Cross and crown; or, The sufferings and triumphs of the heroic men and women who were persecuted for the religion of Jesus Christ

Front matter

DAVID O. MCKAY LIBRARY

3 1404 00576 9119

DATE DUE

Preface

^HE spectacle of human beings suffering for the truth is the sublimest sight that can be witnessed on earth. In the providence of God this has been the means of strengthening and spreading the very principle which has at times seemed to expire with the martyr. It was thus with Christianity in the days of the primitive Church, the history of which is an almost unbroken record of martyrdom. The proudest and most fruitful triumphs of that Church were won at the stake, in the arena, and on the scaffold. " In this conflict," said the great Napoleon, summing up the triumphs of the religion of Christ, "all the kings and all the forces of the earth were arrayed on one side. Upon the other I see no army, but a mysterious energy, individuals scattered here and there, in all parts of the globe, having no other rallying sign

than a common faith in the mysteries of the Cross On

the one side we see rage and all the furies of hatred and violence ; on the other there is gentleness, moral courage, infinite resignation. For three hundred years the spirit struggled against the brutality of sense, the conscience against despotism, the soul against the body; virtue against all the vices. The blood of Christians flowed in torrents. They died kissing the hand which

slew them. The soul alone protested, while the body surrem dered itself to all tortures. Everywhere Christians fell, and everywhere they triumphed."

As it was with primitive Christianity, so it was with Protestantism, the rcasscrtion of the great and simple truths of that pure epoch against the errors with which the Roman Church, for its own selfish ends, had obscured the faith delivered by our blessed Saviour to his Apostles, and by them to the early Church. The precious heritage which we enjoy of Gospel truth and religious freedom was won for us by our fathers with blood and suffering. Papal Pome, following the example of her Pagan predecessor, struggled fiercely to crush the truths which the Reformers, after much labor, succeeded in rescuing from the dungeons of superstition and ignorance, to which they had been consigned. Pome, conscious that her pretensions were not sustained by the Word of God, had taken the Bible from the people, and had hidden it so effectually that she thought herself safe for all time; and it was a task of the greatest difficulty for the Reformers to regain possession of that blessed charter of oar religion and make it free to all men. In defence of a free Bible they went to the stake gladly, counting themselves happy to suffer persecution and death so that those who survived or came after them might enjoy the rights purchased with their blood, In all the countries of Europe the fires blazed, and the groans of the martyrs went up to God, but everywhere the princi] for which they died have triumphed. To-day Protestantism is the controlling influence in the world. The Great Powers (including our own free land) which control the destinies of the world by the sword are Protestant ; the nations whose ships cover every sea, and bring the countries of the earth into closer and more binding relationships with each other are Protestant; the nations whose institutions are freest and most substantial, and in which the greatest amount of individual comfort and happiness is experienced, are Protestant; the intellect of the world is Protestant, civil and religious freedom are Protestant, the printing press is Protestant, the public schools are Protestant, the capital which controls the great monetary and industrial enterprises of the world is Protestant ; the great mining enterprises, the founding of colonics and the peopling of new worlds — in short, all those things which go to make up what men call the " glories of the nineteenth century, the great era of prog? -ess and enlightenment," are Protestant.

They are the results of the labors and the sufferings of the noble men and women of the Reformation, who lived and died to win religious freedom and an open Bible, to break down the barriers which Rome had placed in the path of free thought and mental expansion, and to open the way for the fulfilment of man's true destiny. Had they failed in their efforts, had the Bible remained a sealed book, we of to-day would have been still in the depths of mediaeval superstition and barbarism. The tyranny of Rome made man a mere beast of the field. The Reformation gave him the Bible, which taught him that he was the child of God, the heir to the most glorious of promises, and by raising him to a true conception of his dignity and power, made it possible for him to fulfd his noble destiny.

It is fitting then that the story of the sufferings of those to whom we owe so much should ever be kept in remembrance, because it is by watching these trials that we can best understand the principles of which they were the assertion. There is, however, a tendency to ignore these things, and to regard with disfavor any attempt to call attention to the martyrdoms of the Reformers.

There never has been a time, however, when a proper appreciation of the spirit and principles of the Reformers was so necessary as at present. Among a certain class of Protestants there is manifested a strong desire to revive many of the errors against which the martyrs protested with their lives, to sacrifice all the substantial results of the Reformation. The author of the persecutions, the great disseminator of error, the Church of Rome, still survives, and holds the same policy it pursued in the days of our fathers. In our own land, and in England, circumstances have compelled it to present itself in a purer and better form than in lands where its authority is undisputed, but its policy is still the same, and those who control it are men ignorant of our institutions and the spirit of our people, and hostile to them. The Church of Rome in America is directed from Italy, by men unfitted by education, aspirations, and mode of thought to control an American institution. Already it has begun, stealthily and with great adroitness, its attacks upon our institutions. It has struck openly at the Bible, and would banish it from every household if it could. It has exerted itself to destroy our public school system, and openly declares its hostility to any system of secular education. It is seeking to enrich itself by the acquisition of property, and is constantly interfering in our political questions by influencing the Roman Catholie vote in favor of those men who will sustain it in its aGrgressions. It is aiming at political power, with the avowed object of breaking down the institutions which Americans regard as the strongest bulwarks of their liberty — the free Bible, the freepress, and the free school.

These things are true, and it is no argument against them that the people of the Roman Catholic Church are American citizens. The danger is real. The Roman Catholic Church is not an American institution — it is a foreign establishment which has been introduced among us, and which has no sympathy with our institutions or our national spirit. The principle upon which every American Church stands immovable, and upon which our Constitution itself rests, is the right of every man to read and examine God's Word for himself, and to interpret it by the standards of his own judgment and conscience. The Church of Rome utterly repudiates this right, sets up the decrees of its councils and the bulls of its popes, and requires implicit obedience to them on pain of damnation, punishing disobedience to them with persecution wherever it is strong enough to do so ; and these bulls and decrees extend to things temporal as well as spiritual. The mass of the members of that Church in this country are people of foreign birth, as yet unimbued with the American spirit, and accustomed to hear the priest before the magistrate. They are ignorant, and very many of them have DO opportunity of improving their condition. Yel were they all learned and native born, the case would hardly be different. The Church is a different thing from the people. The Chtlrch sets itself up above them, and insists on unreasoning obedience.

Its allegiance is not due to the law, but to an infallible Pope, whose mandates arc above the civil law. Tie must be blind, indeed, who cannot seethe danger which must attend the intrigues of such a Church in this country.

The question arises, how can this danger be met and averted? By proscribing the Roman Catholic Church, or by persecuting its members? That indeed would be to commit the very crime against which the Christian religion is a protest. The true remedy is this. Let us acquaint ourselves so thoroughly with the principles of the Reformers that we may be able to make them our guides through life, and to defend them from the attacks of Rome and its allies — those u degenerate sons of worthy sires" who are doing the work of Rome under the guise of Protestantism, and who, as one of the most zealous of the Romish clergy has well said, carry a Romanist heart under a Protestant gown. Let us strive to make intolerance and cruelty odious ; let us hold fast to our open Bible ; let us maintain our noble free school system, and discountenance all efforts to give to it a denomi national cast; let us keep out of political power all men who are the sworn subjects of a foreign potentate; let us keep the line drawn deep and wide that separates the Church from the State; let us bring into our daily life, and live up to them, those4 great principles of the Reformation which arc the very basis of our civil and religious freedom, and we need not I'lwv for the future.

There is need however that we should understand these principles, and that we should live up to them. This is a Protestant country, and we must keep it so. It is time thai we knew better than we do what the Reformers clul for us, what they died to maintain, and what it is that Rome seeks to wrest from us. We can learn this only from a study of their lives and doctrines.

The present work is offered to the public in the hope of supplying a portion of this need. It does not claim to be a History of the Reformation, nor a series of complete biographies of the Reformers. The great German movement is not embraced in this recital, the object being not to present a History of the Reformation, but to call attention to the most vital principles of the Protestant cause, and to impress these principles on the mind of the reader by the relation of some of the most striking instances of Protestant martyrdom, and the instances given are those which are most likely to attract the general reader by the beauty and dramatic interest of the subject. The work is divided into three parts, each separate and complete in itself, and yet all bearing upon the main design of the volume. The story of the Vaudois Christians, the Huguenots, and the English Church is first told concisely and as briefly as possible, so that ;:i each case the narrations of individual martyrdoms may be the better understood by the reader. It is believed that enough lias been written to accomplish the object already stated, and it is hoped that the work may be blessed in its effects upon the minds of its readers.

No effort has been made to plead the cause of any particular denomination. The cause is that of Christ and His Church — a cause dear to every Christian of whatever denomination. Xeither is this book designed as a partisan attack upon the

Church of Rome. The history of the Protestant Church is a series of facts, and these have been stated without partiality, and that they present Rome as the enemy of the truth is not the fault of the writer.

Why should not we dwell upon the memory of the heroes of our Church ? We erect statues and monuments to the patriots who gave us our civil freedom, and we are never weary of recounting their deeds or uttering their praise. Why, then, should we not tell the story of the brave and patient Christian men and women who died for our religious freedom, who gave us the Bible at the cost of their lives, and who brought Christ back to us as our personal Saviour and friend ? A nobler, sweeter, and more solemn story is not to be found in all the range of history, or one which appeals to us more directly or powerfully.

Let us then cherish the memory of these Saints of the Protestant Church, let us make their names as household words, and when our children ask us of them, let us tell them with thankful and reverent hearts the sweet story of their lives, and so prepare those who are to come after us to hold fast that which our fathers won for us with their blood.

J. D. McC, Jr.

Contents

PABT I.

I. HISTORICAL SKETCH DF THE VAUDOIS CHflBGH

Description of the Vaudois Valleys — Origin of the Vaudois Church — Constitution of that Church — Its Ministry — Its Kitual — Its Creed — Early History — Hostility of Rome — Growth of the Papacy — The Vaudois refuse to submit to the Romish Church — First persecutions of the Vaudois— The Pope proclaims a crusade against them — The trials ,of the Church — The Era of the Reformation — Efforts of Rome to destroy Protestantism — Terrible sufferings of the Vaudois — John Louis Paschal — The Jesuits — Hostility of the House of Savoy to the Vaudois — War declared — The Count of Trinity enters the Valleys — The Roman Catholics commit their women to the protection of the Vaudois — The Solemn Covenant — Sufferings of the Valley Christians — Battle of the Pra del Tor— The Vaudois victorious— Return of Peace — The Priests harass the Valleys — War with France— The Plague — Death of the Pastors — Aid from Geneva — Efforts of the Jesuits — Fresh persecutions — The Propaganda — A barbarous edict — The flight to the mountains — War in the Valleys — Exploits of Janavel — Baseness of the Roman Catholic army — The4' Piedmontese Easter" — Massacres of the Vaudois — Horrible Scenes — Protests of the Protestant Powers <jf Europe — A hollow peace — Capture of the whole Vaudois population — Banishment of the Vaudois — The "Glorious Return " — The Exiles cross the Alps and regain thoir Valleys — Siege of the Balsille — A noble defence — Escape of the garrison — Peace — The Vaudois allowed to return — Perfidy of the Duke of Savoy — The Duke and the Pope — The French Revolution — Napoleon protects the Vaudois — The Restoration — Renewed sufferings — Justice at last — The law of 1848 — Great rejoicings — Scene in Turin 19

THE MARTYRS OF VAL LOUISE .113

JOAN MATHURIN 159