Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber

by J. A. Wylie

A political storm heralded the quiet spring-time of evangelical truth which has of late blessed that land. Prior to 1848, although there had been no change for the better in the law, a very considerable degree of practical liberty was enjoyed by the subjects of Tuscany. The Tuscans are naturally a quiet, well-behaved people; the Grand Duke was an easy, kind-hearted man; his Government was exceedingly mild; and, as he conducted himself towards his people like a father, he was greatly beloved by them. Tuscany at that period was universally acknowledged to be the happiest province of Italy.

The priesthood of those days were a good-natured, easy set of men also. They had never known opposition. They could not imagine the possibility of anything occurring to endanger their power, and therefore were exceedingly tolerant in the exercise of it. They were an illiterate and ill-informed race. An Abbatte of their own number assured Dr Stewart, so far back as 1845, that there was not one amongst them, from the Archbishop downwards, who could read Hebrew, nor half-a-dozen who could be found among the upper orders who could read Greek. They were masters of as much Latin as enabled them to get through the mass; but they were wholly unskilled in the modern tongues of Europe, and entire strangers to modern European literature. Though poorly paid, they durst not eke out their means of subsistence by entering into any trade. Many of them were fain to become major domos in rich families, and might be seen chaffering in the markets in the public piazza, and weighing out flour, coffee, and oil to the servants at home. No priest can say more than one mass a-day; and for that he is paid one lira, or eightpence sterling.

Such being the state of matters, little notice was taken of what foreign Protestants might be doing. The priests were secure in their ignorance, and deemed it impossible that any attempt would be made to introduce the diabolical heresies of Luther among their orthodox flocks. Indeed, these flocks were removed almost beyond the reach of contamination, not so much by the vigilance of the priests, as by their own ignorance and bigotry. The degree of popular enlightenment may be judged of from the following circumstance which happened to Dr Stewart, and of which the Doctor himself assured me Soon after his first coming into Tuscany in 1845, he came into contact with a countryman, who, on being told that he was a Protestant minister, began instantly to scrutinize his lower extremities, to ascertain whether he had cloven hoofs. The priests had told the people that Protestants were just devils in disguise.

The Government, I have said, was a mild one. It was more: it was affected with the usual Italian sluggishness and indolence,—the dolce far niente; and accordingly it winked at innumerable ongoings, so long as these did not attract public attention. Bibles and religious Protestant works were introduced secretly, the Government knowing it, but winking at it, as the Church did not complain. The arrest of the deputation from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to the Holy Land in 1839 was an exception to what I have now stated, but such an exception as confirms the general statement. The deputation, with the ignorance of us Britishers abroad for the first time, imagined that because Leghorn was a free port, they were free to give away Bibles, tracts, and all kinds of religious books; and accordingly they made vigorous use of their time. Scarcely had they stepped on shore when they commenced a liberal distribution of Bibles, books on the "Evidences," and other valuable works, among the boatmen, facchini, and beggars. It did not occur to them, that of those to whom they gave these books, few could read, and none were able to appreciate them. Many persons who received these books carried them to the priests, who, confounded at the suddenness as well as the boldness of the assault, carried them to the police, and the police to the Government; and before the deputation had been an hour and a half in Thomson's hotel, they were under arrest. It was the Church which compelled the Government to interfere; and it is the Church which is now driving forward the civil power in its mad career of persecution. As a proof that we bring no heavier charge against the priests than they deserve, we may mention, that in 1849 Dr Stewart was summoned to appear before the delegate of Government, to answer for having allowed one or two Italian Protestant ministers to preach in his pulpit. The delegate informed him that the Government was not taking this step of its own accord, but that the Archbishop of Florence was compelling the Government to put the law in force, and that the Archbishop was the prosecutor in the case.

The old statute of Ferdinand I., which allows to foreigners the full exercise of their religion within the city of Leghorn, was taken advantage of to open the Scotch church there. This was in 1845. It was two years after this,—in the winter of 1847–48,—that the religious movement first developed itself,—full six months before the revolutions and changes of 1848. The work was at first confined almost entirely to a handful of foreigners—Captain Pakenham; M. Paul, a Frenchman, and the Swiss pastor in Florence;—— at——; and Mr Thomson, Vice-Consul at Leghorn. Count Guicciardini was the only Florentine connected with the movement. It was resolved to print and circulate such books as were likely to pass the censorship, and might be openly sold by all booksellers. The censor of that day was a remarkably liberal man, and he gave his consent very willingly. Five or six little volumes were printed in that country; but the people were not yet prepared for such a step; the books lay unsold, and were got into circulation only by being given away as presents. But the very fact that the friends of the movement had been able to print and publish such works openly at Florence, with the approbation of the censor, greatly encouraged them. It was next proposed to attempt to get the censor's approbation to an edition of the New Testament; and the work was before him waiting his imprimatur, when the revolutions of 1848 broke over Italy with the suddenness of one of its own thunder-storms.

I cannot go particularly into the changes that followed, and which are known to my readers through other sources,—the flight of the Grand Duke,—the new Tuscan Constitution,—the free press. The political for a time buried the religious. Captain Pakenham, taking advantage of the liberty enjoyed under the republic, commenced printing an edition of Martini's Bible (the Romanist version), believing that it would be more acceptable than Diodati's (the Protestant version). Before he had got the book put into circulation, the re-action commenced, the Grand Duke returned, and the work was seized. When engaged in making the seizure, the gendarmes pressed a young apprentice printer to tell them whether there were any more copies concealed. The lad replied that he had only one suggestion to offer, which was, that, now they had seized the book, they should seize the author too. And who is he? eagerly inquired the gendarmes, preparing to start on the chase. Jesus Christ, was the lad's reply.

Meanwhile the revolution had greatly enlarged the privileges of the Waldensian Church in Piedmont, and three of her pastors, MM. Malan, Meille, and Geymonat, arrived in Florence in the winter of 1848–49, for the purpose of making themselves more familiar with the tongue and accent of the Tuscans, in order to be able to avail themselves of the greater openings of usefulness now presented to them, both in their own country and in central Italy.

They preached occasionally, and attended the prayer-meeting, which now greatly increased, and which was the only one at this time among the Florentines. Having by their visit helped forward the good work, these evangelists, after a six months' stay in Florence, returned to their own country.

A full year elapsed between the departure of the Waldensian brethren and the movement among the Florentines to obtain an Italian pastor. After much deliberation they resolved on this step, and in May 1850 a deputation set out for the Valleys, which, arriving at La Tour, prevailed on Professor Malan to accept of the charge at Florence. M. Malan returned to that city, and, on the 1st of July 1850, began his ministry, among a little flock of thirty persons, in the Swiss chapel Via del Seraglio, in which the Grisons had a right to Italian service. The work now went rapidly forward. Formerly there had been but one re-union; now there were ten in Florence alone, besides others in the towns and villages adjoining. M. Malan had service once a fortnight in Italian; and so large was the attendance, that the chapel, which holds four hundred, was crowded to the door with Florentine converts or inquirers. The priests took the alarm. They wrought upon the mind of the deformed Archduchess,—a great bigot, and sister to the Grand Duke. A likely tool she was; for she had made a pilgrimage to Rimini, and offered on the shrine of the winking Madonna a diamond tiara and bracelet. The result I need not state. The immediate result was, that the Italian service was put a stop to in January 1851; and the final result was the banishment of Malan and Geymonat from Tuscany in the May of that year,—the expulsion of the pastors being accompanied with circumstances of needless severity and ignominy. Geymonat, after lying two days in the Bargello of Florence, was brought forth and conducted on foot by gendarmes, chained like an assassin, to the Piedmontese frontier. On this miserable journey he was thrust every night into the common prison, along with characters of the worst description, whose blasphemies he was compelled to hear. The foul air and the disgusting food of these places made him sometimes despair of coming out alive; but he had his recompense in the opportunities which he thus enjoyed of preaching the gospel to the gendarmes by the way, and to the keepers of the prisons, some of whom heard him gladly.

The departure of the Vaudois pastors threw the work into the hands of the native converts, by whom it has been carried on ever since. It is to be feared that, in the absence of pastors, not a little that is political is mixed with the religious. It is difficult forming an estimate of the numbers of the converts and inquirers. They have meetings in all the towns of Tuscany and Lucca, between whom a constant intercourse is maintained. Each member subscribes two crazzia a-week for the purchase of Protestant religious books. To supply these books, two presses are at work,—one in Turin, the other in Florence. The latter is a secret press, which the police, with all their efforts, have not been able to this day to discover. The Bible can be got into Tuscany with great difficulty; yet the demand for it is greater than ever. The converts have been tried by every mode of persecution short of death; yet their numbers grow. The prisons are full with political and religious offenders; yet fresh arrests continually take place in Florence.