Last month readers were given the testimony of a converted priest whom I met while in Italy in September. This month I would like to give a more systematic account of my visit.
The friends who meet in Fornaci di Barga are still very few, but Emelia and her mother appreciate any opportunity they get of hearing the gospel. The first night that I called at their house Emelia was speaking about how difficult she found it to be different from her relatives. She said, however, that she could do nothing but be different; it was the Lord’s work to give her a desire for salvation, and to bestow that salvation on her.
On the first Sabbath morning it was only the two women who were at the meeting. However, it was a happy time, and Emelia’s mother said that she preferred it when there were few. If there were anyone there who contradicted what was said, she found it upsetting. Emelia said she could understand that, but on the other hand if others came to hear the word they could gradually come round to be of the same mind as themselves. When we spoke about the various experiences of Jacob’s life, Emelia agreed that a child of God passes through many changes. She said that, when reading Ecclesiastes 3:1ff, she had thought to herself, Yes, and a time to receive grace and a time to feel our need of grace: we need both, and the one is a preparation for the other.
In previous articles reference has been made to Giorgina and Arturo Mazzei, who are friends of the Canpani family. They were both at almost all the meetings that were held during this visit. One evening Arturo was talking about ‘our religion,’ meaning the Roman Catholic religion. Emelia said that she could not from the heart speak of it as ‘our religion.’ She then listed some aspects of it with which she took issue in a spirited way, and ended by saying that it was a source of boredom and annoyance to use the rosary; but to speak for hours of the things of the Bible was no sacrifice. She did it willingly and joyfully.
But although Arturo Mazzei spoke as he did about ‘la nostra religione,’ it seemed to me that he was much less in love with it on this occasion. One evening after I had left, he asked Emelia at what time I would be returning the next day; evidently he did not wish to miss an opportunity to discuss the word of God. This feeling of dissatisfaction with the RC Church is in fact, one gathers, quite widespread. Emelia said that, when she was in hospital some months ago, she heard the other women discussing the Church, and the general attitude seemed to be that the Church was a racket, a money-making business. Also, Emelia’s mother had come in contact with a man from the other side of the village with whom she had discussed religious matters. He said that the Protestants were much closer to the Bible than the Roman Catholics and that there were many things wrong with the RC Church. She offered him a Bible and he took it willingly.
Apart from the increased interest of Arturo Mazzei, the visit to Fornaci went much as the previous ones did. The most interesting part of this last trip was a visit to see Franco Maggiotto, referred to at the beginning of this article. I had heard of him earlier in the year, and had since been in correspondence with him. I went to see him after the first weekend at Fornaci.
Franco lives with his wife and two year old daughter in a small flat at Spotorno. This is a small town on the Italian Riviera about 160 miles from Fornaci di Barga, and about 60 miles east of the French border. It was a Wednesday when I arrived. I stayed till the Friday morning and during that time I was able to find out a lot about this remarkable man, and to hear of the gospel work he is doing in his native land. I heard about his leaving the RC Church about 10 years ago around his thirtieth birthday, of his going for some months to Holland, of his coming over to England afterwards and training at the college of the European Missionary Fellowship at Watford. I also heard how Franco returned to Italy almost four years ago with Aurora, a converted Italian whom he had married while at Watford, and began his work at Spotorno.
Franco says that there are about fifteen believers now in the area around Spotorno. They meet for Bible Studies and for more formal services in one or other of the homes belonging to members of his congregation. The first night that I spent in Franco’s home I met two of the men from this group. One was a very clever young man, a doctor of geology who was doing research work at the University of Genoa. The other man was a shop owner from a few miles away who had been converted from a life of open sin and complete irreligiosity. His name is Pierluigi. They had come to help Franco with the production of pamphlets for distribution — not in the writing of them, but in the operation of the duplicating machine.
The next morning Franco and I went out to visit a number of his people. We called first at Pierluigi’s shop. When our host had finished doing business in his voluble way with some salesman or other, he came through to the back where we were and his sister made coffee. Here I had the first experience of how Franco’s people spoke with deepest earnestness about the basic doctrines of Scripture. I have never heard them expressed in a fresher way. Trying to explain to me man’s inability to save himself, this grocer and general merchant reached one hand behind his head, took hold of his shirt collar and pulled it upwards. ‘We cannot save ourselves any more than we can lift ourselves up by pulling on our own shirt collar,’ he said.
After a little, Pierluigi’s mother came back from a shopping expedition to the market. A lively conversation on the basics of true religion ensued.
‘But we also believe in God,’ this elderly Roman Catholic asserted.
‘Ah, but you only believe in him in a vague sentimental way,’ said Franco. ‘God has revealed himself to us in Christ; that is the only place where we can find God. If we believe in God apart from the gospel, it is only a god of our imagination that we believe in. There is a difference between children who are orphans and those who have their mother. The orphans know that they must have had a mother, but they do not know her. The other children not only know that they have a mother, they really know her for themselves.’
Eventually we left Pierluigi’s, and as we went through the narrow streets of Finale Ligure we passed one of Franco’s elders and stopped to give him a lift. Mario is the foreman in a factory and he was glad of the lift which gave him a minute longer at home during his rushed lunch-time. In the end it was a lunch which he shared with Franco and myself. When we went in the front door and passed through a large living-room to the kitchen, Franco mentioned that the services were often held in that room. Seated at table, I was busying myself with the rice and tomato juice placed before me when Mario’s wife quietly slipped a question about the visitor in Franco’s direction: ‘Is he reformed?’
Franco had been awake for most of the night because of a troublesome cough his little girl had. So after Mario had gone back to work Franco went through to another room to lie down. It was an opportunity to hear this lady’s experience from herself.
‘How did you come to know the truth?’
‘I was a very fervent Catholic, especially I was a devoted worshipper of Mary. I continued like that for years, until we began to receive leaflets distributed by the Brethren — the gospel of Matthew and also tracts. When I read these I began to think deeply. Eventually I left the Catholic Church and went with the Brethren and accepted their doctrine. But I did not find satisfaction while I was with them. There was never any mention of the sovereignty of God and there was no sense of sin among them. It seemed that man was able to save himself whenever he pleased. Then I met Franco, and really he has been a gift of God for me. I had never heard the pure gospel before then. To me he is like another Paul. Then I became really founded in the Scriptures and there is no other foundation.
It was a time of real fellowship, but as we came away Franco pointed out the scene of something no so pleasant. The place, below Mario’s house, where Franco had found his car tampered with after a previous visit and where, as he had gone to inspect the damage, he had been set upon himself. Providentially a car had driven past and his attackers had been frightened away, though leaving him with an injury to his back.
That evening Pierluigi came again and also Achile. The latter is the father of the young geology student. He also is a gifted man who until recently held a responsible post as a designer to a firm producing photographic equipment. He retired early and lives off his pension in order to help Franco with the secretarial aspects of his work.
That night I heard about Pierluigi’s conversion. He had been hearing about the way of salvation for five months: then one night he was searching the Bible and praying, but at the same time near to despair. He knew that he could not do anything, then suddenly he came to see that Christ had died for his sins. It was really a revelation, like the switching on of a light.
That day I also heard from Aurora what her experience was. Like Mario’s wife she had been a fervent Roman Catholic, but a Baptist minister had come to her village and her father had taken some tracts.
‘After a while he began going to these meetings, and then a while later my mother began going too. They were trying to get me to go, but there were no other young people from our village going and I did not want to go. Then after a time I did go, and the first thing that struck me was the words of the text, written in big letters in the church, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ It was then I began to see that everything is in Christ. After a time a few other young people went as well and we used to go out together. We went on the beaches and everywhere with tracts. We were full of zeal but we hardly knew anything. That minister was very Arminian; he did not teach us deeply the doctrines of the Bible. Really, I think that if he had taught us we might have done something, but the church is very small now because it was not built up. I always remember hearing a teacher of that church taking a class of children of about 6 years and teaching them about faith. The children were actually told, “We must force ourselves to have faith”.’ It was only after going to England that Aurora came to understand deeply the doctrines of grace. As regards the situation in Italy she went on to explain:
‘The mentality of the Italian is governed by the teaching of the RC Church. So that if you say to an Italian that he must “accept Christ,” what it means to him is that this is something he has to do in order to merit salvation. Perhaps for you in Scotland, if you say that people must accept Christ, they know that this is something they cannot do of themselves because they have a background of teaching. But here in Italy if you say to people that they must do something they think of salvation by works immediately, whereas it does not depend on us but on the will of God before we were born.’
On the Friday morning Aurora’s mother appeared. An elderly widow, not very well because of a heart condition, she lives with a son who is a communist. But she is a cheerful Christian. When I went to the station she came with me as the train would take her part of the way back to her son’s house. As we approached the station she said,
‘I am in Egypt where I am. There is nobody there, nobody. I wish I could be near some of the people of God.’ Franco said, ‘Perhaps you are in Egypt to do a work for the Lord.’
‘Me? What do I do? I don’t do anything.’
Standing at the station she spoke of praying always to the Lord for a blessing on those around her (no doubt she was thinking of her son) and added, ‘But perhaps it is not the will of God that we should see the answer to our prayers in our lifetime.’
— ‘But the prayers of the godly remain before His throne, although they may not be answered immediately.’
‘Oh yes, they are there as incense before Him.’
Leaving that family, I was overcome by a sense of the wonder of what I had seen. Italians in Italy talking of the things of God among themselves. Strangers and pilgrims, walking on the way to Heaven. It seemed to me so evident that the Lord himself had been their teacher: ‘This is the doing of the Lord and marvellous in our eyes.’ J.T.
(To be continued)