Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/68

84 The greater portion of the people of Rossinières belong to the national church, and merely some few of its population to the Free Church, the principal congregations of which are in the valleys of the Chateau-d'Œx and Les Ormondes. Good pastors of the old church have for a great number of years fallen to the lot of the people of Rossinières, and they have operated beneficially upon the moral condition of their flocks.

A lady, one of my English friends, amongst the inmates of the great bee-hive, and I, one day, during a ramble, passed a cottage from which proceeded the sweet singing of female voices. We stopped, and softly entered. We knew already that the proprietor of the cottage, Esther Marmilliere, was dying of a severe injury of the knee. She reclined in a half-sitting posture on a clean, comfortable bed. The whole room was neat and clean, although evidencing poverty. Two pretty and well-dressed young women sat, one at each window, at work, during which they sang a hymn in duet, in which the sick woman joined. They were her daughters, who lived in service at Lausanne and Vevay, and were now come over to see their aged, sick mother. At our request, they continued the hymn which we had interrupted. The expression of the old woman's wasted countenance, and the purity and strength of her voice, were wonderful; so also were her pious trust and peace in the prospect of a long and painful combat with mortal disease. Such flowers of spiritual life are not unfrequent in these valleys, and they testify nobly for the church which makes one of its missions the founding of a general priesthood in