THIS subject is a much more intricate one than one, at first sight, would think. One reason for this is that historians are profoundly at variance as to what really are the historical facts regarding these people.
I. Origin. One common view as to their origin is that they took their rise from Peter Waldo, and his Poor Men of Lyons. Waldo flourished about 1170. Now there is a Waldensian Confession of Faith, and some other documents, which are supposed to belong to this period, 1100-1120. Another work called “The Noble Lesson” is also supposed to be of this period. But some historians aver that after scrutinizing the M.S. of “The Noble Lesson,” its real date is 1400. As for the supposed Confession of Faith (1120), it is held that the later Waldenses affixed these dates to that Confession, because they genuinely regarded these documents as setting forth primitive opinions. Whether these documents were actually in MSS. then or not is therefore difficult to prove.
Again, while perhaps the prevailing view is that the Waldenses (or Vaudois), arose through the labours of Waldo, yet the view is also broached that they form part of the spiritual seven thousand who down the ages from the time of Paul never bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
These witnesses were mainly in secluded valleys and mountain fastnesses, handing the torch down to their posterity to keep it burning. This is quite a credible view. It is further held—and the evidence appears convincing—that two Bishops, Paulinas of Aquileia (d. 804), and Claude of Turin (d. 839) were, (especially the latter), the men who sowed the seed which bore fruit in the comparative orthodoxy and fidelity to the gospel, of these Vaudois, and others, for generations. We must pass by Paulinas, but may briefly take note of Claude. He taught what was in the teeth of Papal dogma. The monks reviled him as a blasphemous heretic. He went about in danger of his life. These valleys of Piedmont were, in time, filled with his disciples,
and these Waldenses preserved the gospel among them “in its native purity, and rejoiced in its light.” While we have specially in view the Vaudois in the Valleys of Piedmont, yet, owing to flight elsewhere or other reasons, there were also many to be found on the West side of the Alps, and in Calembria, etc. We must not, in addition, confuse them with the Albigenses.
II. Their geographical position. It is worth while to study a good map to have a grasp of the situation of these main valleys. The five we name for our purpose correspond to the five fingers. Putting the thumb on Rora, the next is Valley of Lucerne, the next Angrogna, the next S. Martino, the last Clusone with the Valley of Pragelas as its upper reach. At the head of the venerated Angrogna is the famous Pra del Tor, (Meadow of the Tower)—their usual last refuge. It had one practicable narrow entrance—a two-mile gorge. The rest of it was almost impregnable. These Vaudois, like the chamois, knew tracks and vantage-points. In time of need, they could hurl down stones, boulders, etc., on the narrow path below. One pool in the stream through this gorge goes by the name of the “tompie” de Saquet, as a foe of that name was drowned in it. The backbone ridge of the Cottian Alps stretches from Mount Viso in the South to the Jura Range in the North.
This Rora-Angrogna-Pragelas area is our storm-centre. Some thirty persecutions took place in this district and when major outbursts were not occurring, there was no lack of weasels from the “Holy Office” to pounce on these rabbits.
III. Some of the notable events in their history. Here we must cut matters short,—but full accounts of these persecutions can be got in many books. One of these tragedies was in 1400 in the Valley of Pragelas. Many perished. Another was in 1487, after the usual sanctimonious bull was issued by the Pope to crush these “venomous snakes.” The Pra del Tor was a blessed refuge to them at this time. Thick, black fog came rolling down into the gorge already described—followed by countless boulders. The Vaudois got rest for a season from Cataneo, the Papal legate, and his desperadoes.
Then we come to the period of the Reformation when some of their pastors met Farel and Oecolampadius. It was a time of joy. They got good counsel especially from the latter Reformer at Basle. It was needed. In 1560, a Papal thunder-cloud burst on them again, bringing them to the verge of ruin. By 1655, we come to the “Great Massacre.” The “Order of Gastaldo” was a kind of climax to the proceedings. He sounded a trumpet one day to treat for peace. He expressed to them great sorrow for the excesses of his soldiers, but now desired friendship. As a token of loyalty to their Prince, he desired merely one thing, viz., that they would permit one regiment to enter each valley and remain for a few days. The more sagacious of the Vaudois were against the proposal, but were out-voted. The end of the business was the “Great Massacre” of 1655. The Massacre of Glencoe had of course not been perpetrated by this time, but we may regard this one as a Massacre of Glencoe multiplied 10,000 times over. Cromwell, and others, interceded for them. Morland was sent as envoy to the Duke of Savoy. Cromwell was hoodwinked and outwitted. Well did Morland know this. But persecutions were not so flagrant. The Vaudois were left as full of grievances as Lasarus was full of sores. By 1686, the valleys were stripped bare—even the Pra del Tor was deserted. The lamp was extinct.
Between 12, and 15,000 were in gaols and fortresses in and around Turin. Some were granted liberty, and sent by forced marches to Geneva. By 1690, Henri Arnaud—a Great-heart and a Valiant-for-truth rolled into one—led a company back. They endured severe trials and conflicts but at last reached the renowned valleys—the land of their fathers. Peace was concluded with their Prince. Those in jails crawled out and survivors settled down once more in their old homesteads. As a people they were much ostracised, civilly and politically, until much-needed relief came in 1848.
May the Lord visit the descendants of such ancestors, making them as a city set on a hill, as a candle on a candle-stick, and blessing them to be of the salt of the earth!—D. A. MacF.
The late John Campbell, Elder, Glendale.
THE subject of the following notice was born in Glendale over eighty years ago and departed this life on the 12th December, 1936. When, or by what means, the saving change came upon him we are not in a position to say. His life from his childhood was most exemplary so that when the change came it was not so noticeable to others as it would have been had things been otherwise, and he himself would be the last to speak of his own experience. His father, Peter Campbell, was an eminently godly man and one is disposed to believe that the teaching which such a father would give to his family was, in the case of John, blessed at a very early age. When he grew up to manhood, the Lord’s people in Glendale showed the place they had for him, by putting him often to lead the praise at their meetings, a duty which he always performed with solemnity and sweetness.
He married a daughter of the late William Macleod, Borreraig, an elder in the Glendale congregation, and for the long period of fifty-three years they were together, sharing each other’s joys and sorrows and giving the clearest proof that the cause of Christ was their chief concern. Their house had an open door for the Lord’s people, and many a large company who are now in glory had fellowship together at communion seasons under their roof.
Shortly after the Free Presbyterian Church took up a separate position John Campbell made a public profession, which he kept unspotted till his last breath. It was the late Rev. D. MacFarlane who was Interim-Moderator of the Glendale kirk-session at the time, one for whom our friend had the greatest love as a preacher and also on account of the stand he made on the side of Christ. In 1900 he was ordained as an elder in the congregation, an office which he adorned for the long period of thirty-six years.
Though a very intelligent man he had no gift for public speaking, but he will be long remembered in our congregations
on the West, and especially in Skye as a precentor. His voice retained its sweetness to the last, and we have often heard the remark, made by those qualified to judge, that they never heard a man who could “pitch a tune” with such accuracy. Much to the sorrow of the Glendale congregation he was not able to lead the singing in public for some years back owing to failing sight, but when present the sweet melody of his voice could be distinguished in the congregation. He will also be remembered by the Lord’s people as an earnest pleader at a throne of grace. His prayers in public were most orderly and simple, and accompanied with an unction which one could not easily forget.
He was not a stranger to the assaults of Satan nor ignorant of his devices. He was a man who, at the outset, did not get much of what is called “law work” and Satan often made this a handle to harass him, and to make him believe that he had not undergone a saving change. Along with this he had a deep sense of his own inward corruption, which kept him very humble and a constant pleader at a throne of grace. He had also a very deep sense of his responsibility to God, a fact which was vividly brought out in an incident which his wife told me. It was on one occasion when he was getting two of his children baptised, some time before he became a member in full communion. After the first one had been baptised he could not remember the name of the second and had to ask his wife. He explained to her afterwards that he felt such a solemnity in the vows which he was taking that everything else was put out of his mind: Alas! how different from many who take baptismal vows and never realise their solemnity, and forget them almost as soon as they are made.
As an office-bearer he was most conscientious and every duty which fell to him was carried out with meticulous care, and with a punctuality which was to be admired. This was most noticeable at communion seasons, for he would be the first at the church and the last to leave it, at all the services, and no one ever heard a complaint, for to him it was a labour of
love. As he advanced in years he manifested an ever increasing fear that he would do, or say, anything that would bring a reproach on the cause of Christ. In this connection he repeatedly approached us, asking that he be not put up to pray in public, giving as his reason, his fear that through infirmities of old age he might say something that was out of place. The earnestness with which he would plead this favour at times manifested his genuine love for the cause which he followed. In spite of his own fears we have to confess that we never saw reason why he should not be put up to pray in public, but many reasons why he should be put up.
During his earthly career he had his own share of affliction, both in his own person and by the removal of some of his family by death after they had grown up. These things were among the “all things” that were working together for his good, and it was very evident that he was fast ripening for that place where the inhabitant shall not say “I am sick.” In his prayers there was a peculiar nearness to the Most High which made one realise that he was getting a glimpse of the King in His beauty and the land that is very far off. The end, though it was not unlooked for, came rather suddenly.
A fortnight before he passed away he was in church on Sabbath evening. I had been led to speak from the words “Abide with us for it is toward evening and the day is far spent,” and as the night was rather stormy I accompanied him to the end of his own house after the service. His mind was very much on the preciousness of time, and the great sin of trifling with privileges and opportunities. During the week he was in his usual health and in a heavenly frame of mind, and was often heard quoting to himself the truths, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” and “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” On Friday he had a stroke which
rendered him speechless. He continued that way till the Saturday morning of the following week when he passed quietly away to be, we believe, forever with the Lord. “Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven.”
The large concourse of people who gathered to his funeral manifested the respect in which he was held. His mortal body was laid to rest in the local graveyard, where many of the Lord’s people lie, awaiting the time when “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” The Glendale congregation have lost a faithful and humble office-bearer, and a sweet singer in the assemblies of the church militant has been transferred to the glorified throng of the church triumphant, there to sing for ever and ever, the praises of Him who redeemed him and washed him in His own precious blood. Our loss which is very great is his great gain.
We would take this opportunity of extending to his widow and grown-up family our sincere sympathy, and our prayer is that his family would seek and find that Saviour whom their father sought and found.—John Colquhoun.
The late Mrs. Porteous, Vatten, Skye.
TO pen obituary notices of the Lord’s people is a very difficult matter, for one is thus made painfully conscious of one’s own inability to do justice to their memory. It is also painful from the point of view that one is made, more fully, to realise that they are no longer with us and that their place is empty in the Church militant. It is with such feelings that an endeavour is made to write a short notice of the late Mrs. Porteous, Vatten, Isle of Skye.
This Christian lady, who passed away at a very advanced age, on 9th September, 1936, was known far and wide throughout our Church, and when the news that she had gone the way of all flesh went abroad, it evoked feelings of sincere sorrow.
She was born in the parish of Durness, Sutherlandshire, and came to Skye when very young. Her parents endeavoured to bring her up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and of her mother, who was an eminently pious woman, she spoke highly to the last. It was, however, under the preaching of the Rev. Alexander MacColl, while minister of Duirinish, Skye, that she got her first impressions of vital religion.
The writer is not in a position to say what particular portion of God’s Word brought conviction of sin, but she herself used to tell that, under conviction of sin, she was brought back to her earliest childhood, and to the time when she was first conscious of having wilfully sinned. So clear was the sight she got of that incident that she could remember, not only the place where she had been, but the very clothes she was wearing when that sin was committed, a fact which ought to cause men and women to lay to heart that the sins which for the time being they think they have forgotten, will, if unforgiven, stand up clearly before their eyes, when God will put His finger on their consciences at the Great White Throne.
The time of her deliverance came in God’s own time and when she first made a public profession, so much was the truth speaking to her, and such was her joy that the road seemed very short going to, and coming from the public means of grace. The Lord’s people, however, are not allowed to go smoothly through this world. Their experience is that, “they mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble” (Psalm cvii. 26). This was the experience of Mrs. Porteous as the following incident will show. Being under a severe temptation on one occasion, and finding her heart full of blasphemy she was coming to the conclusion that she had never undergone a real change, when one of our ministers called at her house on his way to Struan, in the parish of Braeadale, to hold a service. She went to the service and the minister’s text was, “Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness” (Psalm lxxix. 20). The Spirit of
the Lord was present that night and her bonds were loosed, so that she had a very happy time on her way home, on the lonely road between Struan and Vatten.
One who knew her but casually would be ready to conclude that she was pretty much a stranger to the “ups” and “downs” of the Lord’s people, on account of how bright she seemed to be at all times, but as was hinted already this was far from being the case. She acted on the principle of keeping the bright side to the world and even to many of the Lord’s people, and the dark side to God, rightly maintaining that it was not to the credit of anyone, or to the credit of religion, to parade the dark side before the world, a lesson which many, even of the Lord’s people, would do well to learn.
Between fifty and sixty years ago she was married to the late Mr. William Ford Porteous, a south country gentleman, who died in 1911, and of whom an obituary notice appeared in the November issue of the Free Presbyterian Magazine for that year. Their house was open to the Lord’s people at all times, but especially at communion times. Practically every one of our ministers have been, during communion seasons under the hospitable roof of Vatten House, where they had a practical demonstration of that hospitality which was given to the Apostles by one of old when the Lord opened her heart to “attend unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to look after the comforts of those whom she believed to be the Lord’s people, and many a happy company gathered there from year to year, ever since the communion was first kept in Vatten. The vast majority of them are now in the Church triumphant. Her generosity, however, was not confined to those who gathered in her own house. Many a needy creature could say of her as Paul says of Phebe, “She hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also,” but in these matters she never allowed her left hand to know what her right hand did.
From her earliest years she seems to have imbibed right views of the contentions of the Disruption Worthies, and we
have heard her tell some anecdotes, related to her childhood days, which bear this out very clearly. Being a very intelligent person, and well-read, she had a thorough grasp of the position of the Free Church in 1843, and could give scriptural reasons why she adhered to its principles. When the infamous Declaratory Act of 1892 became law it was not an easy matter to blind the eyes of such a one with the miserable sophistries by which the Declaratory Act was explained away by the so-called Constitutional Party, and when all hope of repealing it was gone, she and her like-minded husband identified themselves with the Free Presbyterian Church, which is in reality the Free Church of Scotland, purged of all the exeresences of the flesh which an innovating majority brought into her, and a pseudo-Constitutional Party remained under. To the stand then made she remained faithful to the last, and would give no place to the many plausible reasons which were advanced by some in order to cause the Free Presbyterian Church to forsake her testimony on the side of Christ. Many an incident she told of the early struggles of the Free Presbyterian congregation in the district through lack of pulpit supply, and alas! on account of the spirit of persecution. Knowing something of the struggles on account of the last mentioned reason we are not at all surprised at the unity and steadfastness which was a marked characteristic of the generation of Free Presbyterians to which Mrs. Porteous belonged, a generation which followed men only as far as these men followed Christ. This was a very prominent trait in Mrs. Porteous’ character and manifested itself conspicuously to the last.
Although advanced in years the end came rather suddenly. For some years back she had been staying with her daughter, Mrs. Mackenzie, Portree, but was coming every summer to Vatten House where she would remain till after the communion, which is on the fourth Sabbath of August. At the last communion there she remained as usual but said to some of us that this would be her last communion in Vatten. On Sabbath evening on her way to Church she referred to a sermon she heard the previous Friday on the Ladder which Jacob saw at Bethel,
and said that she would like to hear more about the “Ladder.” That evening she took a weak turn in church and had to be taken home but with characteristic love to the courts of God’s House she would not allow anyone to say that going to church had any connection with her illness. On Monday she seemed to be herself again, and showed by her conversation that the cause of Christ was very near her heart.
On the 9th September she appeared to be in her usual and was out for a drive, but shortly before midnight the Messenger came, and in a short while the tabernacle was taken down and the soul of Mrs. Porteous was gone, we believe, to be forever with the Lord. The following Friday her body was laid to rest beside that of her husband in Caroy Churchyard, and the large concourse of people which gathered to her funeral from many parts of Skye manifested the universal respect in which she was held by all classes. The cause of Christ is poorer by her removal, and some of us feel much weaker through being deprived of her pleadings at a throne of grace.
Her place is empty among us and we shall not see her till the heavens be no more. We miss her presence and her prayers, but would seek to rejoice in the belief that our loss is her great gain. We would take this opportunity of extending our sincere sympathy to her sons and daughters and her grand-children, and our prayer is that God would give them to know in their own experience that faith which would enable them to endure “as seeing Him who is invisible.”—John Colquhoun.
The late Lachlan Ross, Winnipeg, Canada.
I HAD the privilege of meeting Mr. Lachlan Ross in the year 1912 when sent out to Winnipeg to take-charge of the Mission there. He with his large family had emigrated to Canada a few years previous to that date. Mr. Ross was a native of Foindle, Scourie, Sutherland, and was a near relation of the late Captain Ross, Wick, who was also of that district.
In common with Adam’s family in general, Lachlan Ross showed in his early days that he was born in sin and that he was shapen in iniquity, but when he came of age, he came like Moses to refuse what the world gives for a season, in order that he might have the riches that Christ gives even in reproaches for time and without reproach for eternity. He was very free and open in telling about how he was convinced of his sinful and miserable state and how precious Christ came to be to him once the eyes of his understanding were enlightened and he was enabled to close in with Him as his personal Saviour. In his early years he had an extraordinary and saddening experience at sea. He was in a small boat towed by a larger on Loch Laxford between Foindle and Fanagmore when a sudden gust of wind struck the small boat and capsized it. Its four occupants were thrown into the sea and two of them were drowned. In the larger boat was the late Mr. Hector Morrison our esteemed missionary at Scourie. It fell to him to break the news of the sad occurrence to the wives of the young men who had been but recently married. Hector used to tell of the incident with great feeling as it made a very solemn impression on him as it did also on Lachlan Ross. The other young man saved was a namesake and a cousin who is still alive. Lachlan though in his heavy sea boots was an excellent swimmer and swam to a rock from which he was rescued.
Lachlan Ross became a member in full communion and also an elder in connection with our Scourie congregation. When he settled down in Manitoba in 1905, he fulfilled the duties of his eldership both in Winnipeg and at Moosehorn, where the family took up a homestead. When he became too frail for farm work, he took up his residence again in Winnipeg, where he ended his days on 3rd January, 1936.
No one who knew Mr. Lachlan Ross doubted but that he was truly a man that feared the Lord. His whole life and conversation testified to the truth of his genuine piety. He was especially a man of prayer, lively and savioury, and always approached the throne of grace with awe and reverence. He
seldom if ever prayed in public or in his family without using the petition that they might be kept in walk and talk.
Mr. Ross was one of the most guileless of men that we ever met. There was nothing of the man of the world about him. He seemed to be without duplicity; simple and single in his desire to serve Christ in everything and this caused him to be ready to accept any line of action which appeared to him to further the interests of Christ’s cause in the world, sometimes without that caution which otherwise might have guided him into different paths. We do not hold that our late friend was without imperfections. He would be the first to admit his own shortcomings, but we do not doubt but that according to his light and his ability to comprehend the matter at issue, Mr. Lachlan Ross had but one aim in life—to live for Him who died for all and rose again. We believe he has entered within the veil to behold the Face of Him who drew him with the cords of His love. May the Lord heal the breaches in the walls of Zion and raise up witnesses in connection with His cause in Manitoba. We desire to express our sympathy with his sons and daughters, bereaved of such a worthy parent and pray that they may be raised up as the children in the place of the fathers.—Malcolm Gillies.