Note.--Having had the opinion of my friends, the commissioners of the Walloon Synod, upon my MS. and this having been thought too bright a picture of the Vaudois morals by one of those gentlemen who had never visited the valleys, I thus replied to one of them:--"I am not surprised that my picture of the manners of my countrymen should appear to you too highly coloured. But if you had lived some years among these excellent people, as I have done, and then in a country where the corruption of manners is as great as it is here, and in the towns in Switzerland, you would not think so. For, although we may be degenerated from the purity of our ancestors, I protest to you, that it is only those parishes immediately adjoining to Piémont which have incurred this reproach. In all the rest, their kindness of heart, frankness, benevolence, and zeal for religion, would enchant you. I have more than once visited all the parishes, and have resided in most of them, being acquainted with a great many of their inhabitants; and, by all this experience, I am confirmed in the belief that there does not exist, in our days, a people in morals so pure, life so irreproachable, and piety so exemplary, as the Vaudois."* * The author's sister is still living in the valleys, and is the wife of one of the most exemplary pastors.--T. CHAPTER VI. ON THE DISCIPLINE OF THE VAUDOIS CHURCH. That the Vaudois have preserved until the time of the Reformation the doctrines of the primitive church, as described in the epistles of the Apostles, has been acknowledged by Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, and Æcolampadius, in the different letters which they addressed to our ancestors. And it was by their advice that the latter relaxed somewhat from the ancient severity of ecclesiastical government, fearing that it might estrange persons otherwise desirous of embracing their belief; and others, who having fallen into error, preferred abjuring their creed to exposing themselves to the shame of public punishment. I cannot think, however, that these changes have proved advantageous, and Melancthon himself confesses, he cannot disapprove of the former strictness, and wishes it had been adopted in the Protestant churches. It is certain that the total abolition of all discipline among the latter has been pernicious to good morals. Let us examine the methods taken by the Vaudois to preserve them uncorrupted. Public Worship, &c.