ex T Q 1 ^ THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH GIOVANNI LUZZI THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH Her Work, Her Difficulties, Her Hopes By/ GIOVANNI LUZZI, D.D. President of the Waldensian Seminary of Theology, Florence, Italy f New York DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1914 Copyright, 1914 By The American Waldensian Aid Societ-v PREFACE R. LUZZI, the emi- nent preacher, scholar and author, came to this country on the invitation of Prince- ton Theological Seminary to give a course of lectures to the stu- dents, but the privilege of hear- ing him was eagerly sought by institutions of almost every de- nomination. His limited stay in this coun- try prevented his acceptance of many invitations but he lectured at the following places : Union Theological Seminary; Bible Teachers' Training School, New York City ; Hartford Theolog- ical Seminary ; Smith College Northampton, Massachusetts Andover Theological Seminary Cambridge, Massachusetts Episcopal Divinity School, Cam bridge, Massachusetts; Roches ter Theological Seminary ; Mc- Cormick Theological Seminary, PREFACE Chicago; Western Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- vania; Baptist Theological Semi- nary, Louisville, K,entucky. Professor Luzzi also made addresses in many cities at the meetings of the Branches of the American Waldensian Aid So- ciety and it was especially for this organization that the lecture was prepared. THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH HER WORK, HER DIFFICULTIES, HER HOPES SHALL never for- get that I owe to Princeton the privi- lege of being here among you to-day, thus realizing a dream often dreamt before, but never yet realized. I feel that to be among you is really a privilege and a pleasure, and I thank you most heartily for your warm and cor- dial welcome, which will in future be one of my most delightful recollections. Still, I must not and I do not forget that your welcome is given not so much to me personally, as to the more or less official representative of an old Church, of the oldest Protestant Church existing, and as I know you wish to hear something about her work, her THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH difficulties, her hopes, I am glad to do my best to satisfy your desire. First of all, a word about the extension of our work. Think for a moment of that huge boot, the characteristic configuration of Italy. Up in the North, near the Alps, is Piedmont ; and in Piedmont are the Waldensian Valleys where the Waldensian people still live, the remnant of about thirty persecutions ; the people who knew well the way to prison, to exile, to the stake, but who were never forgotten bythe OmnipotentGod. There, scattered in several valleys, of which the most important are those of Pellice, Angrogna and San Martino, are the old par- ishes which were persecuted either by the Popes, by the Princes of Savoy, by the Kings of France in their turn, or by all of them at the same time. To-day there are seventeen of those parishes, numbering alto- THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH gether 12,934 communicants. They are self-supporting. The stipend of their pastors is paid partly by the parishioners them- selves, who are for the greater part peasants and very poor, and the rest is made up by a fund which was started by the generous and personal contribu- tion of no less a man than Oliver Cromwell. In those Piedmont- ese Valleys the Waldensian peo- ple found providential refuge four centuries before the Refor- mation ; there they received en- couragement and spiritual help by means of the Swiss reformers in the sixteenth century; there, because of the tyranny of Popes and the weakness of princes, they lived shut off as lepers until the 17th of February, 1848, when Charles Albert, the great- grandfather of the present king, granted the edict of their eman- cipation. The truly missionary move- ment of the Waldensian Church in Italy began from that year, THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH and the first mission church was built in Turin shortly after. Then comes Lombard/ with its flourishing churches which continue the work already begun there before the Reformation, by the sects severed from the Church of Rome. Then Venice, the Queen of the Seas, with her churches and " diasporas." In Venice the first printed Bib- lical texts were issued as soon as the art of printing was invented. Then Liguria, with Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Co- lumbus, which is also widely evangelized. Then Tuscany, the cradle of the modern Italian evangelistic movement, with the churches of Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Leghorn, Siena. Then comes Ronu and the old Roman States where our work widens and deepens in proportion as it is opposed by the Vatican. Then the A^/'m^^/, and Calabria where the old Waldensian colo- nies of the fourteenth century were suffocated in blood, but 8 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH where the living testimony of the Gospel is kept alive to-day, especially by the emigrants who bring back, with them the Gos- pel they have come to know in America. Then Naples, where, in the school of Juan Valdes, the heroic Italian reformers of the sixteenth century were pre- pared, where at the dawn of our political redemption the Gos- pel was practiced with power in the streets and in the squares, and where to-day it has won to Christ so many immortal souls. And last but not least there is Sicil/, the Volcanic Sicily, red- hot in its passions and in its affections, with its beautiful churches, its flourishing schools situated in almost all the im- portant cities of the island. I do not want to tire you with figures, but in order to be short and exact, allow me to mention just a few. Outside the Piedmontese Val- leys, where, as I have already told you, we have seventeen par- THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH isheswith 12,934 communicants, from Turin down to the furthest limits of Sicily, we count 42 churches, about 203 mission stations, 6,603 communicants, about 40,000 adherents, 136 workers and 2,192 in the day and 3 , 104 in the Sunday schools. We have a Faculty of Divinity, a College for classical studies recognized by the Government, some charitable educational in- stitutions, a theological Review (La Ri vista Cristiana) and an evangelistic weekly paper, " La Luce." In 1883 the first Waldensian Missionary started for South Africa. Later on others fol- lowed him, directing their steps towards the land of the Basutos and towards the inhospitable banks of the Upper Zambesi, where to-day seven Waldensian missionaries preach the Gospel to the Barotse and to the thirty tribes subject to them. And the name Waldensian, herald of the Gospel of Christ, is honoured 10 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH and blessed in several prosper- ous colonies : in Wiirtemburg, in South and North America, at Monett in Missouri, and in North Carolina, and among the fluctuating but numerous centers of Waldensian emigrants in France, Nice, Marseilles, Tou- lon and Lyons. Such are the numbers ; and the numbers are small, espe- cially when one considers that the Waldensian Church has been now at work since 1848; that is to say, for more than sixty years. But the development of the "mustard seed" is not suscepti- ble to any numerical valuation; and there is no human or mechan- ical dynamometer able to meas- ure the mysterious process by which the leaven of the King- dom slowly but radically trans- forms an individual, a family, or a country. In fact, consider, only for a moment, this : Italian converts who once upon a time were looked upon with suspi- cion, when they were not alto- II THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH gether kept in quarantine as morally infectious, and boy- cotted in public offices and fac- tories, are on the contrary to- day esteemed and sought after as men who honestly and con- scientiously do their duty. AH doors are open to them ; their word is listened to with inter- est, their advice is accepted and followed, as the advice of people whom one can trust and in whom some authority is recog- nized. Their children are no longer only tolerated in the schools ; they are loved, for, as a rule, they are worthy of being held up by the teachers as an example to others. The press also speaks well of them. The authorities protect them and hold them in high consideration. Public opinion has turned in their favour. If you ask those around you who the " Evan- gelicals" are, their answer al- most always is : " What they are we cannot exactly say ; but we know that they are much 12 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH better than we are '' ; and often you will hear people who have abandoned the Church of Rome say: *' We do not belong any longer to the Church; but, if we wanted to, you may be sure that it would not be the Church of Rome ; it would be yours we should join." While the culti- vated classes apply to various pastors for Evangelical servants and nurses because they are known to be honest, diligent and dutiful, the Royal House, which is and must be Roman Catholic, also entrusts its own children to the care of Walden- sian governesses. "Who can say how far the modern trend of Italian thought towards positive spirituality is due to our Evan- gelical mission? Is not the mod- ern Reform m.ovement within the Church of Rome to a large extent due to Protestant influ- ence } Whence the fear of the Vatican of Evangelical propa- ganda? The Vatican is not a child to be easily frightened ; it 13 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH is inured to all kinds of assaults and dangers, and does not trem- ble unless confronted with over- powering peril. All these indirect results of our Evangelical mission in Italy are not susceptible to any nu- merical valuation ; nevertheless they do not cease to be of in- calculable value. 14 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH URELY the results in our mission field might have been and should be far more extensive and note- worthy. Let us now consider the causes that have prevented a greater accomplishment. The first obstacle which our Evangelical work has found in Italy lies in the superficiality with which the Italian people in general treat religion. Luther, when visiting Italy, summed up his impressions on the spiritual condition of the country in the following phrase: "The Ital- ians," he said, "are the most impious among men." Calvin, when he came to Ferrara to visit the Duchess Renata, en- couraged the martyrs of Italy to die, in order to give, he said, *' the crooked and perverse gen- 15 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH eration " in Italy an example of sincerity and magnanimity. And the famous phrase of Erasmus is well known : *' Itali omnes athei"; the Italians are all athe- ists. Now, all those judgments are greatly exaggerated, for it is not true that the Italians are more " impious," more " crooked and perverse" than other nations; and it is false to say that they are all * ' atheists." The truth of the matter is that the Italians are a race of artists who very easily mistake an aesthetic for a religious impression, an artistic for a religious emotion. "When entering a sumptuous ca- thedral inundated with light an Italian feels profoundly moved by the inspiring notes which come from a hidden orchestra and rise to heaven through the mysterious imposing naves of the church ; he goes home per- fectly convinced that he has ful- filled a religious duty and that he is therefore at peace with his conscience and with God. In — THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH the classical age of Italian art, with the exception of Michel- angelo, who in all respects was an exceptional man, the poets who celebrated God in verse did not believe in God ; the archi- tects who designed temples rich and grand had no vision what- everof the spiritual temple which begins on earth and is com- pleted in heaven; and the paint- ers, who painted the famous Madonnas that have now be- come of world-wide fame, chose their models more than often from amongst the most de- bauched women of the time. And is all this to be wondered at when in that very age the Pope himself, in the Vatican, kept a lamp constantly burnin before the portrait of Plato an attended the performance of an obscene play such as Machia- velli's " Mandragora " } Now, this superficial concep- tion of the "divine" and this mistaken ethical notion of life, which we find in all ages in the 17 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH mind of the Italian people, do not surely prepare the ground to receive with special favour the good seed of the Word of God. II A second obstacle lies in the reaction caused by Roman Ca- tholicism in the land. The Italians, as far as religion is con- cerned, may be divided into four categories: the bigoted, who are the fewest in number; the ear- nest believers who have given up all superstitious practices and papistic absurdities, but who are unfortunately not as many as we would wish them, to be; the rebels and the indifferent, who are of the larger number. Ro- manism, by exacting from the people a belief in too many things which, for the greater part, are absurd and incredible, has led the more warm-blooded ones, who are always ready to fight, to rebellion; and those more inclined to apathy and fond THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH of a peaceful life, to indifference. And you well know how diffi- cult it is to move an indifferent nature. How psychologically true is the saying of our Lord to the Laodiceans : "I would that thou wert cold or hot 1" As far as the rebels are con- cerned, those, namely, who by turning their back on Roman Catholicism bid good-bye to all religion, it is sometimes almost impossible to persuade them that Rom.anism is only a form of re- ligion and not the only true re- ligion ; to convince them that a distinction has to be made be- tween Roman Catholicism and the Christianity of Christ, and that the Christianity of Christ is still worth the consideration of a sensible man. Ill A third obstacle is in the moral condition of the people. You have no idea of the havoc wrought in the moral life of the country, especially in the South, 19 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH by papacy and foreign dominion. I have often thought that noth- ing could be more interesting than a psychological study of the various regions of Italy. Piedmont, for instance, over which the House of Savoy reigned, having been less than other regions at the mercy of the Pope and having been spared the experiences which other re- gions infested by foreign op- pressors had to undergo, was able to keep itself a strong, in- dependent and disciplined re- gion ; and there a widely spread and earnest evangelical work was possible. Lombardy, which has in its history so many glori- ous pages, ripened in times of great distress when it was in a thousand ways ill-treated by Austria, and was thus prepared to receive the Gospel. Genoa and Liguria, in spite of their having ever had the riches of the earth and of the seas more at heart than heavenly riches, were not inaccessible to the 20 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH teaching of the Gospel. Tus- cany had always worshipped art and conviviality ; neverthe- less, as I have already said, in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was the cradle of our Italian mission work and had and has still several flourishing churches. But in the rest of Italy, in the Papal States, in Naples, in Sicily, where the Bourbons ruled in a way that Gladstone defined before all Europe as *'The negation of God " and where often priests and friars led the bands of brig- ands which infested the country, papacy and foreign dominion have left traces which will take long to disappear. There, the populace, deceived by the priests, used to fly away in horror from the Protestants, thinking that they were monsters with only one eye on their forehead ; and that, in the middle of the nineteenth century; there, our churches have been set on fire by the mob stirred up by the THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH friars; there, our colporteurs have been stoned; there, peo- ple have swallowed and still swallow for special devotional purposes images of saints and Madonnas; there, the preach- ers make the crucifixes on the pulpits to turn their eyes round on a congregation who is out of its mind with fear ; there, thieves and rascals of all kinds bear about their persons most re- ligiously sacred images as amu- lets and have candles lit before their favourite Madonnas in order to be kept safe from the prosecution of the law; there, finally, the "camorrists" and '• mafiosi" offer on the altars of their special churches part of the product of their thefts and murders, which quickly finds its way into the pockets of priests who are without con- science and v/ithout morality. IV A fourth obstacle to our work in Italy has been, up to the pres- 22 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH ent, the attitude of contempt which men of letters and of sci- ence, and socialism have assumed towards our movement. Our literature, up to a short time ago, has been pagan in its general tendency. The worship of form was enough ; the idea, the sub- stance, counted for little or noth- ing. It was a kind of rejuve- nescence of the spirit of the renaissance. Science, till lately, was, one may say, almost ex- clusively materialistic. BCich- ner, Vogt, Moleshott, Haeckel and Darwin, through ignorance or malice falsely interpreted and made to serve materialistic ends, were its prophets. Socialism, which about the end of the nineteenth century invaded Italy and influenced the masses, became at once atheistic. No one might then have been a so- cialist and a believer at the same time. To be an atheist was a ** conditio sine qua non " to be a socialist. Italian socialism was the absolute negation of 23 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH the Spirit, and the deification of the stomach. In no country, perhaps, was the word of the great thinker Robert Flint found truer than in Italy: "The fortune of Socialism, as com- monly understood, lies in the poverty of its ideal." Now, it is clear that all those causes, combined, could not help, and in fact they did not help the creation of an atmosphere con- genial to our work either among the cultivated class, or among the popular masses. V The last but not the smallest obstacle to our work in Italy was illiteracy. In a land where the '* examining the Scripture" to ascertain " whether the things are or are not so " is made al- most impossible or greatly re- stricted on account of the gen- eral educational conditions, one understands that a work of propaganda, bound to limit itself to the living word of a handful 24 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH of preachers, cannot make much progress. And in this respect the general conditions of Italy have been, up to now, much more serious than one im- agines. The cause of it all is principally in the Church of Rome which, in order to better establish herself, has always en- couraged ignorance rather than education. In fact, in those parts of the country where the power of Rome has been more felt, illiteracy has been and is still rampant. A few official figures will give you the unde- niable proof of what I say : In the whole kingdom in 1901 we reckoned an average of il- literacy of 48% : In Turin of 21%. In Milan of 17%. In Florence of 19%. In Rome and neighbouring provinces of 43%. In Naples and surroundings of $4%. In Sicily, Basilicata and Calabria of 75%. 25 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH II N the strength of all I have said, I should not like you to be led to the conclu- sion that the condi- tion of our work in Italy is a desperate one. Far from it. Never were the conditions of our work more favourable than they are at the dawn of the twentieth century; and the Italian evangelist had never better cause than he has at present to look into the future with serene eyes and with a hopeful heart. Here are the reasons for my bold statement. I The first lies in the Italian character. Do not think it a contradiction to what I said a few minutes ago. I accentu- ated then the fact of the havoc wrought by papacy and foreign dominion on the moral life of a 26 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH large part of Italy; but here I must empliasize, as strongly as I did then, another fact; the fact that the Italian character is essentially good, most generous and noble ; it is a character that when, either inspired by a high ideal or sanctified by the grace of God, transforms and elevates itself, becomes one of the most beautiful characters to be met with on earth. Think of the persevering power shown in the field of scientific research by this people. Whatever be the idea you may have conceived con- cerning our latest war, think of the heroic acts accomplished by land ^nd by sea bv the glorious sons of Italy. Think of the martyrs of our Italian reforma- tion in the sixteenth century; of Pietro Carnesecchi who, when delivered into the hands of the Pope by Cosimo de Medici, went to the stake on Piazza Castel St. Angelo in Rome, clothed in his best and putting on a new pair of gloves just as 27 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH if going to a court reception and not to be burnt ; think of Gioffredo Varaglia who, in Pi- azza Castello in Turin, answered the executionerwho was begging to be forgiven by him for what he was on the point of doing: "Go on; do what you have to do. Not only you do I forgive but also those who have brought me to this. Do not be afraid ; my blood will not be shed in vain" ; think of Aonio Palleario who, a few hours before his being taken to the stake, wrote to his wife a letter which is a miracle of courage, faith and love, that even now moves one to tears. I have been pastor in Flor- ence for seventeen years, and I have seen in my church charac- ters which, when sanctified by the grace of God, have become beautiful with extraordinary beauty. What cannot the grace of God do with a character such as the Italian, fine and delicate by nature, rich in poetic and ' ^8 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH artistic sense, highly mystical and at the same time wonder- fully practical, always ready to yield itself completely, unre- servedly, to the person or the cause it loves? If in spite of all its political, religious and moral drawbacks the Italian character has brought forth what it has up to the present, what shall it not be capable of when it finds itself in a favourable en- vironment with the chance of giving all that it is able to give? The Christianity of Christ will give that chance to the Italian character ; or, rather, pjc shall give it that chance by heralding the Gospel of Christ in Italy. II My second reason lies in the evident and rapid decay of papacy, the everlasting cause of all the evils of Italy. Do not think I am exaggerating. Pa- pacy has caused Italy to fall so often into the hands of foreign armies which have plundered 29 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH and ruined her; papacy was one of the principal causes whereby the Reformation could not take root in Italy; to pa- pacy Italy owes her having been, to such a large extent, plunged in the grossest superstition and ignorance ; papacy hurled its excommunication against all the patriots, against the King and the army who, on the 20th September, 1870, gave united Italy Rome as her capital; pa- pacy has written in the Syllabus issued by Pius IX the following words which the whole world should know: "To whomever shall say that the Church can and must reconcile herself to progress and modern civiliza- tion, anathema sit (let him be cursed)." And is it really possi- ble that an institution such as that can last? Is it possible that it can escape the judgment it deserves on account of all its past and present faults? Is it possible that an institution repre- senting the kingdom of darkness 30 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH can overcome modern civiliza- tion which belongs to the king- dom of light? To believe as many do in the fatal eternity of the papal colossus is simply ab- surd. Has not humanity wit- nessed in the past the fall of many other and greater giants ? The papal colossus, which be- gan by being built on a relig- ious basis and grew by means of worldly materials and intentions, has ended by being to-day noth- ing but a great political organi- zation. And this organization which has always justly aston- ished the world on account of its compactness, begins to give way. It is tormented by a gen- eral internal discontent ; it is being discredited in the whole Latin race ; the farce of the im- prisonment of the Pope does no longer move one even to laughter ; it moves one to com- passion. Pius X will be re- corded in history as the least obeyed Pope that ever existed. I could quote at least sepen of 31 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH his last official utterances, which either nobody has taken any notice of, or he himself has been obliged to withdraw. You may know the prophecies concern- ing the Popes, attributed to bt. Malachy, the Irish Archbishop of the twelfth century. Alter | all they do not seem to be so fanciful as they are thought to be St. Malachy prognosticated the pontificate of Leo XI II with the motto : Lumen in Coelo (a light in heaven) ; and in fact the coat of arms of the family of Leo XIII had a comet (lumen) in a blue ground (heaven). Pius X foretold as Ignis ardens (a burning fire); and in fact under his pontificate a religious turmoil has disturbed all Europe. The future Pontiff is prognosti- cated as Religio depopulata (Re- ligion devastated) ; his successor as Pastor bonus (the good Pas- tor) ; the following Pope as Pas- tor nauta (the navigaUng pastor) , and a-propos of this - Pastor nauta;;^^ 32 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH cans hope that the Pontiff who has that motto will be a man who will sail to Rome from New York to assume the tiara. We, in Italy, think instead that the Pastor nauta" will be an Ital- ian Pope who will be obliged to pack up and embark for America. Be it as it may, the fact is that Italy, relieved of this awful incubus of papacy, will be better able than ever to breathe freely the pure and sanctifying air of the Gospel of Christ. Ill My third reason lies in a quantity of facts which, by reason of the shortness of time, I am obliged to group together. The great improvement attained in the general moral conditions of Italy in these last years is surely an undeniable fact. The Government is fighting bravely against evils such as illiteracy and immorality, and encourages in several ways those private so- cieties which are willing to work 33 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH hand in hand with it to that end. Several wise laws with that aim in view have lately not only been promulgated but have also been enforced most energetic- ally. Meanwhile, a something new has begun to be felt in 1 taly ; it is the Italian conscience which is beginning to awaken ; it is a new spirit brooding over Italy from the Alps to the extreme limits of Sicily ; and as a result of this revival, the most impor- tant publishing firms of the coun- try are issuing for the first time the translations of foreign works bearing on the great problems of the spirit; philosophical thought, up to now generally posit ivist, begins to bend towards higher, truly positive and Christian horizons; scien- tific thought is bidding good- bye to the old prophets of ma- terialism ; it no longer fran- tically condemns religion in the name of science, but allows that beside the phenomena to be ascertained by the senses, 34 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH there are other phenomena ; the psychical, the spiritual, the study of which must be left to religion; it begins to understand that although Religion and Sci- ence have both Truth for their goal, still they march towards it by different roads ; so that noth- ing can be more absurd than their hostility towards each other; it begins to understand that the best and only reasonable thing to do is to love and help each other, because science is as useful and needful to relig- ion, as religion is to science. And even socialism begins to wonder if up to the present it has not been following a false track by so absolutely and ex- clusively asserting itself as an atheistic movement ; if it has not been wrong in neglecting, as it has done, religion as a trans- forming power of society ; and whilst the majority of Italian socialists already allow the com- patability of a religious belief with socialism in the individual, 35 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH not a few of them already advo- cate the cause not of papism (for no sensible person wants ever to hear the name papism mentioned again in Italy), but the cause of the Christianity of Christ, understood as a power- ful social dynamic. All these truly providential facts show that during the last ten or fifteen years a most re- ceptive, favourable, promising ground has been prepared in Italy for the preaching of the Gospel. IV A fourth reason lies in mod- ernism, that is to say, in the present attempt which is being made towards a reform within the Church of Rome. I shall not enter here into too many particulars on this important subject. Let this only be suffi- cient for the moment : that this modernism is not, as the Roman Curia defines it, "a cry of re- bellion against religion," but a 36 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH cry of rebellion coming from the best and most spiritual part of the Roman clergy, against the worldliness, the overbearing spirit, the tyranny of the Vati- can, and against the spiritual and moral corruption into which the Church of Rome, in our Latin countries at least, has fallen. Those men do not wish to leave their Church, they want to reform, to Christianize their Church ; they know that to leave the Church now would mean to abandon her altogether to those who would utterly ruin her. They want to see their Church renovated which at present is governed not by Pius X ; but by the Jesuits who surround him, in the same way as Giro- lamo Savonarola wanted to reno- vate the Church which was under the misrule of Pope Alex- ander VI. They want to give back to Christ the place that in the Church is only due to Him. They want the Saints and the Virgin Mary to be put back in 37 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH their own respective places. They want to do away with all kinds of superstition and ma- terialism in the Christian wor- ship. They want God to be worshipped again in and outside their cathedrals, "in spirit and in truth." They want the power of the Pope to be limited ; they want him to become the Bishop of Rome and among all the other bishops nothing more than a ** primus inter pares." They want the priests to be elected by the parishioners and not to be imposed on the parishes by the bishops. They want celiba- cy for the clergy to be voluntary and not compulsory. They want Rome to be recognized as the legitimate capital of the United Kingdom of Italy. They want the Vatican to give up all aspira- tions to a temporal power and to concern itself only with the spiritual welfare of the nation. They want finally the Gospel to have free course from the Alps to the furthest limits of Sicily, 38 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH and from sea to sea. The move- ment is vast; it has its repre- sentatives in the Vatican itself and has its roots planted in the remotest and humblest parishes. It is no longer the protest of a few sporadic cases which the gallows and the stake could once upon a time eliminate ; it is a secret, strong, general protest, which a thousand gallows would be unable to extinguish ; the protest which is undermining the whole papal institution, and which one day or other will over- throvv the old and cracked edi- fice, out of whose ruins the pure renovated Church will arise, just as out of the ruins of the Jewish temple the first Church arose. What will the future of mod- ernism be ? Will the modernists end by leaving the Church and forming a new Church, a Church of their own, such as for in- stance the Old Catholic Church ? I do not think so. They are too attached to their own Church; 39 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH they do not want to leave her; they want to stay and have her given back to her primitive sim- plicity and spirituality. Will they end by coming over to us? to our Protestant churches? Some already have come and many more will undoubtedly come over to us ; and we re- ceive them with open arms ; be- cause we reckon those to be men of character who do not trifle with their own conscience ; but the great bulk of them will not come over to us : for three reasons especially: first, because they think their form of Church organization to be more conge- nial to the Latin race than any other form ; secondly, because accustomed as they are to the great idea of the Unity of the Church, they have no sympathy with our often so accentuated denominationalism ; thirdly, be- cause they consider our Prot- estantism too much as a foreign importation, and too young to be accepted by a race so old. 40 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH Will they succeed in their ef- forts ? And why not ? I am almost sure that in a few years the minority of to-day will have become a majority, that in a few years modernism will have grown so strong as to confront the arrogance of the Vatican ; and in that solemn hour the Vatican will find itself before this tragic dilemma : either to Christianize itself or die. And if modernism were really to succeed in its efforts, what harm would there be in having in our Latin race a truly Chris- tian episcopal Church working hand in hand with our Churches in view of the moral and spiritual redemption of Italy > Meanwhile, I strongly feel that our mod-ern Protestantism, which is the offspring of free- dom and light, is bound to sym- pathize with a movement such as this, which is working from within the Church of Rome with the same aim in view, with which we are working from without. It 41 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH is bound to sympathize with these "dreamers," as they are called by some; '* dreamers" who fight and suffer for the sake of an ideal, which is according to the mind of God, which Christ cannot but approve of, and which is certainly due to the inspiration of His spirit. History teaches us that the dreams of dreamers such as these become, sooner or later, to the astonishment of all, glorious realities ; and this move- ment which is destined to hasten in Italy and in all Latin coun- tries the coming of that King- dom of God for which we Prot- estants of Italy have been work- ing for more than half a century amidst so many difficulties, fills us with encouragement and with hopes of new, greater and more glorious triumphs. V Finally, we have a fifth reason for looking into the future with a serene and hopeful eye. Is it possible, I ask, 'that God 42 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH should forget Italy? This Italy, which He Himself has made so beautiful, the cradle of art, of music, of poetry ? Is it possible that He should allow this Chris- tian Church of Italy, founded most probably by the " sojourn- ers from Rome'' who heard Peter on the day of Pentecost and became afterwards the cor- rupt Church of the Popes, is it possible that He should allow her to perish in her corruption without any hope of being ever renovated ? Did the martyrs of all centuries who died '' greeting from afar" their spiritually re- deemed fatherland, die then in vain ? Is it then no longer true that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church ? And why then was this Waldensian Church ''snatched out of the fire" of thirty persecutions and for so many centuries preserved within the natural bulwarks of the Alps? And why was the edict of emancipation of 1848 granted to the Waldensian peo- 43 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH pie ? Does God ever emanci- pate individuals or peoples with- out a special aim? And all those churches, all those mission sta- tions scattered under the shadow of the Alps, the Apennines, at the foot of Vesuvius and Etna, are they not the earnest of even vaster conquests ? Are they not the guarantee that Italy also w^ill be some day or other traced on the map of the Kingdom of God as the most beautiful among its beautiful provinces ? And is it not a symptomatic fact that this Waldensian Church, situated as she is on the border line be- tween France and Italy, was not exterminated either by the whirl of French rationalism of the eighteenth century, or by that reaction against papal spir- itual tyranny which is Italian unbelief? Should God for no purpose whatever have left to Himself in Italy a few thousand men who never bowed the knee to Baal ? Why then this faith- ful remnant ? 44 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH Surely, in order to conquer Italy not for a sect, not for a special religious denomination, not for any special ecclesiastical organization, but for Christ. I do not want to trespass on your patience. Perhaps I have already trespassed too long, and it is now time that I should stop. I cannot do so, however, before having thanked you for the love you have shown and still show to the old and glorious Walden- sian Church which I have had the honour to represent lately in the United States. Continue to her your affec- tions ; give your names and your support gladly to our American Waldensian Aid So- ciety ; do not withhold from her your sympathy ; stretch out a helping hand to her when her appealing voice reaches you. Many content themselves with considering Italy only as the garden of Europe, or as a colos- sal museum, or as an immense 45 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH favourite resort, or as a huge hotel ; but to us she must be something nobler and greater than that. Now that Italy is politically united, she must be- come more than what she was once upon a time ; namely, not only the cradle of art, but of an art essentially Christian ; not only a teacher of civilization, but of a civilization inspired by the Christianity of Christ, a great nation, not with a great- ness bound, as St. Augustine said, to be the principal cause of her ruin, but with a greatness productive of many and abiding triumphs in the Kingdom of God. With that aim in view the Waldensian Church is working in Italy ; and with that noble aim in view I exhort you to work with her. The goal is worthy of her and is worthy of you who are at the vanguard in the triumphal march of humanity towards freedom and civiliza- tion. 46 THE WALDENSIAN CHURCH And to your prayers, to your love and sympathy I strongly commend the Waldensian Church, the Church of the martyrs, the Church reformed at least four centuries before the Reformation, the Church which, gathering in her bosom the scattered remnants of the ancient protests which Rome had suffocated in blood, paved the way for the protests from which issued all the liberties we now enjoy ; the Church which is not. my Church, which is not the Church of Italy, but which is your Church, inasmuch as she is the vanguard of the Protes- tantism of the world in the clas- sical land of the Popes. 47 i^^safif^!g?f^S-