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The following is am except from J A Wylie's comprehensive and enlightening historical account of the Waldensian Christians of Europe. If you do not know of these people, or your understanding of them is limited to a few random negative commentaries, then read on, and perhaps you may, hopefully you will, and read the whole book, and awaken to some historical realities that could just change your life, and your appreciation of the power and purposes of God for mankind.
THE Waldenes stand apart and alone in the Christian world. Their place on the sufrace of Europe is unique; their position in history is not less unique; and the end. appointed them to fulfill is one which has been assigned to them alone, no other people being permitted to share it with them. The Waldenses bear a twofold testimony. Like the snow-clad peaks amid which their dwelling is placed, which look down upon the plains of Italy on the one side, and the provinces of France on the other, this people stand equally related to primitive ages and modern times, and give by no means equivocal testimony respecting both Rome and the Reformation. If they are old, then Rome is new; if they are pure, then Rome is corrupt; and if they have retained the faith of the apostles, it follows incontestably that Rome has departed from it. That the Waldensian faith and worship existed many centuries before Protestantism arose is undeniable; the proofs and monuments of this fact lie scattered over all the histories and all the lands of mediaeval Europe; but the antiquity of the Waldenses is the antiquity of Protestantism. The Church of the Reformation was in the loins of the Waldensian Church ages before the birth of Luther; her first cradle was placed amid those terrors and sublimities, those ice-clad peaks and great bulwarks of rock. In their dispersions over so many lands–over France, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, England, Calabria, Naplesthe Waldenses sowed the seeds of that great spiritual revival which, beginning in the days of Wicliffe, and advancing in the times of Luther and Calvin, awaits its full consummation in the ages to come.
THE Waldenes stand apart and alone in the Christian world. Their place on the sufrace of Europe is unique; their position in history is not less unique; and the end. appointed them to fulfill is one which has been assigned to them alone, no other people being permitted to share it with them. The Waldenses bear a twofold testimony. Like the snow-clad peaks amid which their dwelling is placed, which look down upon the plains of Italy on the one side, and the provinces of France on the other, this people stand equally related to primitive ages and modern times, and give by no means equivocal testimony respecting both Rome and the Reformation. If they are old, then Rome is new; if they are pure, then Rome is corrupt; and if they have retained the faith of the apostles, it follows incontestably that Rome has departed from it. That the Waldensian faith and worship existed many centuries before Protestantism arose is undeniable; the proofs and monuments of this fact lie scattered over all the histories and all the lands of mediaeval Europe; but the antiquity of the Waldenses is the antiquity of Protestantism. The Church of the Reformation was in the loins of the Waldensian Church ages before the birth of Luther; her first cradle was placed amid those terrors and sublimities, those ice-clad peaks and great bulwarks of rock. In their dispersions over so many lands–over France, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, England, Calabria, Naplesthe Waldenses sowed the seeds of that great spiritual revival which, beginning in the days of Wicliffe, and advancing in the times of Luther and Calvin, awaits its full consummation in the ages to come.