the President of
his Council in Turin; in which they show and prove in detail that
all the conditions of the Peace have been broken, and have been
rather a snare for those miserable people than a security. Which
violation of the conditions, continued from the very date of the
Peace even to this day, and every day growing more grievous, unless
they endure patiently, unless they prostrate themselves and lie
down to be trampled on and pushed into mud, their Religion itself
forsworn, there impends over them the same calamity, the same
havoc, which harassed and desolated them, with their wives and
children, in so miserable a manner three years ago, and which, if
it is to be undergone again, will wholly extirpate them. What can
the poor people do? They have no respite, no breathing-time, as yet
no certain refuge. They have to deal with wild beasts or with
furies, to whom the recollection of the former slaughters has
brought no remorse, no pity for their fellow-countrymen, no sense
of humanity or satiety in shedding blood. These things are clearly
not to be borne, whether we have regard to our Vaudois brethren,
cherishers of the Orthodox Religion from of old, or to the safety
of that Religion itself. We, for our part, removed though we are by
too great an interval of space, have heartily performed all we
could in the way of help, and shall not cease to do the like. Do
you, who are close not only to the torments and almost to the cries
of your brethren, but also to the fury of the same enemies,
consider prospectively, in the name of Immortal God, and that
betimes, what is now _your_ duty; on the question of what
assistance, what protection, you can and ought to give to your
neighbours and brothers, otherwise speedily to perish, consult your
own prudence and piety, but your valour also. It is identity of
Religion, be sure, that is the cause why the same enemies would see
you likewise destroyed, nay why they would, at the same time, in
the same by-past year, _have_ seen you destroyed by an
intestine war against you by members of your Confederacy. Next to
the Divine aid it seems simply to be with you to prevent the very
oldest branch of the purer Religion from being cut down in that
remnant of the primitive faithful: and, if you neglect their
safety, now brought to the extreme crisis of peril, see that the
next turn do not, a little while after, visit yourse