Produced by David Widger AUTHENTIC DETAILS OF THE VALDENSES MILNER'S CHURCH HISTORY OF THE VALDENSES, IN PIEMONT AND OTHER COUNTRIES WITH ABRIDGED TRANSLATIONS OF "L'HISTOIRE DES VAUDOIS" PAR BRESSE, Illustrated by Etchings "Vous etes de nos peres que nous ne connaissons pas." Reply of a Vaudois peasant to an Englishman. 1827. "The Waldenses are the middle link which connects the primitive Christians and fathers with the reformed, and by their means the proof is completely established; that salvation by the grace of Christ, felt in the heart and expressed in the life by the power of the Holy Ghost, has ever existed, from the time of the Apostles to this day, and that it is a doctrine marked by the cross, and distinct from all that religion of mere form or convenience, or of human invention, which calls itself Christian, but which wants the spirit of Christ." CHARLES, LORD BISHOP OF LLANDAFF, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY PERMISSION, WITH AN EARNEST HOPE, THAT THE CAUSE OF PURE CHRISTIANITY, AND THE DISTRESS OF HER PROFESSORS IN A DISTANT COUNTRY, MAY OBTAIN SOME ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE FROM ONE MORE HUMBLE EFFORT TOWARDS THEIR SUPPORT. HISTORICAL DETAILS OF THE PAST SUFFERINGS OF THE VALDENSES, AND OF THE STATE OF THESE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS IN PIEDMONT AND OTHER COUNTRIES After the late interesting publications of Allix, Jones, Gilly, Acland, and other writers, it may appear at the present time somewhat presumptuous, as well as unnecessary, to lay before the public any further details connected with the history of these excellent and primitive Christians; but as some of the Vaudois manuscripts and works are very scarce, and but little known in England, more particularly those of Peyran, Henri Arnaud, and Bresse, it may be desirable (even under the certainty of many repetitions) to give some short extracts from these curious documents, if only with the view and under the hope of keeping alive in the breasts of the people of this favoured isle that charitable zeal, which has again manifested itself, and is of such vital importance to the political and religious welfare of our noble though impoverished protestant brethren. As the Valdenses most evidently are a part of the dispersed flock of the original Church of Christ, it becomes a matter of the highest interest to trace out their history from the earliest periods, and to observe how sedulously under the severest persecutions they have not only upheld their faith in its own purity and truth, but how gloriously they have continued to resist the growing corruptions of the Romish faith.