Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/313

Rh exultingly to me, “and Sophie, our dear Sophie, has got the highest prize!”

The happy mother contemplated her children with beaming eyes.

From Neufchâtel I made visits to two neighboring institutions, both celebrated in Switzerland, Mont Mirail and Prefargis.

Mont Mirail is an educational institution belonging to the Moravians, which has been established above a century, but which is still in a beautifully flourishing condition, under the protection of the United Brethren. All familes, both in German and French Switzerland, who place a high value on the religious tendency of education, desire to send their daughters thither. The life of the United Brethren is educational, inasmuch as it places the Christian life as the highest in its tendency, and a continued career in deeds of love as the true imitation of Christ. Hence it arises that they flourish peacefully in dissimilar countries, and amongst all Christian sects; hence their activity in the education of youth, and for missionary labor, and their success in both. They do not despise Christian science, but they lay the greatest weight upon prayer and the course of life.

“Pray and labor,” seems to me to be their motto. The faith which they have in a special providence (providentia specialissima) over every believer, and in His immediate guidance in all, even in the smallest event of their lives, gives to the members of this body a peace, which is not unfrequently perceptible in their