no, madam, it is bottled up sunbeams."
How true it is God never made anything in vain-not even the sunbeams
that shone ages ago before the existence of man on those tropical
tree-fern forests of Great Britain.
Nothing can be lost. A piece of coal is a wonder, not only containing
light and heat, but all the colours of the rainbow, and the most
lovely tints are brought out of the refuse of the coal; every
beautiful dye is now extracted from it, entirely superseding the
vegetable dyes of olden times. Every tint, from the rising to
the setting sun in the bygone ages in which the insects of that
period lived, gambolled, and died, is now reproduced for our benefit.
Not one sunbeam shone in vain. When we think of a piece of coal,
a black diamond, we ought to sing,
" Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow."
Winter is the time for social gatherings.
How cheerful to meet and enjoy the "Feast of reason and the
flow of soul." Winter is the time for scarcity
of work, poverty, and suffering,
when the poor need clothing and food. Let us think of our mercies,
and have hearts to feel for others.
What a lesson we learn from the dogs of St. Bernard, the highest
inhabited house in Europe. The monks many years since gave their
hospitality to a poor Dane, who, to show his gratitude for their
great kindness, gave them his fine dog, which was the father of
this peculiar race of dogs, now so well known and celebrated throughout
the world.
Immediately after a snowstorm the dogs are sent out, mostly in
two's. One has a small cask fastened round his neck, and the other
carries some warm clothing strapped on. And if a poor traveller
was overtaken by the storm and nearly buried in the snow, they
set to work to scrape it away, and lay upon him, that the warmth
of their bodies might restore him to consciousness and enable
him to follow them to the Hospice.
One dog named Barry saved upwards of forty persons. This interesting
animal found a boy in a frozen state between the bridge Druoz
and the ice house of Balsoa. He immediately began to lick him,
and having restored animation and perfect recovery by means of
his caresses, he induced him to get on his back, and tie himself
on; and in this manner he carried him, as it were, in triumph
to the Hospice; and at last Barry died in harness, taking a poor
Italian woman and her son through a mountain pass, when an avalanche
fell and buried them. Let none of us shrink from going on an errand
of mercy for the benefit of others.
