ff, twenty-five years before; but it was not
till the revolution of 1848 that it appeared above ground. Even in 1851,
colportage among the Piedmontese was prohibited, though it was allowable
to print or import the Bible for the use of the Waldenses, and the
Government winked at its sale to their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. I
was shown in M. Malan's banking office the Bible depot, and was
gratified to find that the sales which were made to applicants only had
during the past year amounted to a thousand copies. Evening meetings
were held every day of the week, in various parts of Turin, at which the
Bible was read, and points of controversy betwixt Christianity and
Romanism eagerly discussed. The Rev. M. Meille, the able editor of the
_Buona Novella_,--a paper then just starting,--informed me that not
fewer than ninety persons had been present at the meeting superintended
by him the night before. These week-day assemblages, as well as the
Sabbath audiences, were of a very miscellaneous character,--Vaudois, who
had come to Turin to be servants, for, prior to the revolution, they
could be nothing else; Piedmontese tradesmen; Swiss, Germans, and
Italian refugees, to whom three pastors ministered,--one in French, one
in German, and a third in the Italian tongue. There were then not fewer
than ten re-unions every week in Turin. The idea, too, had been started
of taking advantage of the workmen's clubs for the propagation of the
gospel. A network of such societies covered northern and central Italy.
The clubs in Turin corresponded with those in Genoa, Alessandria, and
all the principal towns of Piedmont; and these again with similar clubs
in central Italy; and any new theory or doctrine introduced into one
soon made the round of all. The plan adopted was to send evangelical
workmen into these clubs, who were listened to as they propounded the
new plan of justification by faith. The clubs in Turin were first
leavened with the gospel; thence it was extended to Genoa, and gradually
also to central Italy. While the _proletaires_ in France were discussing
the claims of labour, the workmen in Piedmont were canvassing the
doctrines of the New Testament; and hence the difference betwixt the
two countries.

It was now drawing towards sunset, and I purposed enjoying the
twilight,--delicious in all climates, but especially in Italy,--on the
terrace of the College or Monastery of the Capuchins. This monastery
stands on the Collina, a r