Nephew of John Wesley, happened to be the first individual who discovered this manuscript, after a lapse of seventy or eighty years, is certainly a circumstance of no common curiosity; and if the statement I have made, be considered of sufficient consequence to engage your attention to a publication, slight only in price, I cannot reasonably doubt that abundance of good, to the best of causes, will accrue. Permit me to subscribe myself, Rev. Sir, * Very respectfully yours, SAMUEL Wesley. Euston-Street, Euston-Square, London, Nov. 1826. The circumstances which, in all probability, led Handel to set Mr. Wesley's Hymns to music, are thus stated by Miss Wesley, in a note now before us" Mr. Rich was the proprietor of the Covent-Garden Theatre, which he offered to Handel, to perform his Oratorios in, when he had incurred the displeasure of the Opera party. Mrs. Rich was one of the first who attended the West* The Tunes are comprised in three pages. Street Chapel, and was impressed with deep seriousness by the preaching of my dear Father, who became her intimate friend; upon which she gave up the stage entirely, and suf fered much reproach from her husband, who insisted on her appearing again upon it. She said, if she did appear on the stage again, it would be to bear her public testimony against it. In consequence of this declaration, she escaped further importunity. She was afterwards a widow, and lived in affluence. When I was young, we used to visit her at Chelsea. She was a beautiful and most amiable woman, and retained her affection to my Father and Mother during her long life. Handel taught Mr. Rich's daughters; and it used to hear his fine performances. was thus that my Father and Mother By the intimacy of Mr. and Mrs. Rich with Handel, he was doubtless led to set to music these Hymns of my Father, which are now, with the tunes annexed to them, in the ColMr. Samuel Wesley has had permislection at Cambridge, from whence sion to copy and print them. My brother Charles was born a little be fore Handel's death."-EDIT. ORIGINAL LETTERS OF MR WESLEY. To Mrs. Mary Savage, Worcester. I am MY DEAR SISTer, A REPORT was spread abroad, of my coming to Broad-Marston, and several other places; but I know not what was the occasion of it. now expected in the southern parts of the kingdom, and my course has been for several years as fixed as that of the sun. Mr. Ellis is a steady, experienced man, and a sound Preacher. Whereever he is, the work of our Lord prospers in his hand; and the more so, as he is a lover of discipline, without which the best preaching is of little use. I advise you to speak to him as freely as possible, and he will be made profitable to your soul. Your late trials were intended to give you a deeper sense of your poverty and helplessness. But see that you cast not away that confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. Cleave to Him with your whole heart, and all is well. I am, my dear Sister, is, first, to consider whether your faith remains unshaken. Do you continually see Him that is invisible? Have you as clear an evidence of the spiritual, as of the invisible, world? Are you always conscious of the presence of God, and of his love to your soul? In what sense do you pray without ceasing? Are you never in a hurry, so as to dim the eye of your soul, or make you inattentive to the voice of God? Next, consider your hope. Do you thereby taste of the powers of the world to come? Do you sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus? Do you never shrink at death? Do you steadily desire to depart, and to be with Christ? Do you always feel that this is far better? Can you in pain and trouble rejoice in hope of the glory of God? You may answer me at your leisure. I hope to see you in March, and am, dear Molly, yours affectionately, REVIEW. JOHN WESLEY. An Historical Defence of the Waldenses or Vaudors, inhabitants of the Valleys of Piedmont: By Jean Rodolphe Peyran, late Pastor of Pomaret, and Moderator of the Waldensian Church. With an Introduction and Appendixes by the Rev. Thomas Sims, M.A., Domestic Chaplain to Her Grace the Duchess Dowager of Beaufort. 8vo. pp. 534, 15s. "HELP, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth; and the faithful are minished from the sons of men;" is a complaint and an appeal, which, in different ages, has ascended to heaven from the oppressed and persecuted servants of God. But though the faithful have often been minished and brought low, they have never wholly perished from the earth. "The Lord has removed men far away, and there has been a great forsaking in the midst of the land;" yet how wonderfully has the Lord accomplished his own word: But in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten, as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the sub. stance thereof." One of the arrogant titles of the Church of Rome, is that of Catholic, or Universal. It involves a surrender of the truth of fact for Protestants to yield it this title through compliment or carelessness; and it involves a refutation of one of her pretensions to be the only true Church of Christ, for her to assume it. She was never a universal Church. In the mystery of God's permissive providence, she was allowed greatly to extend herself, and thus to fulfil the prophetic word, which makes the falling away," the apostasy, the influence and power of the man of sin," extensive and formidable; but until the churches of Africa were diminished by the Arian Goths, and swept away by the Saracenic invasion, they wrestled with her proud claim of supremacy. The Greek, Armenian, and other churches, equally nullify this claim of universality; and if she will contend for this as an attribute of the true Church of Christ, though the argument is itself worthless, out of her own mouth she proclaims herself to be a pretender. Hitherto shalt thou go, and no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed;" was a beliest as to this restless and aggressive ocean of spiritual dominion, deep, gloomy, and destructive as the sea of chaos; and is illustrated, as to the resistance of the Papacy, not only by several of the larger branches of the Christian Church, but by one which, in comparison of the power which assailed it, was insignificance itself,-a "thing of nought," and which could only have resisted, and maintained the conflict, by the special providence and interposition of God. The haughty tides of Papal domination were not only rolled back from the shores of the east, and the coasts of Africa, but were seen refluent from the entrances of the valleys of Piedmont; and a few churches, descended from primitive times, true to the purity of the ancient faith, within almost the same sensible horizon which embraced Rome itself, have laughed at, and refuted, from age to age, even till now, the boasted pretence of Catholicism. seed, small in extent, but precious for what it contained, from which all the truth that covers and enriches Protestant nations was to spring: "Destroy it not," was the command of God,-secret, but restraining upon every hostile invader,-" for a blessing is in it." The Church of Rome did not all at once fall into her destructive corruptions. She illustrated thus the prophetic words of Scripture, that the damnable heresies,” of which the Apostle speaks, should be brought in "privily," and that they should increase more and more. Even one of her capital and most fatal, because practical, errors, the merit of good works, was first "privily" taught, and the corruption artfully spread among the people, to the waste of souls, before she dared officially to avow it, contradict herself, and show to all the world the fallacy of her claim to infallibility. In the ancient form of baptism, used by the Church of Rome, the candidate was asked, Credis non propriis meritis, sed pas sionis Domini nostri Jesu Christi virtutc et merito, ad gloriam pervenire ?”* to which he was required to answer, "Credo." ↑ And again, " Credis quod Dominus noster Jesus Christus pro salute nostra mortuus sit? et quod ex propriis meritis vel alio modo nullus possit salvari, nisi in merito passionis ejus?" To which also the required answer was, "Credo." This form was, however, forbidden by the Iudices Expurgatorii, which were drawn up by order of the Council of Trent; and this infallible Council at once annulled the sacrifice of Christ, except as the ground of the grossest invention of superstition, and set the seal of its sanction upon this openly revived doctrine of the Scribes and Pharisees. Mountains have always been sacred to liberty. When political liberty is in question, human causes, both moral and physical, may be adduced to account for the phenomenon; but in the case before us, we must ascend from man to God. The errors of the Church of Rome are too grateful to the bad nature of man, not to have found access to mountain-defended valleys, too seductive not to have made their inhabitants traitorous to their natural fastnesses, if nothing more than what is man were in operation. The spirit of religion, the spirit which could bear the cross of Christ with joy, in the most rugged shapes that diabolical ingenuity could impress upon it, was there. It was kindled and kept alive by special influence to fulfil the purposes of God, to accom- Jesus Christ died for our salvation? Dost thou believe that our Lord plish prophecy, to give light to sur--and that no man can be saved through rounding and even distant nations; in his own merits, or by any other method a word, this sacred spot was guarded than by the merit of Christ's passion? as the hope of the world, a granary of § I do believe this. Dost thou believe that thou wilt attain to glory, not by thy own merits, but by the virtue and merit of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ? +I do believe this. The Waldenses have, however, the honour of nobly opposing her earliest, as well as her later, departures from the faith. It is proved by fact," says Peyran, whose answer to the Romish Bishop of Piguerol, in 1818, is one of the Tracts comprised in this volume," and by the history of the different innovations of a well-known date, that the Vaudois do not form a new Church; they continue to be what they have ever been since the days of the Apostles. From the Apostolic age until the seventh century, when no vital errors had as yet been introduced into the Church, we made one with the universal Church. Insensibly errors crept in else where; but the ancestors of the Vaudois would not admit them." We do not think with M. Peyran, that no vital errors had been introduced before the seventh century. Of the contrary fact too many sad proofs may be adduced; but the north of Italy escaped many of them; and they infested not, in any great degree, the Churches of these celebrated valleys, and those which had been introduced were shaken off by that new appeal to the Scriptures, and to primitive testimony, which was excited by the noble stand made by Claude, Bishop of Turin, against the use of images, when the Roman Pontiff sanctioned the decrees of the second Council of Nice, which was held in 786. This illustrious man, a native of Spain, was called to this See, at a period when the faithful were struggling in various parts of the Christian world against the introduction of this idolatrous service, this setting up of the abomination of desolation in the holy place, -and is claimed and revered by the Vaudois as one of their Pastors, and the defender of their ancient faith. With an intrepid zeal, and by preaching and writing, he purged his diocese of the superstitions which had been introduced into several parts of it; and he found in the secluded valleys of the Vaudois, auxiliaries to his labours, and witnesses of the conformity of his views to early antiquity. His writings, which appear from Allix to have been chiefly commentaries on different books of Scripture, show the standard to which he appealed, and the weapons which he employed in his noble warfare. These are the arms under which Rome has ever succumbed, and the remembrance of the smart of her wounds received in former times from the sword of the Spirit, well enough explains her modern enmity to the translation and circulation of that word of God, whose light at once lays open her darkest recesses of delusion, and the flashes of whose predictions break open the clouds of the future, and disclose the scenes of her approaching doom. The writings of Claude have been suppressed by the Inquisition ; and the Vaudois themselves, as appears from the Nouvelles Lettres, by Peyran, now know them only by collections of detached parts, which they have made from the writings of one of his antagonists, a Popish Bishop. Peyran has inserted these precious relics of remonstrance, and indignant fulmination of the word of God, against the supremacy of the Popes,-pilgrimages to Rome,-the invocation and intercession of Saints, the worship of images,and the adoration of the Cross. The language he uses is that of the Reformers in after times; it is bold and unsparing as that of Luther; for it came from the same fulness of heart, the same jealousy for the Lord of Hosts, the same determined and uncompromising reference of every matter of controversy to the word of the living God. The whole strain is, however, one of greater simplicity; for the scholastic divinity had not yet spun its sophisms; and the labyrinth of errors had not arrived at its utmost complication. The mysteries of the Mass, this early champion for religious truth had not to assail. With respect to his age, they were, as Peyran calls them, nouveaux mystères;" at least, 'as established by authority. Transubstantiation was invented by the Monk Radbert in 831, and his notions stirred up no small controversy, till the Fourth Council of Lateran, in 1215, pronounced them orthodox; and thus at once gave a new idol to the Christian Church, and made an experiment upon human credulity, more bold than had ever been assayed by the wildering dreamings of the fanaticism of Paganism itself. Had the corruption of Rome reached to this height in the days of Claude, what would he have said and written, what" si cet ancien hérésiarque des Alpes eut connu les nouveaux mystères de la messe ?-Mais la transubstantiation n'etait pas encore nèe." (Nouvelles Lettres, p. 33.) The diocese of Turin, for a considerable time, continued to feel the blessed effects of the testimony to the pure unadulterated truth, by the devoted and intrepid Claude; but "in no district," says the Editor of these tracts of Peyran, "did the seeds of Christian truth flourish more luxuriantly than in the valleys" which have given their name to the Vaudois, or Waldenses; "picturesque valleys at the eastern part of the Cottian Alps; -"Alpine fastnesses, which nature seems to have reserved for the theatre of uncommon events."-The following topographical sketches of these loca lities, so sacred to truth, to heroic exploits, and to meek suffering,-the refuge, and once almost the solitary seat of our common Christianity; دو one of the wildernesses into which the Church fled from the serpent and the dragon,-will be acceptable to our readers. They are from Mr. Sims's introduction, somewhat abridged : "The Waldenses formerly occupied a far more considerable extent of territory than at present, having had possessions in the marquisate of Saluzzo, the valley of Susa, and several towns and villages of Piedmont; but of these they have been long deprived at different times, and under various pretexts, and are now confined to the narrow valleys about to be described. "Luzerna, the principal, presents a very pleasing appearance towards the plain of Piedmont; where a rich assemblage of well cultivated vineyards, irrigated meadows, and villages and scattered houses embosomed in chesnut and walnut trees, confer peculiar beauty on the landscape; whilst all that is agreeable in the foreground is seen in contrast with an amphitheatre of mountains, which form the boundary of the vale towards Dauphiné. "Luzerna comprises the following parishes,-Angrogna, Rorata, San Giovanni, La Torre, Villaro, and Bobio; places usually pronounced with the French termination, which shall be therefore now adopted. Luzerne when approached from Pine"Angrogne, situate on the right of rolo, is a mountainous district, where the chesnut trees are of very luxuriant growth; but it is not adapted to the cultivation of the vine. The torrent of Angrogne, a very impetuous stream, runs along a narrow channel, on each side of which hills of considerable height arise; in some places productions which the soil will yield, barren, in others covered with those and with small herds of cattle. "At the extremity of the district of Angrogne,-at Prè du Tour, once stood the college in which those Waldensian pastors were educated, who propagated their religious tenets during the doms of Europe. Not a vestige, howdark ages, through the several kingever, if we except a black stone of very large dimensions,-now exists of this once celebrated seat of learning. "On the left of the valley of Luzerue, situate also in the mountains, abounding in the same productions with Angrogne, and in the same manner distinguished by a rapid torrent, is the parish of Rora. strictly speaking, the fertile foreground, "St. Jean,-San Giovanni,-forms, and is composed of alluvial soil, rich at the entrance of the valley of Luzerne; in many of the productions of Italy;— flourishing vines, meadows that yield the diligent agriculturist three crops of hay, Indian corn, and mulberrytrees planted for the rearing of silk worms. "La Tour,-so denominated from an old fortress once erected to keep the inhabitants in awe, but long since dismantled, and of which scarcely a vestige remains,-the principal place in the occupation of the Vaudois. It lies in the vale; and its vicinity produces vines, mulberry-trees, wheat, forage, and chesnuts. A little beyond the town stands Mount Vandelin, on which there is a cave, extremely difficult of access, capable of containing about three hundred persons; a place of refuge of which the Vaudois availed themselves during the ages of persecution when suddenly attacked by their enemies, and where the helpless women and children found a safe, though but a temporary asylum, "There is in the town of La Tour a seminary called the Latin or Grammar School, supported by contributions from |