the flower of the Piedmontese dominions-are sent forth but to what? To repeople their Valleys? To rekindle the fire on their ancestral hearths, and cultivate their native fields? To rebuild the "holy and beautiful house" in which their fathers had praised God? Ah, no! They are thrust out of prison to be sent into exile-to Vaudois a living death. The persecutor had loosed their chains, but with the cruel resolve that Vaudois soil should never again be trodden by Vaudois foot.

The former barbarity was repeated. It was the depth of winter (December 1686) when the decree of liberation was published, at which season the ice and snow are piled to a fearful depth on the Alps, and almost daily tempests threaten death to the traveller who would cross their summits. It was at this season that these poor captives, emaciated by sickness, weakened through hunger, and shivering from insufficient clothing, were commanded to cross the Alps. They began their march at five in the afternoon of that very day on which the order for their liberation arrived-for so their enemies commanded-and not fewer than a hundred and fifty died on their first journey. A

night they halted at the foot of Mont Cenis. Next morning they pointed to a snow-storm that was gathering, black and ominous, on the summit of the mountain, and prayed that, for the sake of their sick and aged, they might be allowed a little respite. The officer in charge, with heart harder than the rocks, ordered them to proceed. That troop of emaciated beings began the ascent, and soon they were struggling with the blinding drifts and fearful whirlwinds of the mountain. Eightysix of their number dropped by the way. Where they dropped they died, and where they died they were buried. None were permitted to remain behind to succour them. That ever-thinning procession moved on over the white hills, leaving it to the snow to give burial to their stricken companions. When spring opened the passes of the Alps, alas, what ghastly memorials met the eye of the traveller! Strewed along the road were the now unshrouded corpses of these poor exiles, the dead child lying fast locked in the arms of the dead mother. Oh, unpitying Rome! the wolf that suckled thee is a verity and no fable.

But why should we prolong this harrowing tale? The first company of these miserable exiles arrived

JOURNEY ACROSS THE ALPS.

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at Geneva on Christmas-day, 1686. All winter, small parties continued to cross the Alps, being let out of prison at different times; and it was not till the end of February 1687 that the last company reached the hospitable gates of Geneva. But in what a woful plight!-way-worn, emaciated with sickness, and faint from want of food. Of some, the tongue was swollen in their mouth, and refused its office; of others, the arms were withered with the cold, and they could not stretch them out to accept the charity offered them; and some there were who dropped down and expired in the very gateway of the city, "finding," as one has said, "the end of their life at the beginning of their liberty." Generous, indeed, was the reception given them by the city of Calvin. A deputation of their principal citizens, headed by the patriarch Janavel, who still lived, went out to meet them on the frontier of their State; and, taking them to their homes, they vied with one another which should shew them the greater kindness. Generous city! If he who shall give a cup of cold water to a disciple, in the name of a disciple, shall not lose his reward, the kindness shewn by thee to these perishing outcasts shall not be forgotten. In that

awful approaching night, when the angel shall pass through the land of Papal Europe, as through Egypt of old, and shall smite all its first-born and execute judgment upon all its gods, may he remember thee in thy kindness to the Vaudois, and pass over thee, and not come in unto thee to smite thee!

RESOLUTION TO RETURN.

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CHAPTER XIX.

San Martino-The Beturn.

Exiles Resolve to Return-Moral Grandeur of the Resolution-Begin their March-Traverse the Valley of the Arve-Cross Mont Cenis -Great Victory in the Valley of the Dora-First View of their Mountains-Worship on the Mountain's Top-Enter their Valleys -First Sabbath at Prali-Cross the Col Julien-Oath of Sibaud - Driven Back to the Balsile-Surrounded by the EnemyMiraculously Fed during Winter-Return, in Spring, of French and Piedmontese Armies-Assault and Repulse of the Enemy— Final Assault by Cannon-Miraculous Deliverance of the Four Hundred-Overtures of Peace sent them-Final Re-establishment -Narrative of Visit resumed-Ancient Mill-The Syndic's House -Great Passet-Marks of Cannon-wheels-Another Mill-Marks of Conflict around the Balsile-Fertility of Valley-Old MSS. -Cannon-balls often found at the Balsile.

WE now open the bright page of this history. It was now nearly three years since the arrival of these exiles in Switzerland. The Swiss strove to make their sojourn as little unpleasant as that of exiles could be; but, like the captives in Babylon, they wept when they remembered the Zion of their