could not
have happened in the natural order of things. Above all, if they did not
arise till the twelfth or thirteenth century, how came they to frame so
elaborate and full a testimony as the _Noble Lesson_ against Rome? A
Church that has a creed must have a history. Nor was it in a year, or
even in a single age, that they could have compiled such a creed. It
could acquire form and substance only in the course of centuries,--the
Vaudois adding article to article, as Rome added error to error. We can
have no reasonable doubt, then, that in the Vaudois community we have a
relic of the primitive Church. Compared with them, the house of Savoy,
which ruled so long and rigorously over them, is but of yesterday. They
are more ancient than the Roman Church itself. They have come down to us
from the world before the papal flood, bearing in their heaven-built and
heaven-guarded ark the sacred oracles; and now they stand before us as a
witness to the historic truth of Christianity, and a living copy, in
doctrine, in government, and in manners, of the Church of the Apostles.

Fain would we tell at length the heroic story of the Vaudois. We use no
exaggerated speech,--no rhetorical flourish,--but speak advisedly, when
we say, that their history, take it all in all, is the brightest, the
purest, the most heroic, in the annals of the world. Their martyr-age
lasted five centuries; and we know of nothing, whether we regard the
sacredness of the