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4 (28) l H E
Family I
THE BLESSED GIFT.
Rest? Is it rest you seek, dear heart of mine;
As daily toil and care make you to pine
For easier things, and freedom from the care
And trouble tihat surrounds you everywhere?
Rest? is it rest your tired body needs,
As on the weary road you toll, that leads
To nothing but more toil as you plod on
Until your feeble strength 1b almost gone?
Rest? Is it rest from daily care you crave;
Rest, that your tired, wasted form will save
From little cares and frets of daily life
And save you from life's noisy bloody strife?
Rest? Is it rest you seek? Rest from the load
"Which reBts so heavy on you; from the goad
That spurs you on to greater toil and speed,
lis rest from these the one good gift you need?
Ah! 'Tie not rest you need, dear tired soul,
But strength, to help along toward the goal
Some feebler soul than thou, who needs a lift
And helping ihim, you find the blessed gift
Roanoke, Va. ?G. M. M.
THE WALDENSES OF TO-DAY.
BY WILLl'.M H. OXTOBY, D. D.
In the mountains of Northwestern Italy,
thirty-four miles southwest of Turin, lie the
WaLdensian Valleys, the original home of the
Waldenses, who four hundred years before
Luther proclaimed many of the essential
truths of Protestantism, and who sealed their
testimony with their life-blood. Now they
have expanded from their original valleys,
where they have nineteen parishes, until they
have dotted all of Italy and Sicily with two
hundred and fifty-six churches or mission stations,
and have extended their work to Egypt
and Uruguay and Argentina.
The churches of the valleys are superintended
from Torre Pellice; the rest of the work
from Rome. Torre is an interesting town, clean
and thrifty, with a large Waldensian church
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offices of administration, the meeting room
of the Synod, and a museum which is a veritable
epitome of Waldensian history. In Torre
is also the college, a girls' orphanage, a hospital
and a number of*professors' cottages. Torre is
a center from which a number of the valleys
may be traversed, and to one interested at all in
fho rnl irrinna otAmr r\f tllin noot o r?o nn tx;n 1 lra
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in Europe that stir tihe blood as in these valleys,
almost every foot of which has been drenched
with martyr blood.
To the American, in search of some section
of Europe as yet unspoiled by modern travel,
looking for some interesting corner as yet untouched
by the tourist hotel and the throng of
curious travelers, the Waldensian Valleys
come as a genuine delight. Here things are as
they have been. The ubiquitous guide is unknown;
the tourist agency has yet to be introduced
; not a hand anywhere is outstretched
asking for alms: a region rich with religious
history, and stimulating to the imagination
awaits the visitor in all of its pristine naturalness.
The churches of the valleys are all self-maintaining,
as are those in the larger cities of the
peninsula: gifts sent from America and other
lands go towards the home mission work, being
conducted in the smaller towns and hamlets.
The disaffection between the Roman
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SO
"leadings
Church and the Italian people may be said to
be almost national in extent; and the Waldcnses
are taking advantage of this to push ag
gressiveiy tneir worn. ice light shines in
darkness,is their church' motto, and the light
is dispelling the darkness iu more tnan one
center. They are enrolling in their membership
many of the eminent men and women of
the nation; Marconi, whose wireless telegraphy
has made his name a household word, is a member
of the Waldensian Church oi Leghorn, and
for a time was a teacher in the Sunday school.
The trend is towards emigration, on account
of low wages and difficulty of gaining a liveli<!.??
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uvuu, oi> mat mam n iuuciidc? nave v^tauuo.ied
tLmse.Ues in tli.; United states; the pallors
of the Italian Presbyterian churches o' Cleveland,
o' Koehester, and of ether cities have
come from the valiiy-.; aud in turn emigrants
from the United States back to Italy have been
instrumental in organizing fifteen Waldensian
euugr>igdiions in Italy. The Movement is back
and lorta: so that one great need of American
clnireh life, which probably will soou be sup
plied, is to have in New rork City s une one
acquainted with the Protestants of Italy, who
can the religious needs of those who
come to ihs country, and who return to their
native iaud.
In the city of Rome, on the beautiful and
spacious Piazza Cavour, there is now being
erected a second Waldensian church building,
which will be the finest Protestant structure in
Southern Europe. A generous American Presbyterian
woman has made possible in the grow,
ing residential section of Rome, to which recently
perhaps a hundred thousand people
have moved, a new church plant, which will
contain not only a church auditorium, accommodating
twelve hundred people, but also
rooms for evening classes, a gymnasium, a dispensary,
and other equipment usually included
in the modem institutional ehnreh The
church, the gift of Mrs. John S. Kennedy, of
New York, is already completed up to the
second story, and the hope is to occupy it in
part next fall, and to dedicate it a year from
this coming May. Within full view of the
Castle of St. Angelo, and of St. Peter's, almost
under the shadow of the Vatican, this progressive
Protestant work will be located; and it is
possible that froni( this as a center the national
work of the "Waldensian church will soon be
conducted.
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King and Queen of Ttaly to four Waldensian
governesses has done much to win public favor
for this people once persecuted with cruelty indescribable.
The imprimatur of the crown has
been stamped upon them, after long centuries
of hatred and hostility. De Amicis has paid
them a hen.llt.ifnl trihllto in hia innnmnnrnlUi*
? ?4*..-?
literary style. The Waldcnses have made good.
The'ir future in Italy is assured.?New York
Observer.
The world is the increaser in grace, in that
it holds forth Jesus Christ to our view to look
upon, not only as the perfect pattern, hut as
the full fountain of all grace, from whose ful
ness we an receive, ine contemplating or mm
as the perfect image of God, and then drawing
from him as having in himself a treasure for us
?these give the soul more of that image, which
is truly spiritual growth.?Leigh ton.
i U T B [January 15, 1913
KILLING OFF THE WRONG PEOPLE.
The president of one of the largest railway
systems on the American continent has declared
himself in favor of war. His approval is
ba^ed on the fact that, as he says, war "kills
off the surplus population." And he does not
stand alone. He is one of those who have heard
of evolution, and who talk glibly of the "struggle
for existence," and the "survival of the
fittest" as the conditions of progress. But
grant the theory of evolution, and how does it
affect the betterment of society or of the nation
through the instrumentality of war T What
is war's inevitable biological and social reaction
?
What says history! The Roman empire declined
and fell because of the degeneration of
the Roman Deonle. The nat.rints anH hemes
were killed off in Caesar's wars, and those unfit
for military service remained to breed the
next generation. It was a generation of weaklings
and dandies. Cowards bred cowards.
Fops bred fops. By the certain law of biology
the Roman people degenerated, and in the day
of testing Rome fell.
So with France in later days. Napoleon
called out the best and bravest. From Paris
and from the provinces they came. Even the
boys of France, courageous and strong, were
ordered forward to "stop the Russian bullets."
Succeeding generations were bred from fathers
unfit or unwilling for military service.
Again, in accordance with the fell law of
blood and protoplasm, the faint-hearted prorlnnarl
off 1 lioit* lrmrl a V\1aa/J aP V* a*?aab
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whose bones whitened the ways to Moscow and
Waterloo was not in the veins of France when
next the trial came. Paris was taken.
Nor did Britain escape. For a thousand
years she "strawed her best to the weed's unrest,
to the shark and the sheering gull." On
a thousand battlefields scattered over all the
continents the price of sovereignty was paid.
Castle and cottage alike paid that price in full.
Widowed mothers and broken-hearted sweet
hearts died uncoraforted because the brave
lads they mourned left no sons behind to take
the vacant places at home or in the battle's
front. The undersized, the ill-conditioned, the
unheroic were spared to breed in the glen and
in the city. Their progeny to-day swell the
ranks not of the Buffs or the Black Watch, but
of the out-of-works.
Come nearer home. A generation and a half
ago the Untied States suffered a "killing off,"
the most significant in modern history. Several
of the States sent into the Civil "War one out
of every seven of their population. Some sent
one out of every four. Others in the South
sent more soldiers to battle than they had voters
on their lists. Out of Massachusetts more
than 156,000 men and boys marched to the
front, and only decimated fragments of their
115 recriments retnrnpd. That nnp crrpn* "till.
ing off" took more than a million men and
boys as its toll.
And it was the heroes of the American nation,
especially the young heroes, who were
"killed off." The "skedaddlers" and the
" bounty-jumpers" escaped. The cautious and
the calculating took no risks. The mercenaryminded
and the men of "the main chance"
even turned their country's loss to their own
great gain. Thev urged on the fight and, madfi
for Lincoln a very hell on earth. While they
waved the flag and cheered the troops their
minds were on the profits for themselves in the
increased demand for uniforms and arms and
in the soaring prices for food supplies and
army equipment. None of them were" "killed
off." Their vitality was not destroyed by
forced marches or unwholesome foods. They
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