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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 4
designed the Bible to be a lesson-book to all mankind, in childhood,
youth, and manhood, and to be studied through all time. He gave his
word to men as a revelation of himself. Every new truth discerned
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is a fresh disclosure of the character of its Author. The study of the
Scriptures is the means divinely ordained to bring men into closer
connection with their Creator, and to give them a clearer knowledge
of his will. It is the medium of communication between God and
man.
When the Waldensian youth had spent some time in their schools
in the mountains, some of them were sent to complete their edu-
cation in the great cities, where they could have a wider range for
thought and observation than in their secluded homes. The youth
thus sent forth were exposed to temptation, they witnessed vice,
they encountered Satan’s wily agents, who urged upon them the
most subtle heresies and the most dangerous deceptions. But their
education from childhood had been of a character to prepare them
for all this.
In the schools whither they went, they were not to make con-
fidants of any. Their garments were so prepared as to conceal
their greatest treasure,—the precious manuscripts of the Scriptures.
These, the fruit of months and years of toil, they carried with them,
and whenever it could be done without exciting suspicion, they cau-
tiously placed some portion in the way of those whose hearts seemed
open to receive it. From their mother’s knee the Waldensian youth
had been trained with this purpose in view; they understood their
work, and faithfully performed it. Converts to the true faith were
won in these institutions of learning, and frequently its principles
were found to be permeating the entire school; yet the papist lead-
ers could not, by the closest inquiry, trace the so-called corrupting
heresy to its source.
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The Waldenses felt that God required more of them than merely
to maintain the truth in their own mountains; that a solemn respon-
sibility rested upon them to let their light shine forth to those who
were in darkness; that by the mighty power of God’s word, they were
to break the bondage which Rome had imposed. It was a law among
them that all who entered the ministry should, before taking charge
of a church at home, serve three years in the missionary field. As the
hands of the men of God were laid upon their heads, the youth saw