Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/395

Rh girl, when she, seeing no escape between dishonor and death, boldly chose the latter, and breaking loose from the hands of the soldiers, threw herself head foremost from the rock down into the stream which flowed below—“and was killed,” says simply the old historian Gilly. Tradition adds that she sung her favorite hymn as she was carried down the stream.

Similar scenes were repeated, century after century, in one valley after another. But the violence of persecution converted by degrees the peaceful people into warriors. They rose up against their oppressors; they fought with them, and the victories of the little band were often remarkable, over an enemy far superior to them in numbers. These victories, and the weariness of fruitless persecution, obtained for the Waldenses at length a long period of rest, during which they again were able to cultivate their desolated fields, and to maintain their divine service. For although some of their priests permitted themselves to be seduced into apostasy—at least outwardly, by being present at the Catholic mass—yet a considerable number of the people never swerved from their faith. God had intrusted to them “the light which shines in darkness,” and they knew that they must maintain and defend it to the last drop of their blood. The consciousness of this appears with extraordinary clearness in the expressions which are presented of their leaders and Barbes.

Thus, till the time when the great Protestant movement took place in Germany and Switzerland. The Waldenses in the depths of their valleys heard mention made by their returning Barbes, of Zwingli, of