Many colporteurs described the joy of seeing people become believers , little congregations being created throughout the peninsula which they would visit on future journeys .
‘ Who is the colporteur ? It is that man we see of the roads of the towns and the countryside , armed with a bag full of holy books and particularly the Holy Bible , who is available to anyone who wants to talk . He will enter houses , barracks , and goes up to the gates of the prisons hoping that all will accept and study the Word of God offered by him .’ 2 Some men were colporteurs for just a year / one journey , or perhaps accompanying another colporteur – similar to short-term Christian work now . About 50 per cent remained in their jobs / vocations for at least 10 years and there is documented evidence of 11 colporteurs who were active for many many years – often more than 20 ; Ignazio Glorioso for 23 , Angelo Deodato for 50 +. From 1869 to 1890 there were about 40 colporteurs active in the peninsula , most in Piedmont and Sicily .
So what was a colporteur ’ s journey like ? Angelo Castioni has left details of a journey undertaken between August 1878 and July 1879 , passing through Milan , Pinerolo , Cuneo , Genoa , Florence , Rome , Naples , Matera , Taranto , Brindisi , Cerignola , Vasto , Ancona , Rimini , Piacenza and Brescia . ‘ I sold a Bible to a Baker and , passing by later in front of his shop , I saw him reading it to his wife , I entered and stayed with them for about an hour in order to teach them all about the truths contained in it .’ 3 Later on he describes being in Pescara , not selling anything but a crowd had gathered . Some of the crowd were initially quite hostile , but they listened with interest . These men must at times have seen the similarities between their work and the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul in Acts . But we should not forget the women who often accompanied them as teachers and ‘ Bible women ’. These ladies ( for example Giuseppina Pusterla and Elena Gay ) sometimes stayed put in a community to run a Sunday School and Prayer Meetings , often continuing to distribute literature , while the colporteurs went on their way . The Waldensian and Methodist Church employed 12 such women in 1892 . Unlike the colporteur , whose work was generally amongst the poorer people and workers , the women worked with the bourgeoisie , often visiting them in their homes .
By the turn of the century there were fewer and fewer colporteurs and gradually attention turned to the consolidating the many little congregations which were now spread throughout the peninsula . Also with the rise of Fascism , Protestants found their lives increasingly restricted , as the State aligned itself to the Roman Catholic Church . The aristocratic , mainly British , ladies who had supported individual colporteurs financially , like the aforementioned Mrs Louisa Boyce , were no longer around and the First World War brought with it conscription and other demands . The work continued , but there were not so many involved as in the nineteenth century . It must have been very satisfying for the colporteurs to realise that in this new century there were now many growing congregations throughout Italy , while in 1848 the Protestant church had almost exclusively been limited to a small mountainous area of Piedmont .
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