s in heaven; and it
had been consecrated by sacrifices such as Rome's mitred priests never
offered in aisled cathedral. Nor had it been the scene only of lofty
endurance: it had been the scene also of sweet and holy joys. There the
Vaudois patriarchs, like Enoch, had "walked with God;" there they had
read his Word, and kept his Sabbaths. They had sung his praise by these
silvery brooks, and kneeled in prayer beneath these chestnut trees.
There, too, arose the shout of triumphant battle; and from those valleys
the Vaudois martyrs had gone up, higher than these white peaks, to take
their place in the white-robed and palm-bearing company. Can the spirit,
I asked myself, ever forget its earthly struggles, or the scene on which
they were endured? and may not the very same picture of beauty and
grandeur now before my eye be imprinted eternally on the memory of many
of the blessed in Heaven?

There was silence on plain and mountain,--a hush like that of a
sanctuary, reverent and deep, and broken only by the flow of the torrent
and the sound of voices among the vineyards. I could not fail to observe
that sounds here were more musical than on the plain. This is a
peculiarity belonging to mountainous regions; but I have nowhere seen it
so perceptible as here. Every accent had a fullness and melody of tone,
as if spoken in a whispering gallery. Right in the centre of the circle
formed by the mountains was the entrance of the Vaudois valleys. The
place was due north from where we now were, but we had to make a
considerable detour in order to reach it. A long low hill, rough with
boulders and feathery with woods, lay across the mouth of these valleys;
and we had to go round it on the west, and return along the fertile vale
which divides it from the high Alps, whose straths and gorges form the
dwellings of the Waldenses.

A dream it seemed to be, walking thus within the shadow of the Vaudois
hills. And then, too, what a strange chance was it which had thrown me
into the society of my two Waldensian fellow-travellers! They had met me
on the threshold of their country, as if sent to bid me welcome, and
conduct my steps into a land which the prayers and sufferings of their
forefathers had for ever hallowed. They could not speak a word of my
tongue; and to them my transalpine Italian was not more than
intelligible. Yet, such is the power of a common sympathy, the
conversation did not once flag all the way; and it had reference, of
cour