“But,” says the writer who accuses them, “they lead this kind of life and walk: first, they fast three or four days in the week, living on bread and water unless they have to do very hard work; then the chief among them take care that their subjects appear before them. (If by the terms, _chief_ and _subjects_, there are understood teachers and common people, or master tradesmen and servants, or the like, there is no ambiguity). They pray seven times a day; the oldest (among them) begins the prayer.” _Bapt. Hist., page 649._
These and like testimonies respecting the virtues of the Waldenses, even from their bitterest accusers, indicate that they were very merciful, virtuous, and godfearing people, and that they were thus greatly calumniated by those who sought to maintain the contrary in regard to them. But, how unjustly some have proceeded in accusing said people, with regard to their faith as well as to their life, of this we will presently give some account.
HOW THE WALDENSES WERE UNJUSTLY ACCUSED BY THEIR INQUISITORS AND ACCUSERS.
In the second book of the first part of the _History of the Waldenses_, by _Jean Paul Perrin_, translated by _J. M. V., 3d chapter, page 74, col. 2_, there is an account of one Jan Veileti, a monk, and inquisitor over the Waldenses, and how very unfaithfully and deceitfully he or his clerk acted in the case of these people, from which it can be inferred, how it also was with others of their accusers. The words read as follows:
But in the processes which were instituted by this monk Jan Veileti, we have observed an exquisite kind of villainy and low cunning; for, having gotten these proceedings into our hands, we found in them little billets, upon which this commissary (Jan Veileti) had noted the answers of the accused, simply, and just as they had come from their lips; but these simple answers, we afterwards, in the proceedings, found extended, and frequently given in a form contrary to, and quite different from what the _sumptum_, that is, the aforementioned answer as noted in the proceedings, implied and contained; thereby perverting the meaning of the defendent, and causing him to say that of which he had never thought.
For example, when he was asked whether he did not believe, that as soon as the sacramental words were pronounced by the priest, in the mass, the body of Christ was in the host, just as he was on the tree of the cross, and the Waldenses answered, No, Veileti or his clerk set down as his answer: That he had confessed that he did not believe in God.
Again, when it was asked, whether the saints must not be invoked, the reply was, No, they wrote: That they had reviled, and spoken evil of, the saints.
When it was asked, whether the virgin Mary must not be saluted and invoked in our extremity, and the answer was, No, they wrote: That they had reviled the virgin Mary.
“Behold, such was the faithlessness of the monks and inquisitors in such important matters, and it is not without a certain evidence of God’s providence,” says the writer, “that these villainies have been preserved and have remained to the present time, as a means by which to show, what spirit actuated those men having, by manifold frauds, oppressed and ultimately killed and burnt the believing members of the church of Christ, yet have the audacity to ask us, where the church, and the believers, whom they themselves put to death, were before our coming.”
“Now, if the reader is desirous to know,” says our author, “how said proceedings fell into our hands, we reply, that this occurred likewise through the providence of God.” He then relates, how the archbishops of Embrun, John Rostan, and others had these papers and proceedings under lock and key in their chests and chanceries, until the city where they resided, was taken, A. D. 1585. The house of the archbishop having taken fire on this occasion, many of these processes held in former times against the Waldenses, were thrown in bags into the street. One Calignon, chancellor of Navarre and a certain councilor of Grenoble, who were present, ordered them to be picked up and delivered into their hands; and thus, it is stated, the perfidious calumnies against the Waldenses came to light, which, otherwise, would have gone among the papists, as true accusations against them. But it is as the common adage says: _Lies fly swiftly, but truth overtakes them_. We will now close our account of the true faith and good practice of the Waldenses, and show, how long and in what times they existed.