ROMANISM AND THE
REFORMATION
by H. Grattan Guiness ( Excerpts )
Here in this paper I have some of the ashes of the martyrs, some of theirburned bones. I have bits of rusted iron and melted lead which I took myself with these hands from the Quemadero in Madrid, the place where they burned the martyrs, not far from the Inquisition. It was in the year 1870 that I visited it, just before the great ecumenical council was held at Rome, by which the pope was proclaimed infallible. I was in Spain that spring, and visited the newly opened Quemadero. I saw the ashes of the martyrs. I carried away with me some relics from that spot, which are now lying upon this table. Hear me, though in truth I scarcely know how to speak upon this subject. I am almost dumb with horror when I think of it. I have visited the places in Spain, in France, in Italy most deeply stained and dyed with martyr-blood. I have visited the valleys of Piedmont. I have stood in the shadow of the great cathedral of Seville, on the spot where they burned the martyrs, or tore them limb from limb. I have stood breast-deep in the ashes of the martyrs of Madrid. I have read the story of Rome’s deeds. I have waded through many volumes of history and of martyrology. I have visited, either in travel or in thought, scenes too numerous for me to name,where the saints of God have been slaughtered by Papal Rome, that great butcher of bodies and of souls. I cannot tell you what I have seen, what I
have read, what I have thought. I cannot tell you what I feel. Oh, it is a bloody tale! I have stood in that valley of Lucerna where dwelt the faithful Waldenses, those ancient Protestants who held to the pure gospel all through the dark ages, that lovely valley with its pine-clad slopes which Rome converted into a slaughter-house. Oh, horrible massacres of gentle, unoffending, noble-minded men! Oh, horrible massacres of tender women and helpless children! Yes, ye hated them, ye hunted them, ye stuck them on spits, ye impaled them, ye hanged them, ye roasted them, ye flayed them, ye cut them in pieces, ye violated them, ye violated the women, ye violated the children, ye forced flints into them, and stakes, and stuffed them with gunpowder, and blew them up, and tore them asunder limb from limb, and tossed them over precipices, and dashed them against the rocks; ye cut them up alive, ye dismembered them; ye racked, mutilated, burned, tortured, mangled, massacred holy men, sainted women, mothers, daughters, tender children, harmless babes, hundreds, thousands, thousands upon thousands; ye sacrificed them in heaps, in hecatombs, turning all Spain, Italy, France, Europe, Christian Europe, into a slaughter-house, a charnel house, an Akeldama. Oh, horrible; too horrible to think of! The sight dims, the heart sickens, the soul is stunned in the presence of the awful spectacle. O harlot, gilded harlot, with brazen brow and brazen heart! red are thy garments, red thine hands. Thy name is written in this book. God has written it. The world has read it. Thou art a murderess, O Rome. Thou art the murderess Babylon - “Babylon the Great,” drunken, foully drunken; yea, drunken with the sacred blood which thou hast shed in streams and torrents, the blood of saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Were there naught else by which to recognize thee, O persecuting Church of Rome, this dreadful mark would identify thee. This is thy brand; by this we know thee. Thou art that foretold Babylon. We know thee by thy place. We know thee by thy proud assumptions, by the throne on which thou sittest, by those seven hills, by the beast thou ridest, by the garments thou wearest, by the cup thou bearest, by the name blazoned on thy forehead, by thy kingly paramours; by thy shameless looks, by thy polluted deeds; but oh, chiefly by this, by thy prolonged and dreadful persecution of the saints, by those massacres, by that Inquisition, by the fires of that burning stake. Mark how its ruddy flames ascend; see how its accusing smoke goes up to heaven!
In the sunny south of France, in Provence and Catalonia, lived the Albigenses. They were a civilized and highly educated people. Among these people there sprang up an extensive revival of true religion, and one of its natural effects was a bold testimony against the abominations of apostate Rome. Here is Sismondi’s History of the Albigenses. On page 7 he says of them and of the Vaudois: “All agreed in regarding the Church of Rome as having absolutely perverted Christianity, and in maintaining that it was she who was designated in the Apocalypse by the name of the whore of Babylon.” Rome could not endure this testimony; she drew her deadly sword and waged war against those who bore it. In the year 1208 the Albigenses were murderously persecuted. Innocent III (what a mockery his name!) employed the crusaders in this dreadful work. The war of extermination was denominated sacred. The pope’s soldiers prosecuted it with pious ardor; men, women, and children were all precipitated into the flames; whole cities were burned. In Beziers every soul was massacred; seven thousand dead bodies were counted in a single church, where the people had taken refuge; the whole country was laid waste; an entire people was slaughtered, and the eloquent witness of these early reformers was reduced to the silence of the sepulcher.
This folio volume is a faithful history of the Waldenses, written 217 years ago, by the Waldensian pastor Leger. It contains his portrait. I have often looked at it with interest. The countenance is scarred with suffering, but full of spiritual light. Leger tells with simple clearness the story of the Waldenses from the earliest times, quoting from ancient and authentic documents. He gives in full their confession of faith, and narrates the history of their martyrdoms, including the dreadful massacre in the vale of Lucerna, in 1655, of which he himself was an eye witness. This book was written only fourteen years after that massacre. It contains numerous depositions concerning it, rendered on oath, and long lists of the names of those who were its victims. It gives also plates depicting the dreadful ways in which they were slaughtered. These plates represent men, women, and children being dismembered, disemboweled, ripped up, run through with swords, impaled on stakes, torn limb from limb, flung from precipices, roasted in flames. They are almost too horrible to look at. And this was only one of a long series of massacres of the Waldenses extending through 600 painful years.
Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith
