the officers shall
swear fidelity to the soldiers, and the soldiers to the officers, promising
together to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to deliver, if possible, our
brethren from the cruel woman of Babylon, and with them to re-establish and
maintain his kingdom till death, and observe all our lives with good faith
this present ordinance." As I stood upon this consecrated platform
(Sibaud), April 11th, 1871, I not only felt richly rewarded for the steep
climb, from which the good pastor of Bobbio sought to dissuade me, but I
gained an enlarged view of the wonderful power of the gospel of Christ in
ennobling and constraining the souls of these valley men to such deeds of
daring and suffering. If, as I firmly believe, the gospel teaches that
willingness to do and suffer for Christ is the evidence of our belonging to
Him, how luminous and abundant are the title-deeds of the Vaudois to be
reckoned "not least among the churches of God." May the spirit of the oath
still survive, and the day come when every one of those who inhabit the
locality shall be as true to the gospel of the grace of God as Arnaud and
his brave troops!

After this solemn convocation, and sundry additions to their military
organization, an attempt was made by Arnaud to rescue Villaro from the
Papists as Bobbio was rescued. At the first the enemy fled, some across the
Pelice, and others to the convent. While the Vaudois were closely pressing
them in this last-named retreat, their own position was turned by the
arrival of a large body of troops. These troops, 12,000 in number, drove
back the Vaudois to Bobbio, and threatened to exterminate them all. Eighty
made good their escape over the Vandalin by scattering themselves in all
directions, and afterwards rejoining the main body. Montoux, the assistant
pastor, being thus separated from his friends, was captured by the enemy,
and detained a prisoner at Turin until the peace. Arnaud three times gave
himself up for lost. Three times, with six of his men, he betook himself to
prayer; and three times the Lord sent him deliverance. At last he escaped
to the same mountain ridge where the eighty previously dispersed awaited
his arrival.

The check received at Villaro led Arnaud to retire from the inhabited parts
of the valley of Lucerna to the mountain heights, from which they could
attack detachments of troops at favourable intervals, and to which they
could betake themselves for safety in spots difficult of a