"... Madeline, her clothes under her arms, ran down the stairs and into the kitchen where her
mother was preparing breakfast. Mother looked up to say good morning to her little girl, but
when she saw how pale and breathless Madeline was, she askeds the matter? Are
you sick?
No, answered Madeline, but at the moment she could say no more. She sank down onto a
stool near the fireplace and stared into the flame. She wondered how she could ever put
into words the strange dream she had just had, and what her mother would think if she
could.
It had seemed in her dream that she was a young lady sitting on a small strip of meadow
close to the vineyard and that as she watched to make sure the goats didnt tramp on the
vines and eat them, she glanced down at a Sunday School book in her lap. As she looked up
again, she was startled to see three strange men.
At the remembrance, Madeline shivered in fright, just as she had shivered in her dream. But
almost at once there came the feeling of peace that had flooded over her when one of the
men said, Dont be frightened. We have come from a place far from here 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 of gold
hidden in the earth. They said that someday she, Madeline, would be 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.
In the warm sweet-smelling kitchen Madeline relived her dream. It seemed so real to her
that she turned pale again and began to tremble. Father came in from milking the goats, and
asked, just as her mother had done, Whats the matter? Are you sick?
Madeline could only shake her head. Father gently stooped down beside her, picked up a
stocking, and without another word began to help her dress. Afterward he lifted her onto
his lap and quietly asked, Do you want to tell me about it?
Madeline nodded. It was hard to get the words started, but then they seemed to tumble
over each other in their eagerness to be spoken. Mother left her preparations for their
simple breakfast of figs, potatoes, and goats milk so she could hear every amazing detail of
the dream. Father listened intently, occasionally nodding his head as if he understood more
than was being said.
That night when the family gathered around the fireplace for the evening prayer, Father told
again the story of why they lived in a small village high in the north Italian Alps.
Picture: Gesamtverband
Oberweser Waldensische,
bzw. katharische Gemeinden in Mitteleuropa um 1200
Association Upper Weser Waldensian and Cathar communities in Central Europe around 1200
According to Wikimedia Commons, Paulicians rejected the cross as a Christian symbol. They were very likely Arians, who were generally defamed and persecuted by the mainstream church.
Their 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 had 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. In fact, the Vaudois clung with even greater faith to the authority and
teachings of the New Testament as handed down to them.
Angered, Pope Innocent VIII
 |
| 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. 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.
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| 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 |
Picture Wikipedia The Waldensian people were tortured
The many years of unbelievable suffering resulted in the death of all but three hundred
members of the Vaudois church. These people settled high in the Piedmont valleys of the
Alps, their villages seeming to cling to the mountainsides. They were surrounded by
inaccessible crags and cliffs.
Wikipedia Piedmont valleysIt was hard to eke out a living. Each spring the women and children went down the steep
mountains and in baskets carried the soil that had been washed down in the winter storms
back up to their terraced fields and gardens. But in these craggy mountains they were quite
isolated, and here they raised their hands to the sky and solemnly swore to defend their
homes and their religion to the death, as their fathers had done before them.
Madeline's family had heard this story many times, but they never tired of it. Even the
youngest children thrilled to hear of the courage of their tall strong grandparents. The older
children often expressed gratitude for their home and for their church with its motto The
Light Shining in Darkness.
Long after everyone else was asleep that night, Madeline could hear the murmur of her
parents' voices. The last thing she remembered before she went to sleep was hearing her
mother insist, "But we already have the true gospel, so there couldn't be any real meaning to that story Madeline told us.
Madeline did not hear Fathers answer, but occasionally as the years went by, he would
question her concerning her dream. Even though some of the details became vague to her,
they never did to him.
About eight years after Madelines dream, the king of Sardinia, King Alberto
King Alberto 1823
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 Snow and his two companions climbed a high mountain in
northern Italy and on a large projecting rock offered a fervent prayer for guidance. They
Lorenzo Snow ca 1850
were then inspired to dedicate the land for the preaching of the gospel, and they named the
rock upon which 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 fathers God;
Thou hast made thy children mighty
By the touch of the mountain sod.
Shortly afterward, on a Saturday afternoon, Madelines father went home early from his
work of building a chimney for a neighbor. He told his family that three strangers were
coming to bring an important message. I must dress in my best clothes and go welcome them, he said.
He found the men he was looking for on Sunday morning and invited them to go home with
him. As they walked up over the winding paths and through the dangerously narrow
mountain passes, Madelines father told them of the dream his daughter had had many
years before.
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 School book she was reading
into the faces of three men. They told her they had come to give her people the message
contained in a wonderful book of gold that had been taken out of the earth, and said that
she could now read this book.
That evening Madelines neighbors came to meet the strangers and hear their message.
Some of the men found it so unusual and exciting that they stayed up all night to learn more
about the newly revealed truths that had been brought to them by these missionaries of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Some baptisms were held in October 1850. Twenty families eventually accepted the gospel,
and as Madelines dream became a reality, the Vaudois area truly became A Light Shining in darkness
. 
The Waldensian Temple Built in 1852 in Torre Pellice, with Mount Castelluzzo in the background. Reprinted from J. A. Wylie, History of the Waldenses, 4th ed. (London: Cassell & Company, 1889), 8.
