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Truth Triumphant - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

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that in countries like Germany and England, they<br />

were free from Rome’s persecutions. This,<br />

however, was not the case of the Waldenses, still<br />

under the rule of Italy.<br />

After a synod when a delegation of Reformers<br />

met with them, they vowed to witness publicly<br />

more boldly than ever before. January 21, A.D.<br />

1561, the day after delegates from their churches<br />

had sworn eternal friendship upon the snowy<br />

summits of the Alps, a decree from their enemies<br />

was published ordering all Waldenses to attend<br />

mass. After warlike attempts to drag them to the<br />

galleys, the stake, the prison, and the gallows, they<br />

developed such resistance and endurance that the<br />

duke of Savoy, influenced by his Protestant wife,<br />

granted them amnesty.<br />

The persecution which raged from A.D. 1655<br />

to A.D. 1689 was most terrible. It all but<br />

extinguished this evangelical people. Horrible<br />

massacres, incredible acts of perfidy, burning of<br />

villages, children torn from their mothers to be<br />

dashed against the rocks, hosts of fugitives driven<br />

608

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