PIETY OF THE GUIDES. 127 The first appearance of the light of the rising moon upon a high mountain, while you are in obscurity below, produces an effect of enchantment. It is like a blush, or sudden glow, coming out of the mountain, like the emotion of some radiant spirit dwelling within, expressed externally, or like the faint beginning of the fire-light behind a transparency. On the opposite side of the valley, all is yet in deep shade, but at the mountain summit, behind which the hidden moon is sailing up the sky, there is a wild deepening light, and a fleecy cloud steeped in it, looking as if the moon were to break out into the blue depths, just there, at the point where the cliff cuts the stars and the azure. Still it is long before you see her full round orb, and you travel on in expectancy. Her light upon the virgin snow is wildly brilliant and beautiful. My guides to-day have been Roman Catholics. I have had a good deal of conversation with them, and found in the first a truly serious disposition, and a regard for the forms of devotion in his church, which I would hope is mingled with something of true piety. He told me much about his habits of prayer, that he prayed every day, using the pater noster, the ave, the credo, acts of faith, etcetera, which he knew by heart. He also prayed to the saints, especially St. Bernard. I asked him if he ever prayed in any other manner, and he said No, never with any prayer but what was written for him. I asked him if he did not sometimes, from a deep sense of sin in himself, cry out to God thus, "Lord, have mercy upon me, a great sinner, and forgive my guilt," and he said Yes. He told me that he had seen the Bible, and possessed a New Testament, which he read about twice a week. I asked him why not oftener? He said he had no time. I told him that he could easily read a few verses every day, if he chose, for it would take almost no time at all. I told him the word of God was the bread of the soul, notre pain quotidienne, for which he prayed in the pater noster, and that it was necessary to be eaten daily. What good would it do for our bodies, if we ate but twice in the week? We should soon starve; and just so with our souls. We need to receive God's bread, our spiritual food, the Bread of Eternal Life, every day, morning and evening at least. This would be two meals for our souls, where we make three, or more, for our bodies. "Give us this day our daily bread." This does not mean merely give to our bodies wherewithal to eat; but far more it means, feed our souls with that precious spiritual bread, without which we perish. Sanctify us by thy truth. Be THOU our daily Bread, the Life of our Souls. For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live. My guide seemed much impressed with this manner of presenting the case, but I doubt if he ever had the least idea of what the Word of God really is for the soul. He told me that he goes to confession regularly, and takes the sacrament twice a year, when the priest gives him absolution, and all his sins are taken away. I told him that the Blood of Jesus Christ alone could take away sin, and he assented to it; but this was the great truth of the Gospel, which the Romish system renders "bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul," while her own su perstitions govern its active life. She does not turn the truth out of doors, but sets error to be its keeper, confined and straitjacketed, as if it were a madman; or to be its nurse, as if it were a paralytic. So if any visitors enquire after its health error answers them. This guide was a person of the better sort, and there was a mixture of truth and error in him. Some day the truth may get loose, and save him. My next guide was a Valorsine, a subject of the King of Sardinia. He shrugged his shoulders, and said it was necessary to believe in the Church and as the Church believed. He goes to confession once a year, and believes that then all his sins are washed away when the priest gives absolution. He believes that the holy sacrament gives life and saves the soul, alleging the words of our Saviour, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood," etc. So much of the Gospel as this he had been taught like a parrot. He had never seen the New Testament, and hardly seemed to know what it was. 1. He put many questions to me concerning religion in Amer ica, and asked among other things if we believed in the commandments of God. Sidney Smith probably would have A CRAG IN THE HEAVENS. 129 999 answered him, "all except the one, 'thou shalt not steal.' He prays night and morning with the pater noster, the credo, the ave Maria, etc. I gave him a little volume containing the gospel of Luke, which I had brought with me from the Waldenses. Another man whom I talked with at Chamouny, told me that he knew of a Bible in one house, but it was at some distance. They were very rare, though sometimes families got them from Paris, but the priests did not like them to have the Scriptures. This man firmly believed that the priests have power to forgive sins. Now what a monstrous system is this! What utter and complete destruction of a man's free agency, in that great and solemn business, in which of all others he should act for himself, and feel his responsibility. These men seemed to have shuffled off their religious anxieties without the slightest concern for the result, as a traveller deposits his funds with a banker, and takes a circular letter of credit. The transaction with the priest is an anodyne administered to the conscience, which makes it sleep profoundly, and if perchance it wakes, an appeal to the Virgin quiets it. O sad and dreadful Mystery of Iniquity! Prayer itself, the highest, most ennobling exercise of the soul, turned into idolatry and superstition! "How will these men," asks Dr. South, with his accustomed pith and power, in one of his sermons,- "How will these men answer for their sins, who stand thus condemned for their devotions? Mont Blanc has been almost hidden during this last visit. But there is a wild hurried light at times under the clouds, when they are a little lifted, which shows what is concealed, with great sublimity. At times also the clouds open around a lofty peak, and it stands out in the sky alone, while the whole mountain and world besides is hidden in mist. A craggy or snowy peak so seen, seems to have gone like an island with wings up into the heavens, it appearing so lofty and so wildly bright. The glacier du Bosson struggling down the valley seems like a lost thing from another world. How beautiful the new-fallen snow upon the mountains! CHAPTER XX. CITY OF AOSTE-SABBATH-PEASANTS--MONUMENT TO CALVIN. The city of Aoste, lying under an Italian sky, and out of the way of communication with the Gospel, has always remained in allegiance to the Pope and Tradition. It is not very far from the interesting territory of the Waldenses, where the light of Gospel truth has never gone out, and where, from age to age, men have suffered martyrdom rather than wear the mark of the Beast on their foreheads. But a few mountains interposed make Evangelical Christians of one party, and of the other subjects of Rome. It is impossible to describe the feeling of confidence and comfort which you have, in a Romish city like this, on finding yourself in a pleasant Protestant family. The people of mine inn were not Christians in personal experience, but the bare absence of the bondage of the priesthood, and the disregard of the superstitious ceremonies of the Cathedral, with the speculative knowledge of the truth which they had in Switzerland, gave them a great superiority to those around them. What a shameful thing to human nature it is to feel afraid of your fellow-creatures on account of their religion, because their religion makes them your enemies, and teaches them to view you as criminals, who ought to be punished. One can hardly pass through a Romish city without seeing Giant Grim sitting at the door of his cave, and muttering, as you pass by, You will never mend till more of you be burned. But all the bigotry and jealousy in the world cannot make the grass less green in this delicious region, nor the song of the birds less sweet, nor cause the sun to shine less brightly upon Protestants, than he does upon Romanists. It is a lovely place, where you may experience both the delight of the Poet in the loveliness of Nature, and the grief of the Poet for what man has made of man. "I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sat reclined, In that sweet mode when pleasant thoughts SABBATH IN AOSTE. To her fair works did Nature link Through primrose tufts in that sweet bower, The birds around me hopped and played; The budding twigs spread out their fan And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. If this belief from Heaven is sent, What man has made of man? 131 I spent the Sabbath in this city, and enjoyed much a solitary walk in the fields and along the margin of the river. Beautiful region! How calm and grand the mountains, looking down upon the green earth like venerable, benevolent genii, who guard the abodes of its inhabitants, or like ancient whitehaired prophets speaking of the mysteries of heaven! It is sweet to commune with God amidst the lovely scenes of nature, when the desecration and forgetfulness of his Sabbath and his temples built by human hands compel you, as it were, to seek him in solitude, by the music of running water beneath the open temple of a sky so glorious, amidst groves of such quiet shade and luxuriance, with such Sabbath-like repose. And amidst the idolatry and wilful superstitions of Romanism, near the heart of the great system where its throbbings agitate the whole mass of society, it is good to plead with God, that his Holy Spirit may descend upon this region, and his own truth prevail. The calm retreat, the silent shade, |