Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/82

98 before dark, to reach their distant valleys and homes.

Accompanied by a young peasant, who was appointed to me as my guide, I continued my way through “La Vallée des Mosses” to Comballez, where an enterprising man has opened a small hotel, and where I intended to pass the night.

The road conducted us over soft, and, at times, swampy, meadow-ground, and I had good opportunity for conversing with my guide, a handsome, friendly youth, from Ormondes Valley, by name Emanuel Isabel. He was a member of the Free Church, and talked cheerfully and sensibly of its spirit and importance. During the preceding winter, Ormondes Valley had been for several months without a pastor—from what cause I do not remember; but the congregation had, nevertheless, kept up divine service with undeviating exactness, and attended to all the affairs of the church by means of the elders, and those who were chosen as their assistants. One of the elders read a portion of Scripture every Sunday, and spoke from it to the congregation, instead of the pastor. Occasionally, even some one of the younger members was deputed to read something from the word, as well as to speak upon it. He, Emanuel Isabel, had more than once been called to this office.

“It is evident,” continued he, with a beaming glance, “that the church is really a church, when she can thus, through God's word and Spirit be left to herself!” He acknowledged, in the mean time, the necessity of study and knowledge in the highest leaders of the