Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1870-07-08
Aliscellaug,
Tbe valley of the VaudOis

ulation of more than twenty thousand
In every age the manners of the people,
have been the same. They are tall
graceful, vigorous; a mountain race ac'
customed to labor or to hunt the chai-
mos in his native crags. The women are
fair and spotless; their rude but PLAIN
tive HYMNS are often heard resounding
from the Chestnut groves; their native
refinement softens the apparent harsh
ness Of their frugal lives. Over the
whole population Of the Vaudois valley
has ever rested the charm of a spotless
purity. Their fair and tranquil counte-
nances speak only frankness and SIM
plicity; their lives are passed in deeds
Of charity, in honest labors, and in un-
varying selfrespect. The vices aadthe
crime that have swept over Europe new
er invaded the happy valleys, unless
carried thither by the papal troops. No
pride, no avarice, no fierce resentment
disturbs the peaceful Vaudois; no pro-
family, no crime is heard of in this sim
gular community. To wait. npon the
sick, to aid the stranger, are eagerly con-
tended for as a privilege; compassion,
even for their enemies, is the GROWING
excellence of the generous race. When
their prosecutor, Victor Amadeus IL,
was driven from Turin by the French,
he took refuge in the valleys he had des-
olated, in the cottage of Naudois
peasant. Here he lived in perfect secu-
rity, the peasants might have filled his
house with gold by betraying his guest;
he refused; the duke escaped, and re-
warded his preserver with characteristic
parsimony, In the French wars Of the
last century, when Suwarrow was victo-
rious among the Alps, three hundred
wounded Frenchmen took shelter in the
village Of Bobbio. The Vaudois cared
for their former prosecutors as long as
their scanty means allowed, and then,
taking the wounded soldiers on their
shoulders, carried them over the steep
alpine passes and brought them safely
to their native France.
We may accept, for we can not refute
the narrative of their early history CIV
en- by the Vaudois themselves, Soon af-
ter the dawn of Christianity, they as
sert, their ancestors embraced the faith
Of st. Paul, and practiced the simple
rites and usages described by Justin or
Tertullian. The Scriptures became
their only guide; the same belief, the
same sacraments they maintain to-day,
they held in the age Of Constantine and
Sylvester They relate that, as the ROM
ish church grew in power and pride,
their ancestors resisted its assumption
and refused to submit to its authority
that when, in the ninth century, the Use
of images was enforced by superstitious
popes, they, at least, never consented to
become idolators; that they never wor.
shipped the Virgin, nor bowed at an
idolatrous mass. When in the eleventh
century Rome asserted its supremacy
over kings and princes, the Vaudois were
its bitterest foes. The three valleys form
ed the theological school Of Europe.
The Vaudois missionaries travelled into
Hungary and Bohemia, France, England
even Scotland, and aroused the people
to sense of the fearful corruption q
the church. They pointed at Rome a
the antichrist, the center of every abomi
nation. They taught, in the place o
the Romish innovations, the pure faitl
of the apostolic age. Lollard, who LEI
the way to the reforms of Wycliffe, wa
preacher from the valleys; the Albig
enses Of Provence, in the twelfth centu
ry, were the fruits Of the Vaudois mis-
sions Germany and Bohemia were re
formed by the teachers of PIEDMONT
Huss and Jerome did little more thai
proclaim the Vaudois faith and Lu
Their and Calvin were only the necessar,
offspring OF the apostolic churches of tn
Alps Harper's Magazine.
hFoLLowED BY. HEARsE-A wei
known doctor. residing not far from til
village of Brandon, who takes gres
pride in driving good team, was latel
called to visit patient in the west pal
Of Shoreham OF course he drove