An Important Message!

   

Here we have an report, in the Book : „Inspiring Stories for Young Latter-day Saints“ published by Deseret Book Co. Salt Lake City 1975 P 166-170

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Madeline’s Dream

„Madeline’s Dream“ by Lucile C. Reading, in the follow as abbreviation: „It had seems in her dream that she was a young lady sitting on a small strip of meadow close to the vineyard... and she glanced down at a Sunday Schoolbook in her lap. As she looked up, she was startled to see three strange men. And there came the feeling of peace, that had flooded over her when one of the man said: ‚Don’t be frightened. We have come from a place far from her to tell you about the true and everlasting gospel.’ Then the men told her that an angel had directed a boy to find an important book old gold hidden in the earth. They said that someday she, Madeline, would able to read this book, and then, because of it she would gladly leave her home, cross the great ocean, and go to America to live...

Her Father told again the story of why they lived in a small village high in the north Italian Alps...Her grandparents many generations back had had homes in the lovely Valleys at the foot of these lofty mountains. There the people lived simple, happy lives, basing all they did on the teachings of the apostles who lived at the time of Christ. The Vaudois (meaning people who live in the valleys of the Alps) even sent forth missionaries two by two to teach. Many people from other lands were converted to their faith.

News of their success reached Rome, and Word went to the Vaudois valleys that they must give up their own church and abide by the dictates of the larger ruling Church in Rome. This they refused to do. ... Angered, Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) 
   

Wikipedia Innozent VIII.

 proclaimed a general crusade for the extermination of every member of the Vaudois church. Soon the peaceful valleys where they lived were filled with tragedy and destruction. 

Picture Wikipedia: Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. In this group, women appear to be nearly as numerous as men and the Catholics seem to give women equally harsh treatment for their beliefs

           
There was hardly a rock that did not mark a scene of death. Those who survived were driven from their homes. They retreated higher and ever higher up the steep mountains...This people settled high in the Piedmont valleys of the Alps... The older children often expressed gratitude for their home and for their church with its motto: ‚The Light Shining in Darkness“... About eight years after Madeline’s dream the king of Sardinia, pressured by England and other Countries to stop persecuting the Piedmont Protestants, granted his Vaudois subjects freedom of religion.

The tragic 800-year war ended in February 1848.

The very next year Lorenzo Snow, who later became the fifth President of the Church, was called to open a mission in Italy, but he and his two companions could not find anyone interested in their message. Discouraged, he wrote, ‘I see no possible means of accomplishing our object. All is darkness.’

On September 18, 1850 Lorenzo 

 Wikipedia Lorenzo Snow im Jahr 1900 (1814-1901)

and his two companions climbed a high mountain in northern Italy and, on a large projecting rock, offered e fervent prayer for guidance. They were then inspired to dedicate the land for the preaching of the gospel, and they named the rock upon they stood ‚The Rock of Prophecy.’

Before leaving the mountain the missionaries sang ’The Hymn of the Vaudois Mountaineers in Times of Persecution.’

The strains of this song had floated down into the valleys many times from high caves and fissures in the rocks where the persecuted had been hiding.

It had been a rallying cry as the Vaudois took up arms to fortify their mountain passes.

It had been sung in thanksgiving in their church services.

Now the three missionaries, standing on The Rock of Prophecy, sang the stirring words:

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,

Our God, our father’s God;

Thou hast made they children mighty

By the touch of the mountain sod.’

Shortly afterward, on a Saturday afternoon, Madeline’s father went home early from his work...he told his family that three strangers were coming to bring an important message... when they reached his small rock home; they found Madeline sitting on a little strip of meadow close to the vineyard. She looked up from the Sunday Schoolbook, she was reading into the faces of three men... Some baptisms were held in October 1850. Twenty families eventually accepted the gospel...“

Source: Wikipedia

another map of the people, spread in Europe 1200. Source Evangelischer Gesamtverband Oberweser, 2008