Our last chapter closed with a brief sketch of the life of Beckwith, so that in the present I might be free to speak of the work done, without interpolations as to the personal movements of him who was in several respects the chief worker. To those who desire to read the full particulars of General Beckwith's life, I very earnestly commend the deeply interesting work of Pastor J. P. Meille, to whose pages I am greatly indebted.

Beckwith was early impressed with the conviction that God had providentially preserved the Vaudois, that they might be the agents of evangelizing Italy, through the political changes which were being wrought in that country by means of the kingdom of Sardinia. He was the first to recognize this important truth, and he never lost sight of it, either in the motive which it supplied for his own efforts, or in the influence he sought to bring to bear upon others. This belief in the mission of the Vaudois quickened all his sympathies and guided all his plans. To turn to these plans, one of the earliest was the improvement and extension of primary education. Beckwith saw at once the value of the Quartier schools, and he began to erect a better class of buildings for this purpose. First of all he bore the whole expense, excepting the site; afterwards he paid the cost of labour in erecting the buildings, but required the inhabitants to supply material as well as site. He also oftentimes contributed largely to augment the salary of the underpaid teachers. Some one hundred and twenty buildings, commodious and well-situated, were the result of these efforts.

But the improvement in the hamlet schools brought out more distinctly the sad condition of the parish schools. To overcome difficulties, Beckwith would say to the parish authorities, You need a better school and residence for your teacher; if you will raise a thousand francs (about a fourth or fifth, according to circumstances), I will supply the rest.

If this offer was accepted, the colonel generally made the contract, and overlooked the erection of the building.

In this way, a little by little, some this year and others the next, in nearly every commune of the valleys there rose up commodious edifices, duly furnished with all the requisites of teaching. The change was immense from the narrow, confined, ill-ventilated, badly lighted, and unfurnished buildings which had previously existed.

The reformation, however, in the buildings and their fittings was not the only thing requisite for a good school. Good teachers were also needed, and to procure these it was necessary to augment the scale of stipend. At the time under review the highest salary was from three to four hundred francs (£12 or £16) per annum. Beckwith set about this task, and being ably supported by the moderator of the church, M. Bonjour, he had the satisfaction of seeing an arrangement made by which the salaries of the teachers were raised one-third. This augmentation began on the 1st of January, 1837. But the good effected by this movement was not simply the increased pay of the teacher; it raised the work in public estimation, and gave to the teacher's position a degree of security which enabled him to devote himself more entirely to teaching as a distinct profession.

Another means for advancing education was that of increasing the personal efficiency of the teachers themselves. To accomplish this, the teachers of all the parish schools in the valleys were sent for a course of instruction at the normal college at Lausanne. The expense of this important measure was borne entirely by Beckwith. And, moreover, to secure permanently the above results, a rule was adopted by the synod in 1839, that henceforth every teacher in the Vaudois parish schools must produce a certificate of didactic power, as well as moral fitness for the office.

Beckwith's next movement was the establishment of a boarding-school for girls. I had the pleasure of visiting this very interesting and important institution in 1871, and was struck by the efficiency and excellence of its character. But it is time to refer to his exertions in connection with secondary instruction. Although Dr. Gilly very deservedly has the chief credit in reference to the erection of that noble college of the Holy Trinity at La Torre, which forms so imposing and interesting an object to the Christian tourist, and which constituted so marked an epoch in the restoration of piety and sound learning among the pastors and general population of the valleys, yet it must be acknowledged that the many difficulties associated with this grand enterprise would hardly have been surmounted, had it not have been for the presence on the spot of so true a friend to the Vaudois, and so able an ally of the noble projector of the college, as his military colleague.

Not only did he provide a building for the grammar school whose location had been one of the difficulties connected with the establishment of the college, but he also superintended the erection of the buildings, and gave a sum of ten thousand francs towards the cost. Dr. Gilly acknowledges these things in a letter to the moderator under date of April 28th, 1835. He also was instrumental, with Dr. Gilly, in founding a grammar school at Pomaret. This school was subsequently enlarged by the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Stewart, of Leghorn, another warm-hearted friend of the Waldensian Church.

In 1847 Beckwith erected a group of houses, just above the college, for the residence of the professors. But important as were the reformations sought and obtained in the educational machinery of the valleys, yet it was almost as needful to improve the character of the ecclesiastical edifices used by the Vaudois. Few were such as fitted the purposes to which they were set apart. There is nothing surprising in this when we consider the circumstances of the Vaudois through so many centuries. But, easy as it is to account for the lack of edifices appropriate to the decent and reverent worship of Almighty God at the period referred to, the thing itself was nevertheless a misfortune. Hence in 1843 Beckwith offered to restore the temple at Rodoret, which was in a most deplorable state. The temple was not alone in its need; the parsonage-house, a very crazy building, was destroyed by an avalanche on the 16th of January, 1845, burying beneath its ruins the pastor, his wife, their little child, aged five months, and servant, the only living creature escaping being the pastor's dog! The new temple being finished in March, Beckwith commenced operations for the erection of a suitable presbytery. The total cost of the new building was thirteen thousand francs, contributed chiefly by Beckwith, but with the help of the commune, Dr. Stewart, of Leghorn, and friends in Dublin and America.

His next work was the restoration of the church at Rora. This matter was accompanied by a pleasing incident. He was speaking of the affair at the house of a friend in England. A little girl of the family overheard the conversation, and, approaching the general, offered him a penny, saying she would like to assist in building the church. He was much touched by this action of the child, and taking her on his knees, said, "Yes, my friend; with that which you have given me I will build the church; and your penny, placed in the corner stone, will tell all the world that you have been the founder." The new building was consecrated in January, 1846. Other temples and presbyteries were restored, including that of Prali. The churches of Coppier and Angrogna were restored in 1847 by Mrs. General Molyneux Williams. But a greater work was accomplished in 1852, when Beckwith erected a church for the parish of La Torre, which, under the influence of oppressive edicts, had been deprived of its temple for hundreds of years. This edifice is, both as regards dimensions and architecture, suited to the position it holds as the parish church of the capital of the valleys; those valleys no longer dreading the approach of sanguinary bands to pillage and destroy, its people no longer crushed beneath a bondage which refused them the opportunities of worship in their own parochial boundaries according to the creed and ritual of their sainted and heroic forefathers. This grand work was the last preliminary to that church extension and missionary revival which the era of emancipation made possible to the Vaudois Church, and which Beckwith had so long eagerly and clearly anticipated.