He assured them, that, having solemnly avouched himself for Christ and his service, he had only to take up his cross and follow him, and that he could not now go back, except to perdition, to take his portion from amongst the husks and beggarly elements of the world. He argued, that, if he was a member of the body of Christ, he must die to himself and live in him as a penitent, he must crucify all carnal affections, and keep clear of every incumbrance that might retard or cause him to stumble in his holy race. If Jesus was his pattern, he had never been taught by his example to wed himself to an earthly bride. "And what," said he, "did the great Preceptor, whose word is life, intend to inculcate, when he spake the parable of the feast that was prepared, and those who were bidden, but refused to come? Surely he must have known, and would have us to know, the temptation to reluctance or refusal to come up to our religious duties, our heavenly feast, which a mortal bride might prove, when he stated, that the first and the second bidden to the supper, pleading worldly business as an apology for declining the invitation, added, therefore I pray thee have me excused; but the third said, 'I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come."""

Having filled his letter with these and similar cogent reasons for his righteous abhorrence of matrimony, the soundness or sophistry of which they who have tried the experiment, which he had not, can best decide for themselves; the future saint opened his window, and, leaping out upon a rock lying many feet below it, went his way none but himself knew whither.

Some appearances of indentations in the rock, seen at this day, the good Catholic assures the traveller, are the prints of the saint's feet as they met it from the leap, when it was miraculously softened to receive them, and then turned hard as adamant.

The scene of confusion, of dismay and consternation-some spirits bristling with haughty resentment, others cast down with sorrow-which the castle presented when the flight was discovered, would defy all power of description, even if the narrow limits here prescribed, did not forbid it in fuller detail. But none of all the actors in the drama, claimed so much unmingled tenderness and pity as the beautiful, forsaken betrothed; and none performed so high-minded and heroic a part.

Could the fugitive bridegroom have looked back and seen her in this trying moment, he would, perhaps, have repented of his rash step; and owned that, if his reasoning had been right as to generality, here, in an especial case, it might be a little sophistical.

While the Baron de Menthon and his lady were overwhelmed by grief and despair at

their bereavement, and mortification from the disappointment, they knew not how to meet the insulted dignity of the Miolans.

The lofty old father of the deserted maiden, and all his party, except the meek-spirited daughter, towered high with indignation and flashed with ire at the dishonor cast on their ancient house; and placing the hand upon the hilt of the sword, they began to talk of obtaining recompense at its point. High words and significant gestures seemed to be fast forming the preliminaries of a civil war between the two houses. And this, according to the custom of the times, when men looked to their trusty steel for satisfaction, in all cases of personal or family insult or injury, would, no doubt, have ensued, had not the gentle Marguerite, like a genuine pearl, as her name signifies, shone out with a pure, native Instre, which seemed the brightness of a holier world than this.

After a short but severe inward struggle to suppress her emotions, she came between the jarring parties like an angel of peace; and, declaring her free and full forgiveness of the offence, expressed herself satisfied with the pious reasons rendered by the absconder, for thus suddenly turning and fleeing from the hymeneal altar, when brought so near as to feel himself scorched by its flame.

Her gentle spirit subdued the turbulence of her choleric friends; and their angry passions, rebuked by magnanimity, fell back like the receding waves of a troubled sea, at the ebb of tide. Glad that they had been saved from an attempt to wash out the imagined stain of their glory with blood; and commiserating the wretchedness of the forsaken parents, they returned to their own homes in peace.

Shortly after this strange event, the disappointed Marguerite, sick of the world, and wishing to withdraw from it forever, abjured it with its deceit, its riches, and its vanities, and retired into a convent for life. Here her superior virtues and eminent piety soon won for her the respect and love of the whole sisterhood, till at length, in due time, she became prioress of the convent in Annecy, which has before been mentioned as recently converted into a place of spindles and looms, and the more secularly-inspired sisters of a factory.

The Baron de Menthon and lady, having found all search for their lost son vain, retired from public life, and, immuring themselves from the world, within their castle, sank into a state of quiet melancholy, which succeeded the storm of sorrow and despair, as a calm settles on a landscape when the hurricane has laid its honors waste.

Thus for a long lapse of years did they remain secluded, passing their time in noiseless but bitter repentance for their rash experiment of coercion on their only child; and

wholly in the dark as to every thing connected with his course or his fate, after the farewell left behind him in his letter, on the eventful night previous to the visionary wedding.

While the Sun of Righteousness seemed not yet to have risen to their souls" with healing on his wings," the sun of their earthly glory had set forever; or if some gleams of lingering light at times appeared, it was only to show long, dark shadows of forms that were unseen, or passing away; and all to be lost in the chill and hush of a starless night. Then strange spirit-whisperings came near, warning them that time was short, the grave close before them-earth's elements preparing to become food for devouring fire-the skies to drop the stars, as a tree its untimely fruit, and pass away; and it behooved them speedily to make their peace with Heaven, through Him, who, in reference to that day, assures his friends, "Because I live, ye shall live also." And to claim a share in this promise, was the righteous resolution to which they ultimately came. They made confession of their sins; and poured out the burden of their contrite hearts before the mercy-seat, crying first for the " grace of supplication,' that they might pray aright for the bread for which their souls were starving-that they might even be allowed the crumbs that fell from their Lord's table, in conscious unworthiness of a seat at the board among his chosen friends. They distributed of substance to the poor, and made bounteous donations of their temporal riches, with a view to eternal interest. Still, they asked increase of faith, till grace for grace was given them in manifold proportion; while their heads were whitening with the frost of life's winter-time, and the hues of earth becoming dim to their vision through its chilly haze. But ever among the softest, inmost folds of their parental hearts, one burning, wasting desire was closely wrapped up, and silently feeding. Could they only be favored with some communication, either from earth or heaven, that would inform them what and where had been the life, or when and how the death of their lost Bernard, then, they felt, they could readily depart in peace! Yet no human or angel hand lifted the sable curtain, behind which he had passed, and vanished out of sight.

They asked in midnight's solemn shade,
When morning's splendor shone;
If he to distant lands had strayed,
If in the grave his dust were laid,
If he in glory stood arrayed,

Before the eternal throne.

None answered through night's silent gloom!
No beams of opening day
The painful mystery could illume;
Nought from the world of deathless bloom,
From distant earth or secret tomb,

Told how he passed away.

As this aged couple perceived themselves nearly down the steep descent of life, and approaching the dark valley through which none shall retrace his steps, they felt an increasing desire for wisdom and strength to console and sustain them in the trial which every one must meet alone.

Fame had sounded abroad the transcendant piety, eminent good works, and unbounded hospitality of a holy father of a monastery of brethren of the St. Augustine order, in the town of Aosta, on the Italian side of the Alps. His counsel was said to be light, and his teaching, understanding: and to him, in their hoary age, did the Baron de Menthon and his lady resolve to make a pilgrimage, to seek his instruction and blessing, whilst time and ability yet remained for them to perform the journey.

They reached the monastery, were affectionately welcomed by the reverend Superior, made known the object of their visit, and related to him the whole story of their life and sorrow. To the pathetic tale of the lost son, and their affecting confession of contrition for the rash course by which they had driven him into exile and made themselves childless, the prior listened with deep interest and apparent firmness, till it became too much for his disciplined mind, with its Christian philosophy in full exercise, to suppress or conceal the powerful emotions of his bosom. He found himself situated like Joseph in Egypt, while listening to the story of his brethren: yet he could not, like him, stay to enter into his chamber and weep there, before he fell upon their necks and kissed them-revealing himself as no other than their long-lost Bernard, and uttering the forgiving sentiment of his magnanimous prototype-"Now therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither.... So now, it was not you that sent me hither, but God."

It was a scene not to be described, and almost too affecting to be considered, when the aged parents clasped once more the child of their youth and their pride, sobbing and speechless, while their swelling hearts seemed bursting with the cry-" Our son was lost but now is found; was dead, but lives again."

After the first flood of emotion had subsided, a happy season of mutual confession and blessing followed, with a relation of his history and their sufferings since their separation; and an account of the whole proceedings from the morning when his mysterious flight caused such a strange scene of confusion in his native castle.

The venerable couple passed many days at the monastery; and then returned to their home, where they spent the remainder of their time in a holy tranquillity; and at length departed this life in the full assurance of being finally united to their son in that happy kingdom whence they go no more out for ever.

Bernard, after his wild start and sudden spring from under the yoke that was about to be fastened on him for life, and his unknightly escape from the lovely Marguerite and the castle of his ancestors, bent his course towards Aosta, and entered its monastery a nameless, lonely stranger. By his extraordinary piety and ability, manifested as he passed through the different stages of duty and office, he rapidly advanced to the priorship.

Here he exercised the most liberal hospitality; and among many other good works, undertook to open a passage to the neighboring mountain, for the benefit of pilgrims on their way to Rome.

The Romans, in their days of paganism, had used this route into the Valais; and on the highest point of the passage had erected a temple, to propitiate the destroying demon who was supposed to haunt the place, assuming at pleasure any form that might best serve his purpose. Sometimes he was said to come clothed in the furious storm, burying men alive in the snow or ice. Sometimes he appeared in the robber or bandit; then, in the shape of wild beasts, rending and devouring human victims. To this temple did the benevolent prior, at the head of his monks, labor in person to clear the passage; and then, with its materials to build a hospice for travellers on the spot where it had stood. It was in this benevolent and arduous enterprize that he was engaged when his fame, reaching the ear of his parents, occasioned them to take the journey that led to the happy discovery already related.

In his pious and useful life, whose whole amount of good can never be cast up in this world, Bernard continued until the year 1008, when, at the good old age of seventy-five, he too fell asleep. His name is his imperishable monument. It is fixed upon the mountains, where it will stand firm till they be removed!

To that where he took the old temple to build the hospitium, formerly Mount Joux, after his well-merited canonization was given the name of the "Great St. Bernard."Another and smaller mountain, where the

road leads over the Grison Alps-and where, on the spot once occupied by a heathen pillar, he built another hospitium, received the appellation of the "Little St. Bernard."

At his death, he left these hospitia in charge of the St. Augustine brotherhood.But in process of time, certain changes taking place and difficulties arising, Government took them under its especial patronage, and enlarged the establishments and their funds, till they grew at length to their present magnitude and usefulness.

One word more about the gentle Marguerite. Her earthly career, and that of her once-destined bridegroom, form a striking antithesis. While his name is indelibly engraven on the heights, hers is hidden in a low, dark, secret place, and washed by restless waters, perpetually dashed against it by the force of a huge wheel. The most we know of it is this. A few years ago, a traveller, on an excursion in that part of Europe, after having found in an old volume, in a library of Geneva, a confirmation, in copious and minute detail, of the facts here related, of which the foregoing is but an abstract, visited Annecy. Here, among its most conspicuous objects of interest, he was shown a large and flourishing cotton factory, built from the nunnery of which the pious recluse, Marguerite, became, and died, Lady Superior.

The superintendent, showing him the building and its machinery, stated that the case of its large water-wheel was formed of the tombstones taken from the cemetery where the abbesses of the convent had been buried!

When that factory shall have wound up its thread, and in its turn shall pass away, leaving its foundations to be broken up,-then, and not till then, may the name of the beautiful heiress of Miolans, the fair Marguerite, be brought to light!

*The author of this volume has filled several pages with a description of the confused scene in the castle, the morning after Bernard absconded.

arch-demon of the age, makes over hill-side and valley in its rapid progress. But you may find them here and there, scattered among the quiet townships and rustic hamlets of the mountains-unchanged, undisturbed, plodding through the week-days and worshipping God on Sundays, with a contented heart and an honest purpose. Legitimate descendants of the old Puritans, they bear, in their faces and on their very garb, the lineaments of antiquity. Sons of the stern emigrants of the May-Flower, they swerve neither to the right hand nor to the left, from that straight and narrow way in which their sires sought freedom in this world, and heaven at last.

There are, perhaps, fewer of these sequestered nooks in Massachusetts, than in either of the other New England States. That web of railroads, which the busy ones of the metropolis have been weaving in thelast few years, has so overspread the State, drawing into its meshes all the other materials of locomotion, that the whole face of the country is sadly changed since my younger days; and before long, an honest farmer's vehicle in the streets of Boston will, I fear, be as great a source of wonderment to the metropolitans, as was the nose of the knight of the mirrors to the bewildered admiration of the squire of La Mancha. Thank heaven, however, they are not all gone, those contented home-dwellers of the mountains; and that here and there one may yet find them in their quiet corners of the world, living on, undisturbed by the busy din of the thoroughfares, the true, unchanged descendants of olden time.

In passing upon the old road from Springfield to Northampton, there lies, just under the brow of Mount Tom, a farm of one thousand acres, which was granted by the colony to Eldred Pomeroy, two hundred and four years ago, on the condition that he and his sons should follow the trade of gunsmiths on the banks of Connecticut river. It is a fact curious enough, that for generations before this same Eldred removed to this country, in 1636, the family of Pomeroys,-or, as the word was then spelled, Pomroys,—had been famous for the manufacture of guns; and that, from the date of the grant until the present time, some one of the direct descendants of old Eldred has successfully pursued the same business. There were living in Northampton but a few years ago, persons who remembered the yearly visits of the Canada Indians to old General Pomeroy, for the purpose of buying his rifles, which in that day were famous all over the country; and the largest private armorer in the United States at the present time, is Lemuel Pomeroy, Esq. of Pittsfield, a grandson of the Louisburgh hero.

The farm is still undivided, having been

handed down from sire to son, through eight generations. Every thing about it bears the impress of olden time. The house, increased by sundry additions in the course of years, is yet unimpaired; the barns, and sheds, and blacksmith's shop, stand on the very ground where they were first erected; the same old trees wave in the wind before the door, and the same moss-grown steps lead to the gentle brook beyond the hill, as in days long gone by. For a mile either way from the mansion, not a solitary house is to be seen; and though fields of waving grain and smoothest greensward stretch along the road,though rich pastures and heavy crops, and flocks and herds over the hills and valleys, in abundance for a numerous population, meet the traveller's eye as he drives slowly on,yet they all pertain to the original homestead. It is well worth a long day's ride to visit the ancient spot, and to receive the hearty welcome of the old occupant, himself a noble specimen of his progenitors. Before the door swings the sign of entertainment, bearing upon its margin the date of A. D. 1765, the time the house was first opened as an inn, the oldest place of entertainment in the whole country. Seventy-seven years has that old sign swung heavily to the wind by night and day! Seventy-seven years have its quaint emblems of fox and goose invited the weary traveller to its refreshments of bed and bar, and tempted the neighboring youth to the rare frolics of the winter-evening's sleigh-ride or the Thanksgiving ball! merry times the old hall has witnessed! What junketings, what quiltings, what mirth-makings! What glorious times at husking bees, and apple bees, and sewing bees, and roastcorn bees! How the old roof has rung with peals of laughter and shouts of merriment, and how the old floor has creaked and groaned as swains and lasses have

What

-"chased the glowing hours with flying feet,"

while the rafters gleamed in the light of the crackling fire, and the wind whistled unheeded around the doors and windows of the staunch old mansion! Seventy-seven years it has offered shelter to the grave and the gay, to the benighted wayfarer and the bustling man of business. In the very room where the traveller is now welcomed,-for there are still some, who, in the hurry of this ever-a-moving generation, choose the bye-paths of life, that they may plod on after their own easy fashion,-in this very room have the laugh and song and jest gone their rounds among those who are long since dead, and whose children's hairs are whitened with extreme old age! Here our ancestors quaffed the foaming pitcher of milk-white flip, or sat out the long evening around the brimming punch-bowl! Here the veterans in the wars,