96-103

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH, FROM THE GENERAL PEACE TO
THE DATE OF VISITS FROM DR. GILLY AND GENERAL
BECKWITH 104-113

CHAPTER XIV.

WALDENSIAN CHURCH PROGRESS IN ITS OWN VALLEYS, FROM
1827 TO 1848 114-119

CHAPTER XV.

THE CHURCH OF THE VALLEYS AS THE EVANGELIST OF
ITALY.--ITS HOME CLAIMS AND NEEDS 120-130

THE VAUDOIS OF PIEDMONT.

CHAPTER I.

Early on the morning of Easter Monday, 1871, in company with a devoted
Italian pastor, I left my temporary home in the comfortable "Grand Hotel,"
in the little town of Pallanza, to gratify a long-felt desire of visiting
that part of Europe made sacred by ages of heroic suffering and courageous
endurance for faith and fatherland--the valleys of Piedmont. As we steamed
up the lake Maggiore the thin mist of early morn cleared off, and by the
time we had passed the far-famed Borromean Islands the eye was ravished
with the scenes of beauty on every side. Trees and flowers bloomed forth in
the lovely vesture of an Italian spring, and the hills, villas, and gardens
on the shores of the lake were imaged forth as in a mirror on its own fair
bosom.

In this reverie of delight our boat landed us at Arona, where we
disembarked and entered the train for Turin. We reached the latter city in
about three hours, and after a short delay at the refreshment-room, called
upon the Vaudois pastor, the Rev. J. P. Meille, who received us most
kindly, and showed us over the stately temple belonging to his church,
situated in one of the best streets (the Corso del Re), and which, by its
imposing character, as compared with the general simplicity of the Vaudois
ecclesiastical buildings, fitly illustrates their altered circumstances as
a Church and a community--no longer persecuted, plundered, proscribed, and
down-trodden!

The erection of this building was indeed the first public and palpable
evidence that the era of political and religious liberty for the Waldenses,
inaugurated by the edict of emancipation, dated February 17th, 1848, was
really to be enjoyed by them. Its foundations were laid on the 29th
October, 1851, by a solemn ceremonial. Delegates from the table of the
Vaudois Church, the consistory of Turin, and