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Updated: June 22, 2025
We know the old Waldenses before us, were also named by their adversaries, Cathares or Puritans, and that, without cause, hath this name been given both to them and us.
"Piedmont was involved in this conflict. Perhaps you remember that it is separated from Dauphiny, in France, by the Cottian Alps, and that among the valleys on the Piedmontese side dwell the Waldenses or Vaudois-evangelical Christians, who were for twelve hundred years persecuted by the Church of Rome.
In all the towns of northern Italy you see persons in the streets roasting them in braziers over charcoal fires, and selling them to the people, to whom they form no very inconsiderable part of their food. I have oftener than once, on a long ride, breakfasted on them, with the help of a cluster of grapes, or a few apples. This was the manna of the Waldenses.
It is not true, as has sometimes been asserted, that they have ever rejected the practice of infant baptism. They have prepared and enjoined the use of a very sound and full catechism, in which the children of the Waldenses are carefully instructed previous to their admission to the Lord's table. So far we have sketched the leading points in the creed of the Waldensian Church.
Zurich verified this assertion in many ways; for, owing to its free government, its proximity to the republics of Lombardy, and to the settlements of the Waldenses in the Alps, the place swarmed with that motley tribe of political and religious dreamers which Liberty is ever doomed to tolerate in her train. Of course, Arnold had his clique among the rest.
We cannot here go into the controversy; suffice it to say, that historical documents exist which show that both the Albigenses and the Waldenses were known long before Peter Waldo was heard of.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."
From that period until the appearance of Luther, a succession of sects Waldenses, Albigenses, Perfectists, Lollards, Poplicans, Arnaldists, Bohemian Brothers waged perpetual but unequal warfare with the power and depravity of the Church, fertilizing with their blood the future field of the Reformation. Nowhere was the persecution of heretics more relentless than in the Netherlands.
The Catholic dogma had hitherto triumphed over all outbreaks over Arnaldo of Brescia, the Waldenses, and Wickliffe. But Luther appeared, and the work was accomplished: Catholic unity was broken.
For the present all we call say is that the Waldenses in a quiet way were fast becoming a mighty force in the country. But the method of the Taborites was different. If the Kingdom of God was to come at all, it must come, they held, by force, by fire, by the sword, by pillage and by famine. What need to tell here the blood-curdling story of the Hussite Wars?
Another explored the South of Russia, and the third sought Christians in Turkey. And Luke himself had little more success. He even found fault with the Waldenses. It was time, indeed, for Luke to return, for trouble was brewing at home. For some years there dwelt in the town of Jungbunzlau, the headquarters of the Brethren's Church, a smart young man, by name John Lezek.
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