ABOUT seven hundred years ago, there lived at Lyons, in France, a wealthy merchant of the name of Peter Waldo. His house was on a tongue of land which divides the two beautiful rivers, the Rhone and the Saone. The walls of the city, even at that period, were old and gray. By gloomy gateways the traveler entered into close, narrow streets. Houses, six or seven stories high, were ornamented with richly carved work in wood; and their overhanging roofs almost touched at the projecting parts, casting deep shadows on the pathway below.
The town had been long noted for its commerce and the quays and wharfs on both rivers presented a busy scene. The place had then, for more than five hundred years, been the chief seat of the silk trade in France. The clicking sound of the loom was heard in almost every house.
Numerous trees had been planted without the city walls, on which silkworms were bred, whose cocoons yielded the means of industry, and were a source of wealth to the people.
Peter Waldo had lived in great reputation as a merchant. Success had attended his labors, and he was known among his fellow citizens as a man of honor, liberality, and kindness of spirit. In the midst of his prosperity an event took place which led him to feel anxious for the salvation of his soul.
He was sitting in the company of some friends. After supper, as they were engaged in pleasant conversation, one of them fell to the ground, and when he was raised it was found that he was dead. From that time Waldo became a diligent inquirer after truth. He sought to satisfy a guilty conscience with the false doctrines and vain ceremonies of the Church of Rome.
But in these peace was not to be found. The priests could not satisfy the mind as to the great question, “How shall a man be just with God?” He knew he was a sinner; his conscience told him so. He knew he was not fit to die; and when he asked, “What must I do to be saved?” he was not satisfied with all the answers the Romish priests gave him.
The Bible would have told him; but Waldo had not the holy book. Rich as he was, he had not the best of all treasures: the few copies which then existed were in libraries to which the common people had not access. Besides, they were all written in Latin, so that a person had to be learned in that tongue in order to read a Bible, provided he could by any means get sight of one.
Some good books soon afterward fell into the hands of Peter Waldo, written by the “early fathers,” as they are called men who lived after the apostles, and before the Christian religion was corrupted by the priests of Rome. In these books he found many passages from the New Testament, and much that brought light and comfort to his soul. These parts only made him more anxious to secure the whole of the Bible.
After much labor, Peter Waldo was so happy as to own a copy of God’s word. It must have been a large sum of money that he gave for it; yet what a treasure it proved to him! He did not think the money misspent or the time misapplied that he gave to the study of it. These were nothing in comparison with the blessed truths which it made known to him.
It taught him the “new and living way” of approaching God, through Jesus Christ, the only Saviour and Mediator; it told him that a contrite and believing heart is what God requires; it was heart service that was the “reasonable service.”
Before, he was perplexed and troubled; now, he was peaceful and glad. Peter Waldo felt like a new man; the burden was gone from his soul; light was there, and comfort, for he had found mercy through faith in Christ Jesus.
Waldo had been long known in the city for his kindness to all; he had freely given of his wealth to relieve the wants of the people, but now, while he did not forget to give to those that needed of the things that perish, he was more concerned that they should seek the bread of life for their souls. The Bible had taught him how he might be saved, and he desired to tell others the good news.
He looked around, and beheld everybody groaning under the heavy loads which the priests had put upon. them. He wept over their condition, and with zeal, he entered the houses of his friends and fellow-citizens that he might teach them about the great and precious work of Jesus Christ. He told them that God required repentance, faith in His Son, and holy lives. He showed them the way to Jesus to have their sins washed away in His blood.
He held many meetings with the poor in their cottages; he visited the sick and the dying; he retired to the quiet of the country and the shelter of the woods that he might guide a few earnest seekers into the way of truth: he taught them: he prayed with them; and relieved their distresses. We need not wonder that the people loved him, since he was concerned to feed both their bodies and their souls.
There was one thing which Peter Waldo now desired more than anything else; that the Scriptures might be translated into the language of the people. The translation then in use was the Vulgate, so called because it was to be for “common” use in the churches. It was in the Latin tongue; and though the languages of Europe had a mixture of Latin words in them, they were still so unlike it that the common or vulgar people (formerly the word vulgar was of the same sense as common) could not read it, even if they had been permitted to do so.
What should we do without the Bible in our own language? The Bible in Latin would be a useless book to most of us; and yet it was just the plan of the Romish priests to keep it in another tongue that others might be ignorant of its sacred truths.
“The people must have it in their own tongue,” said, Peter Waldo, and the work was soon begun. It is not quite certain whether he translated it himself, or caused it to be done by others. Perhaps he did a part of it, and engaged able persons to do the rest.
It was a very great labor; but having read the Bible himself, he spared neither money nor pains that it might be placed in the hands of his countrymen. At length some of the books were completed, and this was the first translation of the Bible into a modern language. It was done by, or at the expense of, a rich merchant. Did ever a man of wealth do a better work? What a blessed gift it was to the people of that land!
When the Bible was finished, it could not be largely circulated for this was before the art of printing was known. Written copies had to be made with the pen, demanding long and patient labor; and when finished, a complete copy was worth a large sum of money.
The merchant, however, had numerous copies of the New Testament written, that they might be freely given to the people; and many had the privilege of reading it in their own language. All honor to the brave and good man who thus gave the word of Gad to the men, of France.
But this great service was not enough for Peter Waldo. He was not only the founder of a Bible Society, he began to form also a Missionary Society. Great numbers in the city had been brought, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to love the Saviour, and these he sent out, two by two, into all the region around. They carried their books with them into other lands.
Multitudes were led to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, through the humble efforts of these “poor men of Lyons,” as they were called.
These colporteurs, or book-hawkers, not only made their way into the homes of the lowly, but found access to the castles of the nobles. Their manner, as related by a Romish historian, was to carry a box of trinkets, or other goods, and travel through the country as peddlers.
When they entered the houses of the gentry, to sell some of their wares, they cautiously made known that they had other goods that were far more valuable than these precious jewels, which they would show if they might be permitted to do so.
They would then bring from their pack, or from under their cloak, a Bible or Testament, and as they spoke of its worth they urged that this holy book might find a place in the homes and hearts of those who heard them.
In this way many of the nobles and gentry were brought to possess the word of God.
It was not to be supposed that the pope and the priests looked quietly on the labors of Peter Waldo and his book-hawkers. The pope pronounced him accursed, and ordered the Archbishop of Lyons to proceed against him with the greatest rigor.
The archbishop was very willing to obey. “If you teach any more,” said he to the merchant, “I will have you condemned as a heretic and burnt.”
“How can I be silent in a matter which concerns the salvation of men?” he boldly answered.
Officers were sent to secure him, but they feared the people, to whom Peter Waldo had become endeared. During three years he was concealed by his friends.
At length the merchant could stay at Lyons no longer in safety. He fled from the city, going from place to place, everywhere explaining and teaching Bible truth; and God blessed his labors.
Waldo and his missionaries were treated very badly by their enemies; they were called “sorcerers,” “cut-purses,” and “tur-lupines,” or people living with wolves. They had often nowhere to lay their heads, and were forced to find refuge in the forest. “Poor men of Lyons” became a term of reproach.
It could be said of them, as of good men in Bible times, “They wandered in deserts and in mountains?, and in dens and caves of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, tormented;” and it may be truly added, “of whom the world was not worthy” (Heb. 11:37, 3837They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:37‑38)). While burning at the stake they praised God for the privilege of laboring and suffering for him who had died on the cross for them. Thirty-five men and women were burned in one fire, and eighteen suffered martyrdom at another time.
God’s blessed truth, however, cannot be burned out, or rooted out, or put out, by any way of men’s devising. God Himself will take care of it. In spite of the anger of their enemies, in all the countries whither Waldo and his missionaries went, the truth made its way, converting and comforting many souls.
Thus were planted the seeds, the little seeds of true Bible religion, which three or four years afterward, sprang up and aided in promoting the great Protestant Reformation that Reformation which established Bible religion again on the earth, and gave a great blow to the power of the pope.
But what became of Peter Waldo? After doing much good, and presenting a noble example as a Christian, he went into Bohemia, where he peacefully died, in the year 1179. From that time to this present day his name is held in great respect not because he was a great merchant or a rich man but because he gave himself and his all to the service of our Lord; and because he was the first in Europe to give the word of God to the common people in their own language.
As we read of those who have formed a part of the Church in other days, may we feel a concern to partake of the same faith that faith which savingly unites the soul to Christ, and which will keep it steadfast to His cause in a sinful world.