for the Protection of Religious Liberty.

noxions part of those attempts, al though to some poor congregations, in parishes where the rates were high, and the assessments were excessive, the additional burden might be great. The principles and the vexatious tendeney principally produced their antipathy and inspired their opposition. The exposure of the trust deeds, the developement to vulgar curiosity and to hostile magistrates, of every part of the receipts and expenditure of Dissenting and Methodist congregations, were evils hitherto unknown, and not to be permitted with unresisting acquiescence. Two further attempts, in addition to four previously made, to compel the assessment of Surry Chapel, had been therefore repelled by the Committee at considerable expense, but with continued success. They had again availed themselves of the legal ignorance and professional inaccuracy of these domestic persecutors, who, in April last, for the sixth time, had been again defeated; and although their unworthy efforts would be renewed, the Committee hoped that such antagonists would not even finally prevail. A cheap but able pamphlet, entitled " "Religious Freedom in Danger by Parochial Assessments," published on the subject by the Rev. Rowland Hill, and the profits of which he had dedicated towards the reimbursement of the large expenditure of the Committee, it was therefore their duty, from interest as well as from inclination, to recommend, and thereby to add their tribute of praise to the plaudits which upon that publication the Evangelical and Eclectic Review ers, and other enlightened men, had not delayed to bestow.

DOMESTIC PERSECUTION had, in another form, also required the Committee to interpose. At the request of" The Association for the Counties of Hants and Sussex," prosecutions against some rioters at MIDHURST, in Sussex, had been commenced. Under the patronage of that active and useful Association, public preaching had been beneficially introduced into that populous, but ignorant and neglected town. Opposition attended on their labours. They adopted usual and wise precautions, to prevent public disturbance. Their precautions were ineffectual. Public worship was interrupted, and at length, they were compelled to apprehend five

persons, who, on March 27, were excessive in their violence and tamultuous proceedings. They then entreated the protection of the Committee. Against those five persons the Committee, therefore, preferred an indictment at the Petworth sessions, in April last. The indictment was found;-four defendants entered into recognizances, to appear for trial at the next sessions. One, who was in custody, was immediately tried, was convicted, sentenced to pay £40, and being unable immediately to pay the amount, was committed to the county prison until the same be discharged.

Other and more remote PERSEGUTIONS had also awakened the sympathy, and the zealous exertions of the Committee. He alluded to the sufferings of the PROTESTANTS in the South of FRANCE. But, as all the Resolutions of the Committee and their statements upon that subject, had been extensively circulated, and had excited some difference as to the extent and nature of the conduct to be adopted, even among those whom habit, and principle, and affection, usually united in opinion and in efforts; that was a topic on which it would be superfluous and improper to enlarge. It was only requisite to correct the conclusions of any persons who supposed that the Committee were destitute of information, as they had received communications, expressive of ardent gratitude, from more than one hundred Protestant Congregations throughout France; or that, because the Committee did not approve of immediate and extensive collections, they were disposed to abandon those whose protection they had most usefully assisted-whose affectionate acknowledgments they had received whose situation they continued vigilantly to watch, with a solicitude that could not be surpassed-and for whom they were ready to make any exertions and any sacrifices which necessity could require, philanthropy and Christianity could suggest, discretion could permit, and the sufferers should really invite.

--

The PERSECUTIONS equally remote, most distressful, and admitting not only of commiseration, but of certain relief, of the VAUDOIS or WALDENSES, had also appealed to the hearts of A 2

ity,

--

under the Government of the Dukes of Savoy,
Kings of Sardinia, their lawful Masters, are thir
teen in number, situate in three vallies, bor.
call them, which separate France from Piedmont,
dering upon the monutains, or the Alps, as we
on the side of Haut Dauphine, namely Bobi,
in the valley of Luzerne; Barnotin, St.Germain,
Villa, la Tour, Saint Jean, itoras, and Angro zue,
Prancel, and Pomerat, in the valley of Perouse;
Ville Seche, Maneille, and Prai, in the valley
chapeis of ease.
of St. Martin; these three latter churches having

the Committce, and deserved the ever, the satisfaction to state, that the attention of every friend to human- Committee had, on the preceding to the Protestant faith, to day, received a written assurance from the rights of conscience, - to the religion of Jesus CHRIST. The Resolutions of the Committee, already communicated to the Meeting, superseded the necessity of much further explanation. The History of the Ancient Waldenses, from whom the present Vaudois claim to be descended, from their origin, many ages before the general Reformation, to the close of the 17th century, had been recently published in two valuable volumes, by Mr. WM. JONES; and their modern History and the Situation of the afflicted Vaudois, in the autumn of 1814, a brief Memoir, by a Clergyman of the Church of England (the Rev. Mr. SIMS) had, with much energy, pathetically detailed *. - He had, how

* For more general information, the following extracts from leaters, received from respectable Ministers of the Vaudois churches, are selected from other most interesting letters, received by the Committee; but which, by their length, are unavoidably excluded from this Report.

Copy of a Letter addressed to Mr. JOHN WILKS, from the Rev. Messrs. PEYRAN and ROSTAING, Moderator and Secretary to the Erangelical Vaudois Churches, in the Vallies of Piedmont.

Sir,

Pomaret, near Perouse, Province of Piguerol, in Piedmont, the 31st January, 1816.

but

The pastors of these thirteen churches were who, from a principie of charity, knowing that formerly stipendaries of His Britannic Majesty, the people of these vallies were poor, and that their Sovereigns did nothing for them, was gra ciously pleased to permit them to feel the effects of his generosity, and had them each paid aunn ally the sum of 400 livres of Piedmont: They have attributed this loss of His Britannic since the year 1797 none has been received. Majesty's bounty to the long and expensive war which Great Britain has bad to wage against a Government which appeared desirous of enslavsolemn treaties: for the pastors are unconscious ing all Europe, and made a sport of the most of having been guilty of any thing offensive to his Majesty, or to, the magnaninions nation to general feel a partiality approaching to venerawhich you belong, for which, indeed, they in tion. We had the honor to address ourselves, about eighteen months ago, to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, intreating him to do as the benefit of representing our sad and pitifully miserable situation to his Majesty. We do not know whether our humble petition reached French were masters of our country, the French kim, but we have had no reply. Whilst the Executive Commission of Piedmont, having conceived that the number of Catholic priests in the

It

vallies were too numerons for the small number of Catholics resident there, suppressed part of their livings, and appropriated to us the little benefit attached to them for our support. The wisest and most prudent of us would have Mr. Rostaing, pastor of Ville Seche, has wished other measures, less odions, to have been received the letter which you did him the honor adopted, and measures by which we might have to address to him, under date of the 10th of been less exposed to subsequent ill-will; but we December last. He delivered it to me as his were obliged to accept what was conceded to us, chief,-1 having the honor to fill the same situa- or to die of hunger. The King, our master, was tion that I did before the Revolution deprived no sooner re-established in his States, by the us of our princes, namely, Moderator of Churches of the Vallies of Piedmont, known by the and perseverance of the generous English nation, the protection of Great Britain, and by the valour name of the Vaudois Churches. We cannot sum than we found ourselves deprived of the little ciently thank you, Gentlemen, for the proofs of advantage that had been conferred on us. kindness and Christian charity which yon therein was pretended, contrary to all reason, that the give as. "The Protestant Society for the Protection livings had deteriorated in our hands, and we of Religious Liberty,' of which you are one of the were subjected to long and disagreeable law-suits. worthy Secretaries, has given plain demonstra. His Majesty, who is personally benevolent, ad tion of the existence of the true spirit of Chris- vised by ministers devoted to the clergy of the tianity in Great Britain. To that happy conn- Catholic church, had the temple of St. Jean shut try, where law and order prevail and govern, and up (it had been built at great expence within which has produced a Bacon, of Verulam, Locke, this ectamune) under a pretext that there existed Newton, Clark, Tillotson, Wake, and many an edict of the year 1639, prohibiting the Proother eminent men, no less illustrious for their testant inhabitants of that commune from having virtues than their extensive knowledge!- to that a temple, although in former times one had been happy country I say, it was reserved to hold out erected. We were then without resource, — we to the world the example of universal toleration, appealed to the known bounty and justice of the and to make it in a manner a distinguishing sign King, we implored him to be graciously pleased amongst them. May honor and glory attend that to put us upon the same footing with his other generous nation, which shelters with its powerful subjects-to admit the Protestants to fill all civil protection the cause of the nafortunate, and pre- situations for which they were competent, and Rents to all Europe an example which cannot fail especially to grant to the pastors of the vallies to have the greatest influence upon the measures the means of subsistence. Ilitherto all our repreof all governments! sentations, our humble petitions and supplica tions, have been vain and fruitless. We have been able to obtain nothing, owing to the power and induence of the Catholic clergy, who bave

As the Society is desirous of learning what passes in our vallies, we have the honor to inform you, sir, that the Vaudois churches, living

for the Protection of Religious Liberty.

5

LORD LIVERPOOL, that the Lords of ribute to their aid; they would the Treasury had directed the investi- invite all wise and good men to gation of their complaints, and of the reasons why the allowance which, for a century, had been transmitted from British liberality, had been with drawn. The result of that investigation he could not permit himself to doubt. The restoration of pecuniary aid from the British Government he would venture to anticipate; and he would also cherish a hope, that sach patronage would promote their enjoviment of all those civil and religious rights of which by ignorance, intolerance, and injustice alone they could be deprived. But if those hopes should be disappointed, the Committee would then redeem the pledge which they had given:- they would con

not became more olerant than in former times; and for these last eighteen months we have been without any salaries. Such amongst us as have no fortunes, as is the case with those who have the nouor to write to yon, who are the poorest amongst the pastors, are in the most miserable situation, destitute of every thing, and utterly un ble to send their soas to Geneva, or Switzerland, for stady, so as to be able hereafter to officiate in our churches, which are consequently in danger of being bereft of ministers, unless, in the generosity of our powerful British protectors, we find some relief. Do us the favor, Sir, to present our most respectful homage to your respectable President Mr. Mills, as also to your worthy associate, Mr. Pellatt; and believe us to be, with the sincerest and most lively gratitude and profoundest esteem, Sir, your very humble, most obedient, and respectful servants,

J. ROD. PEYRAN,

Pastor at Pomaret, and Moderator of the Vaudois Churches. ALEX. ROSTAING,

Pastor at Ville Seche, and Secretary to the said Evangelical Vaudois Churches, in the Vallies of Piedmont.

Another Letter from the Rev. P. BERT, Minister of La Tour, dated Feb. 9, 1816, after relating the Ancient History of the VAUDOIS, and the benefits which they had derived from the interference of Cromwell, and the liberality of William the Third and Queen Mary' of happy memory,' thus states the situation in which they were compelled to exist.

imitate the conduct which the best and wisest of their forefathers have displayed, and to collect a fund which should permanently mitigate their ills,-should preserve their widows from famine, and their Ministers from despair,--and should cause their children and their children's children, amid their glens—and dells— and rocks, scarcely pervious to a foreign foot, in their humbie churches and their hours of prayer, long to continue to repeat the praises and the prayers which their parents had so often uttered, that God would ever bless with peace and with prosperity our native, but to them this distant and protecting land!

They were subject to rigorous conditions. Very confined limits were prescribed to them, and they became shat up in the vallies of Lusseinc, Perouse, and St. Martin, with the adjoining communes of Prarustin and Rocheplate. They were permitted to exercise their religion; but their churches having been demolished, there were some communes in which they were interdicted from building more. That of St. Jean, in particular, which still possessed a church in 1704, was obliged to build one at nearly a league distance, in Angrogne, as well as a presbytery and a school for the children of the cominune of St. Jean. The pastor of that church was forbidden to perform any of the duties of his ministry there, excepting the visiting of the sick, and all the

children were obliged to be conveyed to An-
grogue to be baptized. Moreover, this pastor
was never allowed to pass the night or sleep in
this commune. As a mournful example we can
mention pastor Appia, who, being overtaken by
a storm at his own farm in St. Jean, was obliged
to pass the night upon a chair, and the next day
he was accused by the Fiscal, and imprisoned;
and was exculpated only by proving that he had
not transgressed the law. These measures cer-
tainly principally affected the commune of St.
Jean, but other persecutions were also felt
throughout the Vaudois. The vallies of Lusserne
and Perouse, formed by the streams Pelis and
Clason, were not permitted to afford a tranquil
asylum to the poor Vaudois: for they were pro-
hibited from inhabiting or possessing land in the
principal villages and hamlets in several of the
communes in these vallies; nor were they allow.
ed to fill any civil offices. They were neither
allowed to be Secretaries of the communes, nor
Justices, nor Advocates, nor Professors of Medi-
cine. Some few offices of notary were granted
by favour, but upon condition that they only
prepared deeds for those professing the Pro-
testant religion. The municipal administration
of the communes of the Vaudois was regulated
in the same spirit. The Catholics always com-
posed three-fifths or two-thirds of the municipal
counsel; and as in some of the communes there
were no Catholics, they either imported them
from neighbouring communes, or else elected
mendicants and vagabonds to occupy those situ
ations, and excluded persons of property and
character, of hereditary fortune, and undoubted
worth. This state of things lasted until the inva-
sion of Piedmont by the French, in 1798.

Other grievances more or less afflicting, they were compelled to undergo, at the caprice of tics, or ill-intentioned men, and by the carrying some Catholic curates, or superior civil fana

off some children, and of a considerable number
in vain reckimed.
of young Vaudois females, whom their parents

Pied

despoiled our King of his continental states, and
Such was the state of things when the French
made themselves masters especially of
mont. There was then no longer any difference
between the Vaudois and the other Piedmontese :
But because the number of the Protestants in
our communes exceeded the Catholics in the

proportion of about eleven to one.-It appeared
justices and clerks of our own communion, and
to some that then a partiality existed. We had
our boundaries were extended; and this novelty,
injury inflicted on the Catholics. How power-
80 strictly just in itself, appeared to some an
fully does the habit of authority subvert the judg
ment!

But the scene has changed, and truth impels the avowai,-Whatever subject of complaint we might have against the Government of Napoleon -complaints which we participated in common with the other subjects of Buonaparte we had gained too much, on the score of civil and religious liberty, not to be aware of our advantages. The downfal of this too celebrated man made To one of these Letters many authentic and interesting documents were subjoined, and the following Statement of the Protestant Population in the 13 Vaudois Churches in Piedmont.

The total population of the churches of the Vaudois in Piedmont, which for the great certainty in the circulation is perhaps under-rated, is from 16 to 18,000, that of the Catholics is nothing in seine communes, varying in others, but always in a very inferior proportion.

for the Protection of Religious Liberty.

foils. Even in England, hostility appeared to accompany success in the diffusion of knowledge and of gospel truth. The progress of religion excited local, clerical, magisterial, judicial antipathies, which could not but be perceived and deplored; and tendencies to persecution, under certain forms, were even manifested by those from whose doctrines and professions might have been expected far different deeds. But whatever forms Persecution might assume, or whereever it may exist, the Committee would never fail to unmask its deformity, and to resist its attempts-as long as they were supplied with the means from general co-operation, and as long as their energies were invigorated by general support.

R.STEVEN, Esq. the Treasurer, then confirmed the necesssity for the extension of that general support, as, on his Annual Statement of the Accounts of the Society, he was compelled to announce That the EXPENDI TURE of the Society, during the past year. had more than DOUBLED the amount of the RECEIPTS.

These statements were succeeded by the following RESOLUTIONS, which were adopted with unanimity and enthusiasm:

"1. THAT this Meeting, firmly attached to the great and invaluable principles of Religious Liberty, on which this Society was founded, and which they have often avowed, have learnt, with unfeigned regret, that those principles have not been justly respected throughout Italy and France; and recommend to their Committee all that unabated vigilance in exposing and resisting their violation, which circumstances may require, and prudence may approve.

2. THAT their particular interest and commiseration are excited by the situation of the Vaudois, or Waldenses, in the vallies of Piedmont; and that although they receive, with some satisfaction, the assurances of Lord Liverpool to the Committee, that their case shall experience the attention of the British Government, they express their hope, that the Committee will watch over their future security and welfare, and will endeavour to procure for them

pecuniary relief, from public liberality, if the necessary assistance should not be otherwise obtained.

3. THAT the disturbances of public worship, and the disregard of the acts and true spirit, even of toleration, which continue to occur, demonstrate to this Meeting the continued importance of this Institution, and induce them to renew their pledges to confer their recommendation and support.

4. THAT this Meeting regret the want of success, which attended on the efforts of Government, to obtain An Act for the Exemption of Places of Religious Worship from Parochial Assessment, and especially on account of the causes and consequences of the failure of that attempt; but they approve the exertions which have been made in the case of Surry chapel, to resist all illegal violations of public right; and offer their thanks to the Rev. Rowland Hill for the firmness and perseverance which he has displayed, and for the able publication, in which he has exposed the evils of such assessments; and especially as he has liberally devoted the profits of that publication to the funds of this Institution.

5. THAT from the Proceedings of the last Anniversary, this Meeting did anticipate, that the Annual Receipts of the Society would have been sufficiently augmented to discharge the Annual Expence; but that as from the Report of the Treasurer, those hopes are disappointed, as continued experience additionally demonstrates the importance of the Society, as it includes within its benefits persons of every denomination, — as the Annual Contribution of Two Pounds cannot be burdensome, even to poor congregations, they express their anxious wish that every congregation, of every sect, should immediately subscribe, and should continue permanent members of this Society.

6. THAT the following five Ministers and five Laymen be appointed Members of the Committee, instead of the Gentlemen who now retire, pursuant to the Plan of the Society :

Rev. Messrs. HYATT

JONES
LEW IS
STODHART
STRUTT