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
