Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/264

280 evening, especially large. Its principal leader is said to be now absent. Three or four men spoke feebly, and without talent. All spoke of the certainty of acceptance in Christ for every one who would believe in him. The hymns took up again the same theme, and compared the believers to “sheep which grazed in rich pasture-meadows, in the perpetual sunshine of grace.”

I found the pasture-meadows, that is to say, within the congregation, very meagre of intelligence. I also became exceedingly sleepy, and many of the good sheep there were sleepy too.

The Darbyites are celebrated for the gravity and morality of their quiet life, as well as for the assistance which they mutually render each other.

The 13th of March was the election-day in the Canton Vaud, indeed, in the whole of the Swiss Cantons. I heard upright men, themselves electors, earnestly deplore the want of honesty and candor which is exhibited on these occasions, or which these occasions bring forth. Intrigues and hypocrisy abound.

A noble-minded man gave it as his opinion, that an absolute monarchy was a better form of government for mankind.

I did not agree with him. We must purchase, I said, that which is good in freedom—that which is noble in freedom—with the dangers of freedom; and these we must overcome by taking a higher moral stand. The Christian commonwealth and life are not a level plain, on which mankind can easily wander, like sheep in rich pasture meadows, in the light of an