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Page 22
"A few weeks after this Mr. Wyndham left Chamouni for Lausanne.
"'We shall miss you,' said Alice; for my father let me go to bid them
good-by; 'and that you may have something to remember me by, I am
going to give you this little Bible. You will see that I have marked
the passages I want you to study; and you must try to read it every
day.'
"It was the very thing that I had wanted, but I could hardly tell her
so. Tears were running over my face, and I had barely time to slip the
little book into my pocket when my father came up. After that I was
happier. I could read for myself, and it was sweet to know that God
cared for me. Many a pleasant hour did I enjoy in the mountain passes,
and in telling Annette of the treasure I had found in the Bible.
"My father may have suspected this. I hardly know; but one day the
priest came to talk to me upbraiding me not a little with reading a
book that could do me no good, and demanding that I should give it to
him. This I refused to do. He appealed to my father; invectives and
blows followed, and at last my father told me that I should either
give up the book or never see him or Annette any more. It was a
struggle, and I came near giving it up.
"When Annette suggested that I should go to Lausanne and see Mr.
Wyndham and Alice, I had not thought that I could do this, and without
delay started. I was received very kindly by Mr. Wyndham. Alice had
grown very weak; could not walk, and seldom could ride. I can not tell
you how the days passed, neither of the exertion she made to teach me
out of my little book. Then came a day when her voice was still, and
the next the sweet face was hidden from my sight for ever.
"Soon after this Mr. Wyndham left for England, but before he left he
had a long talk with me, and of my plans and hopes for the future. The
result was that I was placed in school, of which there are several, in
Lausanne, and began to study with reference to being myself a teacher
of his blessed word. My little Bible I sent to Annette; but my father
would not let me come home. For the last year he has been failing;
three months since he took to his bed, and then Annette prevailed upon
him to let me come and wait upon him. I found him greatly changed.
From the first he let me read the Book, as he calls it, and of late I
feel that he loves Jesus, and trusts him for the future. Living upon
his labor, it troubles him that he can do nothing; and this was why I
was so anxious to go with you yesterday; he likes to think of me as a
guide."
"And I trust you will be a guide," I said, as we left the table and
entered the sick-room, "a guide to lead souls to Christ. What a
blessed privilege!"
"If I can only do it," and his eyes were full of a holy light.
Annette sat by the bedside; the face of the sick man was as pale as
marble, and but for the gentle breathing, we should have thought him
already departed. Franz put on a fresh knot, and the red flame sent a
rosy tinge over the apartment. Sitting before the fire we watched him
as he slept, knowing, feeling that it could not be long. Then a
chapter was read, and a prayer went up for strength and guidance.
Franz would not let me watch with him; and leading me into a small
room with a clean but somewhat hard bed, left me to myself. Weary as I
was, I could not sleep. The glory of the day; the sad, sweet history
just related; the sick man, with the messenger waiting at the humble
door, thrilled me with a feeling that would not rest. Opening my
window, I enjoyed the stillness, the solitude, and the grandeur of the
scene: the glittering dome of Mont Blanc, and all the surrounding and
inferior domes and spires and pyramids that cluster in this wondrous
region, which fancy might conceive the edifices of some great city, or
the towers and dome of some vast minster. Far above the mountain-tops
the moon was shining; while her retinue of stars, seen through the
cool crisp air, seemed larger and more beautiful than I had ever
before seen them.
It would be impossible to detail all the thoughts that passed, and the
emotions that were excited in my mind. Every object around, beneath,
above me seemed in silent but impressive eloquence to celebrate God's
praise; from the moon that led the starry train, from the patriarch of
his kindred hills and nearest to the heavenly sanctuary, down to the
frozen glaciers and the roaring torrents of the lower valleys, all
seemed endowed with a peculiar language--a voice to touch the heart of
man, and to enter into the ear of God.
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