Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/105

Rh distance in the evening twilight. Its foaming-dirty-white mass of waters is not more beautiful, and not less frightful, seen in the full light of day and from a nearer point of view, but I had now the sun, and the companionship of a friend, and I experienced from the Undine valley only a deep and quiet impression. And whilst numerous streams sung and murmured, and Schmadribach thundered in the distance, my friend and I held quiet divine service in the great temple of nature. Sitting on little green hillocks, we read Vinet's Sermon on the Transfiguration, and one of Monod's “Adieux.” These parting words with which the noble martyr, when on his bed of suffering, took leave of his friends and the world, gave to them at the same time the impress of his memory and his Christian faith more powerfully than he had done in any of his orations from the pulpit:—

When A. Monod found himself seized upon by the cruel malady which caused his death in the prime of life, he grieved that he must cease to labor just at the moment when he hoped to have accomplished something really good for the church. Could he now but see how his parting sighs have become his most beautiful, perhaps his actual work!

This was my birthday, this day spent in the Undine valley, and it could not have been celebrated better.

From the Lake of Brienz we proceeded to Meyringen, and here we are now sitting on a lofty and extensive plateau in the midst of a garland of Alps, from the nearest heights of which several cascades are