The Vaudois of Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphiné also, originally sprang from our val-lies, and when their numbers had increased greatly at Lyons, they were persecuted by the Archbishop of that city, Jean de Belle Maison, about 1180, and retired into Picardy, under Peter Valdo, where they received the name of Picards. Here Philip Augustus, king of France, resolving to extirpate them, caused 300 gentlemen's houses to be razed to the ground, because the owners had embraced the tenets of the Vaudois. Forced again to leave their newly found country, these Picards, or Vaudois of Lyons, (also called poor of Lyons,) retired principally into the United Provinces of Holland, and there spread the knowledge of the truth. It was in the Low Countries that the Vaudois first took the name of Walloons, and that the first confession de foi (articles of belief) was drawn up by the celebrated martyr Guido Brez. This confession was first printed in 1561, addressed to Philip II. of Spain, in 1562; it was confirmed by the synod of Anvers, 1585, and finally adopted by that of Dordt. The above is sufficient to prove that the Vaudois church is the parent of all those which have arisen in Protestant Europe, and particularly of the churches of the United Provinces, as well Dutch as Walloon. Why do the Roman Catholics and the Protestants mutually hate each other? Why do they look upon each other with harshness and severity? It is, because instead of going to the source of their religion, the gospel itself, they content themselves with examining those streams, of which the waters have been rendered impure, by the admixture of human opinions: it is because they appeal to the confessions of faith of the heads of their sect or party, instead of seeking what really constitutes the essence of the Christian faith, and what ought to be the rule of our faith and practice, by means of the specific declarations of Jesus Christ and his apostles. It is because they generally adopt self-interest for their guide, instead of shielding themselves under that universal spirit of charity, without which there can be no real Christianity, and because they entirely forget that religion does not consist in words, but in virtue. The nature of my employments, and the interest of the great cause which I serve, have often called forth my reflections on the evils it has been my task to describe; and however earnestly I have searched for remedies, as well as for the discovery of their origin, my meditations have continually brought me back to the same point. Let it be remembered that it is a Vaudois who speaks, a Vaudois, who, like his countrymen, absolutely recognizes no other religion than that of Christianity, and who believes that the unhappy distinctions of Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Calvinists, &c. &c., have done a thousand times more harm to the cause of the gospel, than all the manouvres of the wicked and unbelieving.