The Leisure Hour: An Illustrated Magazine for Home Reading

schools and churches have multiplied; vassalage | valley's eastern entrance. It was inhabited by and witchcraft are long-forgotten things, except with the historian; and, more than all, the spirit of religious intolerance, though not utterly subdued, has ceased for the present to rule and reign among the nations. It was not our generation, nor even our country, that won this victory, though England's freedom has been built on patriot and martyr tombs. Men of every age and land have stood in the breach against bigotry and barbarism for us and for the world, but none more firmly than that primitive people known as the Vaudois. In the valleys and ravines of the central Alps, surrounded by principalities and powers that were but the vassals of papal Rome, in times whose thick darkness gave boundless scope to priestly craft and cruelty, they kept through the fires of persecution and the peace of obscurity the faith and form of early and uncorrupted Christianity-a simple and homeloving yet heroic people, who have bequeathed their faith and fame to posterity, in spite of popes and kings. The Alpine hamlets still hold in traditional reverence many a name unknown to general history, and we would relate the story of some among that cloud of witnesses.

In one of the loftiest peaks of the Col de Julien, at the height of 3000 feet above sea-level, there lies a deep hollow or cleft, extending some two leagues along the mountain side, and known to the hill people as Repos de Berger, or the Shepherd's-rest. On the south-east and west a vast expanse of moorland pasture slopes up from the pine forest which clothes the mountain's base, and down into this verdant valley. On the north a barrier of primeval rock rises in rugged terraces to the foot of the glaciers from some of its crags, the valleys of Lower and Upper Angrogna, the long vale of Lucerna, the pass of La Vacherie, and the spires of La Torre, can be seen on a clear day. Streams wander down their gray sides and unite in a small lake at the deepest part of the dell. There frost seldom binds the waters. Protected from the Alpine storms, and open to the sun, the Shepherd's-rest enjoys a climate of its own, extraordinary for mildness at that elevation. No inundation has ever come down, no avalanche fallen upon it. Wild vines, roses, and chestnut trees yet grow along the base of the rocky barrier, but the guides say it is long since they were planted. There is not a trace of home nor habitation now, but the long grass and wild weeds grow thick on two or three scattered mounds. The lark makes her nest among them, and sings there; the gray vulture builds in the rocks; the chamois descends to drink at the lake; but a human footstep rarely breaks the solitude of the Shepherd's-rest.

It was not so two hundred years ago. The goat-herd from the valleys, who climbed thus far in search of a stray kid, or the hunter overtaken by the mountain storm, was sure of rest and shelter in any one of the four dwellings composing its scattered hamlet. Three were cottages built in the old Swiss fashion, square and low, with tent-like roofs, and porches at their doors. Their walls were of logs from the forest, their roofs of reeds and moss; but the fourth was a square tower of solid stone, with a battlemented roof, and a sculptured shield above the narrow door. The tower stood on a projecting platform of rock at the

a widow named Madame Rosa, with her son Gueslin, her daughter Eglantine, and their old servant Marietta. In the nearest cottage, which stood among vineyards overlooking the lake, dwelt a missionary, pastor Joseph, with his nephew, and three nieces called the Constants. The next was situated on a broad green slope, and belonged to the old shepherd Gaston Renaud, and his family; while the third, standing in the shadow of the rocks, at the western corner, was the home of two brothers, Carlo and Phillibert du Roche, who hunted the chamois together. The cottagers' cattle grazed in the same wide pastures, their flocks were gathered into the same fold; their corn-fields and vineyards grew on the sunny slopes without a fence between them. In harvest work and winter losses each was ready to help another, and all the surrounding valleys knew them as the Mountain Friends. Between them and the inhabitants of the tower a feeling of good neighbourhood had always subsisted. Each had a kindly greeting for the other when they met. They had interchanged all manner of helps and friendly offices, but their ways, their works, and their worship were apart, the Rosas being distant branches of a noble Savoyard family, and professing the Romish creed, while the cottagers were Vaudois, and firm in the faith of their fathers.

Cottage and tower in the Shepherd's-rest were old; moss and fern grew on their roofs and ivy on their walls, though likely to stand many a winter yet in their rustic strength. Wanderers from the valley hamlets had sought refuge there in times of persecution. The men had been always first among the Vaudois of the hills who came down to do battle for the Alpine homes and churches; but neither priest nor soldier had ever broken the peace of their homes. No taxes had impoverished, no war had wasted the valley; but the plague which devastated the Waldensian country some fifteen years before, found its way thither in spite of the pure mountain air, and took a heavy tribute from every household. The proprietress of the tower had lost her husband and three children. From the old shepherd his wife and daughter had been called away. The chamois hunters saw their parents and two young sisters laid in the grave; and, last of all, the summoner took the Constants' father and mother. They were mourned not only in the Shepherd's-rest, but far and wide among the mountain hamlets, for Jacob Constant had been a missionary pastor, laborious, fearless, and faithful. His wife Marguerite was regarded as a "mother in Israel," and their children were scarce beyond infancy; but they left them in faith and hope to the mercy of God and the care of pastor Joseph.

That woe was long passed. Fifteen years had done their work on heart and home. Orphan children had grown to maturity, and widowed partners old; and on a morning of early spring in the year 1654, when the young corn was rising from the soil, the vines and chestnuts bursting into leaf, and violets clustering thick under rock and tree, two processions of festive though_different appearance wound up the rocky path to the tower. One consisted of youths and maidens from all the families of the Rosas' faith for leagues around,

with gay looks and garments. They came to the wedding of the widow's only daughter, Eglantine, with her noble relative, the Castellan Bazzano; the other of the Mountain Friends, young and old, in their best attire, and trying to look chee ful as befitted the occasion. They could scarce be called bridal guests. Though long and good neighbours to the Rosas, the earnest Protestants of the Alps would not countenance by their presence any ceremony of a corrupt creed; but Eglantine's eldest brother, Gueslin, had so strongly requested pastor Joseph and his people to come in old mountain fashion and take leave of his sister before her wedding, that they could not in civility refuse, though the pastor was that morning to set out on his missionary way, escorted, as usual, by the three families to the foot of the mountain. For more than fifty years there had now been peace in their country. The failure of the celebrated Catholic league, and the heroic defence made by their fathers in the preceding century; the ravages of the plague, and the civil war which raged between the princes of Savoy in that of our story, secured to the churches a rest from persecution longer than they had ever experienced since the early and peaceful times. In that interval of quiet, the friendly feeling which, when rulers or priests permitted, had always prevailed among the Alpine villagers of both creeds, grew and strengthened. It was cemented by deeds of mutual charity during the visitation of the plague, by rural commerce, and by the interchange of helps and hospitalities. The Roman Catholics, especially in remote hamlets, which monks or friars rarely visited, forgot that they had been taught to reckon as heretics their honest kindly neighbours, and termed the Vaudois faith "the religion of the valley." This was particularly the case in the wild vicinity of the Shepherd's-rest. Its priest, father Ambrose, had a most extensive parish, but his pastoral duties were bounded by saying mass on all holy days in his chapel at La Torre, beyond which he seldom ventured, grumbling at the tithes, and giving absolution to all who came and paid for it. The missionary pastor had laboured, not without some hope of success, in that neglected field; by his exertions, a faint knowledge of scriptural truth had been diffused among the scattered cottagers; a few old and serious people stole at times to hear his sermons, generally delivered in poor huts or on the mountain side, and his neighbour, the widow, had been induced to let her son and daughter attend the school which he kept at the Constants' cottage on summer evenings; for by such means alone could the Rosas have learned to read. Possessing much that was promising, pastor Joseph had hope concerning that family that they would yet be brought from darkness into light, and a recent occurrence had brought the Constants still nearer an intimacy with the inhabitants of the tower. One evening towards the end of the late winter, their youngest girl had wandered to the valley's castern limit, in search of her pet lamb, whose tracks she traced in the snow. There was no fear in the Shepherd's-rest, wolves rarely approached, but that season was severe, and one great grisly creature had found its way thither unknown to the hunters. The young girl heard its howl on the wild moor, and the next moment the wolf was on

her track. She flew homeward in breathless terror, but would never have reached the cottage, for the famished monster gained on her every step, when Gueslin Rosa, who saw her danger from the front of his own house, where he had been clearing firewood, seized his hatchet, and, rushing boldly on the wolf, laid it dead at a blow. The Constants made him a cap of the skin, which Gueslin wore long after like a trophy. By degrees he came to attend the Vaudois meetings at their cottage, and had solicited this token of rustic friendship to his family.

The old tower looked gay and gallant with white flags waving from its battlements; green boughs and flowers covered the winding path which led up the rocks to its threshold, where Madame Rosa and her son stood in the fashion of Alpine hospitality to welcome all comers. The widow's neighbours knew her to be gentle and kind, and devout after the superstitious fashion of her faith. There had not been a fairer girl in the valley of Pragella, where she was born, nor a happier wife on the hills; but she had never recovered from the shock of her great loss, and its memory brought the decay and feebleness of old age upon her, though little beyond life's noon. There were not sixteen years between Gueslin Rosa and his mother. He was twenty-three: his fair open brow was all of hopeful and light-hearted youth; but his brokendown mother and young sister had looked to him as the head of their house from boyhood, and the feeling of responsibility thus early induced had given a brave but serious expression to his face, and a manly stability, not common at those years, to his character. Nevertheless, Gueslin “lacked one thing" he had yet no real concern about religion. Shaken from the faith in which he had been brought up by better knowledge, he sought infor mation rather than safety, and doubted without believing.

There approached one who had prayed for him oftener than Gueslin ever did for himself. Pastor Joseph wore the coarse cloak and lambskin bonnet common to the mountain shepherds. The winter storm and summer sun had beaten on his brow, and left their traces; but there was visible the calm and lofty thought that had found truth through many strivings, and counted all things but loss for the knowledge and service of his Lord. Ever since the plague first broke out in the valleys, he was kno u among their churches as one of the ancient order of barbes, or pastors, whose chosen vocation it was to journey wherever their ministrations were most required. For ages before Luther preached had these fearless and faithful missionaries kept the lamp of truth burning in the remote corners of France, Italy, and Germany, to which Romish persecutions had driven the Waldensian brethren. By far the greater number closed their career in martyrdom; but successors were always found for the work, though few so gifted or famous as pastor Joseph. If he had another name, none but the Constants knew it. Their father had adopted him as a brother, twenty years before, when he came a stranger to the Shepherd's-rest; ever since the family had called him uncle. He had laboured first with Jacob Constant, and then alone as a missionary.

In the order they were wont to keep when de

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