In His name. A story of the Waldenses seven hundred years ago

Front matter

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Introduction

This book was first published in 1873. Its circulation has been constantly extending in America and in Europe. It has been translated into French, and a cheap edition published in the French language for circulation in France.

A new and cheap edition is now called for to meet the demand foi the book in the Look up Legion.

The Look-up-Legion was founded in the winter of 1874 by Miss Mary A. Lathbury. It has branches in all parts of the Union. Among the Chinese and in Europe it adopts as its emblem a Maltese cross as seen on the title page of In His Name with the four mottoes of Wadsworth Club on the arms of the cross. The mottoes are,

Look up and not doum.

Look forward and not back.

Look out and not in.

Lend a hand.

They express the central realities of a Christian life, Faith, Hope and Love.

The Wadsworth Clubs, of which the Look-up-Legion is far the largest, began with the publication of the book called Ten Times One is Ten, in the year 1870. In the summer of that year the first Wadsworth Club known to me was founded. It was the Club of Harry Wadsworth Helpers, established by Miss Ella Russell in the city of New York.

From that time to this clubs have been established in difierent parts of the world, so that I believe now all the continents in the world and the islands of the Pacific ocean have their Wadsworth organizations. These organizations have different names, such as In His Name Club, Chicago Club; The Clover Leaf ; The Harry Wadsworth Helpers; The Lend a Hand, which is a favorite name; The Look Out Guards; The Ninth Presbyterian; The Old and New; The Ten Times One is Ten, and the Wadsworth Quartette. But very much the largest one is the Look-up-Legion.

EDWARD E. HALE.

Boston, Nov. 15th, 1881.

Chapter I. Felicie

Felicis was the daughter of Jean Waldo. She was the joy of her father’s life, and the joy of the life of Madame Gabrielle, his wife. She was well named Felicie, for she was happy herself and she made everybody happy. She was a sunbeam in the house, in the workshops, in the court-yard, and among all the neighbors. Her father and mother were waked in the morning by her singing ; and many a time, when Jean Waldo was driving a hard bargain with some spinner from the country, the mere sight of his pretty daughter as she crossed the court-yard, and the sound of her voice as she sang a scrap of a hymn or of a crusading song, would turn his attention from his barter, and he would relax his hold on the odd sols and deniers as if he had never clung to them. By the same spells she was the joy of the neighborhood. The beggars loved her, the weavers loved her, she could come and go as she chose even among the fullers and dyers, though they were rough fellows, and there was nothing she could not say or do with their wives and children. When the country spinners came in with their yarn, or the weavers with their webs, they would wait, on one excuse or another, really to get a word with her ; and many was the rich farm in the valley to which Felicie went in the summer or autumn to make a long visit as she chose. Felicie was queen of her father’s household and of all around.

On one of the last days in December, Felicie was making a pilgrimage, after her own fashion, to the church of St. Thomas of Fourvieres. The hill of Fourvieres is a bold height, rising almost from the heart of the old city of Lyons. And Felicie liked nothing better than a brisk scramble to the top, where, as she said, she might see something. This was her almost daily 44 pilgrimage.” She gave it this name in sport, not irreverent. For, as she went, she always passed by old women who were making a pilgrimage, as they do to this hour, to the church of St. Thomas (now the church of 44 Our Lady”), which was supposed, and is supposed, to have great power in saving from misfortune those who* offer their prayers there. Felicie in passing always looked into the littlechurch, and crossed herself with holy water, and fell on her knees at an altar in a little chapel where was a picture of St. Felicie lying on theground, wth a vision of Our Lady above. The Felicie who was not a saint would say “Ave Maria” here and 44 Our Father who art in heaven,” and would wait a minute upon her knees, to 44 see if her father had anything to say to her ” ; and

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then would cross herself again, and, as she passed the great altar, would kneel once more, and so would be out in the fresh air again.

This was almost an every-day occurrence. On this day Felicie waited a little longer. Among a thousand votive offerings in the church*, hung there by those who were grateful for an answer to their prayers, she saw to-day two which she had never seen before. They were pictures, — not, to tell the truth, very well painted. But to Felicie, the finer or coarser art was a matter of very little account. Each of them represented a scene of preservation in danger. In one of them, a young girl, hardly older than Felicie herself, was to be seen, as she safely floated from a river which bore the ruins of a broken bridge ; in the other, a young knight on horseback received unhurt the blows of five terrible Saracens. The Holy Mother could be seen in the clouds with a staff on her arm, turning off the lances of the Paynim. Felicie looked a moment at ' this picture, but long, very long, at the other.

The disaster which it represented was one which the girl had seen herself, and which had made upon her an impression for her life. Only the year before, Richard the Lion-Hearted and Philip Augustus of France had come to Lyons together, each with a splendid retinue of knights and other soldiers, on their way to the crusade, The Archbishop of Lyons was then really an independent prince, and with all the dignity of an independent prince he had received the two kings. There had been much feasting. There had been a splendid ceremony of high mass in the cathedral, and at last, when the two armies had recruited themselves, it was announced that they were to take up their march to the Holy City. Of course all Lyons was on the watch to see the display. Some were in boats upon the river ; some were waiting to see them cross the bridge ; some walked far out on the road. Girls with flowers threw them before the horse of the handsome English king, and priests in splendid robes carried the banners of the churches and sang anthems as they went. And all Lyons, young and old, was sure that in two or three short months this famous host would be in the City of our Lord !

Alas, and alas ! Hardly had the two kings themselves crossed the bridge, and a few of their immediate attendants with them, when, as the great crowd of towns-people pressed in upon the men-at-arms, all eager to see the show, they felt beneath their feet a horrid tremor for one moment, and then — first one length of the bridge, and then, in terrible succession, two others, gave wav, and the whole multitude — soldiers, horses, men, women, and children — were plunged into the Rhone below. The torrent was fast, and swept the ruin of timbers and the mass of struggling people and beasts down in horrible confusion. The boatmen on the river did their best to rescue one and another, but were themselves in danger almost equal fco that of those who were struggling in the water. The kings turned their horses and rode to the shore, but were as powerless as children to help or even t* command. And so, in one short hour, this day of glory and of victory was shrouded as in clouds of darkness.

It seemed a miracle, indeed, that only a few were drowned in the chaos ; but of those who were rescued, many were maimed for life, and there was

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not a bouse in Lyons but bad its own tale of danger and suffering.

Tbe picture wbicb Felicie stopped to look at in tbe cburcb of St. Thomas represented this calamity, and tbe preservation, by what was called miracle, of Gabrielle L’Estrange, a god-child of Felicie’ s mother. For herself, Felicie had seen the breaking of the bridge from the safe distance of her eyrie on the mountain. The girl had wisely seen that even her father’s good-will could not do much for a child like her in the crowd. She had declared her determination to see the wThole ; and while others went into the streets to see the armies pass them, Felicie had perched herself on the very top of the hill Fourvieres, where she ! could see every company join in the cortege, where she could hear the blast of music come up to her from the plain.

As she sat here, as the army began to cross the river, the girl had been instantly conscious of the great disaster. She could see the companies in the rear break their ranks and rush towards the stream. She could see the dust of the ruin rise above the river, and could hear the hoarse shouting of people screaming and commanding. She had guessed what the calamity was, and had hurried home to meet only too many stories of personal sorrow. Before night they had known how Gabrielle had been nearly lost, and how she had been saved. And all the mingled memories of that day of glory and of grief came back to Felicie again, now that she saw the picture of her playmate’s preservation.

She left the little church, crossing herself again with the holy water, a little more thoughtful than she entered it. The “ problem of evil ” crossed her mind; and she asked herself why the Virgin should interpose to save Gabrielle, when others were left to perish. But she did not ask this with bitterness. She knew there was answer somewhere. And as she climbed yet higher up the hill, and came out on the glories of her eyrie, the wonders of the winter prospect — more beautiful than ever, as she thought — swept away all memories of death or sorrow or doubt ; and the child wrapped her thick shawl round her, as she sat beneath the shelter of a friendly wall, with the full sunlight blazing on her, to wonder for the thousandth time on the beauty of the panorama beyond and below.

There are who say that no view in F ranee can equal it ; and I am Sure I do not wonder. At her feet the cheerful city lay between the rivers Saone and Rhone, which meet here, just below her. The spires and towers of the cathedral and the churches, even the tallest columns of smoke, as they rose in the still air, were all far, far below the girl on her eyrie. Beyond, she could see at first large farms with their granges, their immense hay-stacks, their barns, and their orchards. She could pick out and name one and another where at the vintage and at harvest she had made pleasant visits this very year. Further, all became brown and purple and blue and gray. Sometimes on a hill she could make out a white church tower, or the long walls of a castle, — just some sign that men and women and happy girls like herself lived there. But Felicie’s eye did not rest so long on these. Far above and still beyond — O how far beyond ! — was her “ old friend,” as the girl called Mont Blanc. And to-day he had his rosy face, she said. The sunset behind her was making the snow of the mountain blush with beauty. And* nothing can be con-

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ceived more dreamy and more lovely than this “ vision,” as Felicie called it, which even she did not see five times in a year from her eyrie ; and which many a lazy canon and abbot, and many a prosperous weaver like her father, and many a thrifty merchant in the town, had never seen at all.

“ Good-evening, dear old friend,” said the girl, laughing, as if the mountain could hear her ninety miles away, — “ good-evening, dear old friend. You are lovely to-night in your evening dress. Will you not come to my Christmas partj^ ? Thank you, old friend, for coming out to-night to see me. I should have been very lonely without you, dear old friend. There’s a kiss for you ! — and there ’s another ! — and there ’s a feather for you, and there ’s another ! ” And she threw into the west wind two bits of down, and pleased herself with watching them as they floated high and quick towards the mountain in the east. “ Good-by, dear old friend, good-by. Mamma says I must be home at sunset. Won’t you speak to me? — no matter; all the same I know you love me. Good-by ! good-by ! ” And so she tripped down, thinking to ' herself as she went that everybody and everything did love her, which was very true ; thinking that for her, indeed, God’s kingdom seemed to have come, and his will to be done on earth as it was in heaven. And the shadow, if it may be called a shadow, of the horrors depicted in the church of St. Thomas was ail swept away.

Down she tripped again by the open church, and one after another beggar at the door blessed her as she said, u God bless you.” Down she tripped by the convent walls, and wondered how the gardens within could be half as beautiful as the world without. And she wondered! if the sisters here climbed up the belltower and looked off on the eastern horizon to see her old friend, and whether they knew how friendly he | was to those who loved him. Down she tripped by one zigzag path and another, known to her and to the goats and to none beside ; and so, before j the sun was fairly down, she had nodded to Pierre the weaver, and I had stopped and spoken to Ronet j the dyer, and had caught up and kissed the twin babies who could | hardly tottle along the road, whom Marguerite the wife of young Stephen 1 was leading along ; she had said a j merry word to half the workmen | and half their wives, and had come I into the court-yard, and had pushed back the stately heavy oak door, and j stood in the hall of Jean Waldo’s comfortable house.

Her mother came running out from ; the kitchen wing to meet the girl. And Felicie ran up to kiss her as she entered, as was her pretty way. And Mistress Gabrielle thought, as i she had thought a thousand times, that nobody in the world was as pretty as Felicie, and also that Felicie never i had looked as pretty as she did at j that very moment. This also hac* j Madam Gabrielle thought a thousand ! times before. The girl’s tightly-fin j ting tunic was of fine white woollen. But the cape, as in those days the mantle began to be called, also ol woollen, was of the brightest scarlet, and, as she had wound it round and j round her head, she became a Red Riding-Hood indeed. Her cheeks j glowed with life and health as she came running in from the frosty air, and the sharp contrast of her dress was none too bold for a complexion so brilliant. It was the very imper* sonation of life and joy.

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“ Felicie, my child, I have been asking for you. It is St. Victoria's night, you know, and I am giving to them all their Christmas medicine.”

“ Medicine for me, my dear mother ! ” And truly the child seemed to need medicine as little as the larks.

“ Of course, dear Felicie. Has there ; been a midsummer or a Christmas since you were born in which I did not give jTou your medicine ? And so is it, thanks to the blessed Virgin and to St. Felicie, that you are so fresh and so well. I have given to your , father and to all their men their geni tian. I have given to all the women their St. Johnswort, and here is a nice new bottle of the mixture of lavender and rosemary, which I brewed for you when you were away with the j Landiys. I have it all waiting."

Felicie knew by long experience that there was no good in argument. Indeed the child was too much used to doing what her mother bade to make argument at any time. This was but a gulp or two of a disagreeable taste, and she knew there would be waiting a honey-cake and an orange after it. So she kissed her mother, ran up-stairs and put away | cape and wimple and girdle, and came down-stairs singing : —

i My lady came down from her pretty gay room,

In the hall my lady sat down ;

Her apron was heaped with the roses in bloom,

And her fingers braided a crown, crown, crown!

And her fingers braided a crown !

“But, mamma ! how much there is of it. I never had so much before ! ”

“ Darling, you are older now. You have passed your second climacteric.” Mistress Gabrielle could be learned when she chose.

“ But, mamma, it tastes horridly. It never tasted so badly before.”

“ Dear child, drink it right down. Here is your orange, to take the taste away. Perhaps it is a little stronger than we have made it. The leaves were the very best I ever saw.”

And the dear child made a laughing face of disgust, and then gulped down the bitter mixture as she was bidden.

But then all light faded from her face. With agony such as her mother never saw there, she screamed, “ O mamma, dear mamma ! — it burns me, it burns me ! — you never hurt your darling so before ! ” And with sobs she could not repress, she hid her face in her mother’s besom, crying out, “ O, how it burns, how it burns ! ”

Mistress Gabrielle was frightened indeed. She tore open the orange, but there was little comfort there. She sent for oils and for snow, and for cold water from the very bottom of the well. But the child’s agony seemed hardly checked ; and though with a resolute will she would choke down her groans that she might not terrify her mother, it was impossible for her to check the quivering from head to foot, which was a sign of the torture of mouth and throat and stomach. Mistress Gabrielle called for Jeanne and Marie, and they carried the poor child to her bed. They put hot cloths upon her. They warmed her feet and her hands. They made smokes of gums and barks for her to breathe. They tried all the simple and all the complicated arts of the household. One and another neighbor was hurried in, and each

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contradicted the other, and each advised.

One or other of the more powerful applications would give a moment’s relief, but only a moment’s. Tears which she could not check would roll down Felicie’s cheek to show her inward torture, and that terrible quiver which Mistress Gabrielle learned to dread so horribly would come in with every third or fourth minute. Once and again she had sent for Jean Waldo, her husband. But none of the lads could find him. Night had closed dark around them, and he did not return. It was then that she took the responsibility which she had never taken before, and sent for the young Florentine doctor, whose shop, next the cathedral, attracted the wonder and superstition of all the neighborhood. “ Bid him come, Adrian, on the moment! Tell him that my daughter is dying, and that he has not a moment to lose. For the love of Christ, beg him to come on the in stant.” Dying ! The word struck new terror in the whole panic-swayed household. Everybody had been in distress, but no one had dared think or say that the darling of them all* but just now so strong and so happy* could die ! Least of all had Mistress. Gabrielle permitted herself to think it. But now all her pride was gone. Niobe before Apollo was not more prostrate. She knew that if the Florentine was to render any help, it must be rendered right soon. And so, with a calmness of despair at which she wondered herself, she sent word to him that her daughter was dying.

Chapter II. Jean Waldo

Giulio, the Florentine doctor, came down the street with the boy who had been sent for him, and with a blackamoor who bore a great hamper which contained his medicines and his instruments. As they rapidly approached the doorway they overtook Jean Waldo himself, slowly walking up the street. Till they spoke to him, the father was wholly unconscious of the calamity which had fallen on his child.

If you had told Jean Waldo that afternoon, as he sat in the Treasurer’s seat at the guild-meeting, that, in after times, his name of Waldo would be best known to all people, in all lands, because his kinsman, Pierre Waldo, bore it, he would have been much amazed, and would have taken you for a fool. Kinsmen they were* \ there was no doubt of that. Nobody could look on their faces — nay, even j on their eyes or their beards, or on j the shape of their hands or their fin- \ ger-nails, and not see that there was I near kindred between them. “ We are both from the valley of Vaud,’r Jean Waldo used to say when peeple j questioned him. But he was not ' pleased to have them question him. :;j He had taken good care not to mix ;i himself up with Pierre Waldo’s her- | esies. “ Why does he want to trouble S himself about the priests ? ” said Jean j Waldo. “ Why does he not do as I do ?

I take care of myself, and I let other 3 people take care of themselves. Why i cannot Pierre Waldo, my kinsman, >, if he is my kinsman, do as I do?”

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Al^d so Jean Waldo went on in his prosperous way. He squeezed down the spinners who brought yam to him. He squeezed the weavers who brought him webs. He kept a good company of the best workmen in his shops, and he had forty looms of his own, with his own weavers. He put up linen cloths for market more neatly and handsomely, the traders said, than any man in Lyons, and so he prospered exceedingly. “This is what comes/’ he said, “ of minding your own business, and letting other people’s business alone.”

Pierre Waldo, the kinsman of whom Jean spoke with such contempt, and who is now remembered in all the world where the Christian religion is known, had been a prosperous merchant in Lyons. But Pierre Waldo was not one of those who went to mass only because the priests bade him. He went to the mass because God had been good to him and to his, and he wanted to express his thanks. He was glad to express thanks as other people did and where they did. He had always had a passion for reading, for in his boyhood his mother had taught him to read. And when, one day, a parchment book came in his way, which proved to be an Evangelistary, or copy of the Four Gospels, in Latin, Pierre Waldo began to try to read this, and with wonder and delight which cannot be told. Father John of Lugio, the priest whom he knew best, an honest man and an humble priest, was willing to help Pierre as he could about the Latin. And there was not so much difference in those da}'s between Latin and the Romance language which half Pierre Waldo’s customers used, that he should find it hard to make out the language in which the book was written that so excited him . When Father John saw how much pleasure Pierre Waldo took in such reading, he was glad to show to him, in the church and in the vestry, other parchments, in which were Paul’s letters and the Book of the Revelation. And at last Pierre had seen the whole of the Old Testament also, and he and the good priest had read some parts of the Old Law.

Who shall say whether this knowledge of the Bible could ever have come to anything with Pierre Waldo, but for a terrible incident which made its mark on liis whole life ? He and the other merchants of his section of the town used to meet each other very often at little feasts, in which they showed their hospitality and wealth at the same time, in the elegance of the service, the richness of the food, and in the choice of the good old wine. A party of them were together one night at such a feast in the house of Robert the Gascon. They had eaten a hearty supper. The wine had passed freely, and one of the company, a favorite with all of them, had sung a love song such as the romances of the day were full of. The glasses clattered in the applause, and one and another of the guests bade him sing it again. But for some reason W alter, the singer, declined. The moment he said “ No/’ William Jal, an old and near friend of Pierre Waldo, who was sitting at his side at the table, rose and said, with a loud laugh, “You shall sing it, Walter ! ” And he brought his fist down on the table , and with this terrible oath he went on, —

“ By God, you shall sing it, Walter, or I will never taste wine again ! ”

Hardly had the awful words left

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his mouth when the expression of his face changed in sudden agony. He seemed to try to balance himself at the table for an instant, and then fell dead upon the floor.

From that moment Pierre Waldo was a new man. In the night of horror which followed this scene of mockery and revel, in his wretched efforts to comfort the widow to whom they carried the cold corpse home, and the poor children who were waked from their beds to look upon it, — in that night of horror Pierre W aldo had chance to look forward and to look backward. And he did so. From that time forward his reading of the Gospel was no mere literary amusement. He copied it for his own use ; he translated it for his neighbors’ use. He found that other men, anxious and pious, had already felt as he began to feel, — that all the people had a right to parable, to psalm, and to the words of the blessed Master. One after another of his customers brought him, from one and another town where they travelled, bits of Paul or Matthew or Luke which had been translated into the vulgar language. Pierre Waldo’s home and his warehouse became the centre of those who sought a purer and simpler life. For himself, after that dreadful night with the fatherless children and their mother. Pierre W aldo said he would give all he had to the poor. Whoever was in need in Lyons or in the country round came to him for advice and for help, and they gained it. If they came for food, they had food — always they found a friend.

Almost all the company of merchants who were with Pierre on that night joined him in this service of those that were in need. The company of them began to be called, and called themselves, the “ Poor Men of Lyons.” They had no new religion. Their religion was what they found in the Saviour’s words to the young nobleman, to Peter the fisherman, and to Mary Magdalene. And so taken were they with these words, that they read them to all who came for help to them, and were eager to copy them out in the people’s language, and give the copies to all who would carry them into the country.

Almost at the same time, Francisco of Assisi was moved in much the same way to give up all he had to the poor, and to preach the gospel of poverty. If these two men had come together ! But it does not appear that they ever heard each other’s names.

No ! At that time Lyons was governed wholly by the great religious corporation w'hich was known as the Chapter of St. John, under the Archbishop, who was in fact a Prince, and as a Prince governed the city and the country at his will. When he found that the merchants were entering on the business of distributing the Scriptures and reading them to the people, the Archbishop and the Chapter forbade it. The “ Poor Men of Lyons ” must leave that business to the clergy.