Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/339

Rh die. Is it not so, Mors?” continued he, as he patted one of the large, pious dogs; “thou wilt hold out for another year, and then thou wilt die!” Mors wagged his tail assentingly, and I thought of Luther's words to his dog:

“Don't grumble, little Hans; thou, too, shalt have a golden tail some day!”

The Hospice of St. Bernard was founded about a thousand years ago, by the pious Count Bernard, of Menthone. From eighteen to twenty thousand travelers, passing between Italy and Switzerland, are annually entertained here, without the good Augustine monks exacting the smallest payment. The more wealthy travelers generally leave a donation in the alms' box of the church, and the country people carry thither, sometimes, gifts of butter, cheese, &c. But this does not amount to much. The convent supports itself, and also its thousands of pilgrims, by its own funds. During the revolution of 1847, these funds were seized upon, and the fathers removed from the convent. But the travelers across the mountain loudly demanded the accustomed fathers, and the old hospitality. The government was obliged to reinstate both; and thus St. Bernard's Hospice remains at the present day, a monument of Christian love, and an honor to the Catholic church.

But its time will soon be over. The Sardinian minister, Cavour, has obtained the consent of government to the construction of a railway, which will run right through the Alps—Mont Cenis being even