Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives \u2013 Waldenses – Catholic Fires Suffocate Mothers & Babies – Baptist Peculiarity SEVEN (continued) – Part 22 of 24 in the Series<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Duke of Savoy, \u201chaving been informed that their young children were born with black throats that they were hairy, and had four rows of teeth, with only one eye, and that placed in the middle of the forehead,\u2014he commanded some of them to be brought before him at Pignerol, where, being satisfied by occular demonstration that the Waldenses were not monsters, he blamed himself for being so easily imposed upon by the clergy of the Catholic Church as to credit such idle report, \u201cetc. (Jones Church History, p. 323)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This illustrates the blinding power of \u201creligious\u201d prejudice. In the fifteenth century, when the Waldenses were slaughtered in the valley Loyse, by the command of Pope Innocent YIII., a part of the inhabitants had taken refuge in the caves in the mountains. But the Catholic general discovered their places of retreat, and built large fires in the entrances to the caves; and immense numbers were, in this way, suffocated in their caves: and among the rest, four hundred children were \u201csuffocated in their cradles, or in the arms of their dead mothers.\u201d (Jones Ch. Hist., p. 322)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early part of the sixteenth century, the most cruel persecutions continued to be waged against the Waldenses in the south of France; and in the year 1545, John Meinier led the Catholic forces against the Waldenses in Provence, in France. And among other horrid cruelties, this inhuman wretch \u201cshut up about forty women in a barn full of hay and straw, and then set it on fire; and after that, the poor creatures, having attempted in vain to smother the fire with their clothes, which, for that end, they had pulled off, betook themselves to the great window, at which the hay is commonly pitched up into the barn, with an intention to leap down from thence. But they were kept in with spikes and spears , so that all them perished in the flames.\u201d (Jones History of the Church, p. 331)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is heart-sickening to record the horrid transactions of Catholic popes and their emissaries, in their vain attempt to destroy the Church of Christ from the world. It would be more pleasant to draw a curtain over those dismal scenes of persecution, and let them be forever blotted from the history of the world. But, one of the designs of history is to give faithfully, not only the rise of principles and systems, but also their fruits for good or evil, that coming generations may avoid the errors which have filled the world with misery and woe. Roman Catholics are no worse by nature than others. The persecutions which they have waged against others, arise from their false religious principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Presented by Thomas E. Kresal from: \u201cBaptist Succession\u201d by D.B. Ray, 1871 Edition, pg. 375-376<\/p>\n\n\n\n