“Our fathers,” said he to the young man, “endured exile, persecutions, death—rather than subscribe to the image-worship practised among your people. Hope not, therefore, that your feeble powers will effect what centuries of persecution failed to accomplish. Stranger! you have found shelter under our roof, and therein, for your own safety, must abide. Pray, therefore, to God, according to the dictation of your own conscience, as we do according to ours; but be advised by the experience of a gray-beard, and take part in the labours proceeding around you; or, in this solitude, remote from the rumours and excitements of social life, want of occupation will destroy you. Be our companion, our brother, so long as the winter snows weigh upon your existence and our own; and, at the return of spring, leave us, unquestioned, as you came; without so much as bestowing your benediction on our hearth—nay, without even turning back upon your path, to salute, by a farewell gesture, those by whose fire you have been warmed, and at whose frugal board, nourished. For, having shared their industry, you will owe them nothing. The fruit of your own labour will have maintained you; and, should any debt be still owing, the God of mercy will repay us a thousand-fold for our hospitality to the son of the stranger.” Forced to submit to a proposition so reasonable, Giacomo remained five months an inmate of the châlet, and an eye-witness of the virtuous career of its inhabitants. Night and morning, he heard their prayers and thanksgivings offered up to the throne of grace—to the throne of the one omnipresent GOD; and his mind, no longer excited by the objects which had wrought its exaltation, became gradually composed to a reasonable frame. When the prison of ice, constructed for him by nature, ceased to hold him captive, and the sun, shining out with the return of spring, developed before his eyes all the beauty and majesty of the mountain-scenery by which he was surrounded, the idea of the Almighty Lord of the universe seemed to manifest itself powerfully to his mind, and resume its fitting influence on his heart.