refuge of the traveller and a shelter for the poor. The building, the entertainment, the brotherhood, are marked by a severe, monastic self-denial which appears to have received a character of stern simplicity from the unvarying nakedness of all that greets the eye in that region of frost and sterility. In storms, monks, helpers, and dogs all go out to search for helpless travellers; and during the severe winter of 1830 both packs of dogs had to be taken out, and nearly all perished; the names of Barry and Bruno are kept with those of departed archbishops and monks. These St. Bernard dogs are adapted, by their instincts, intelligence, and benevolence, to the charitable work in which they are engaged. The moment they scent a traveller buried in the snow they announce the fact by setting up a loud bark, but they do not wait for the arrival of their human companions, but begin at once to dig into the snow with all their strength. The pure breed is said to be extinct, but the cross variety still retains many of the good points of the genuine breed.[10] Einsiedeln is a very ancient and celebrated monastery in the Canton of Schwyz; it is more generally known as the Monastery of “Our Lady of the Hermits,” and is one of the most famous pilgrim resorts in the world. It was here that Meinrad, an anchorite of the house of Hohenzollern, is supposed to have retired in the ninth century, and built a cell for the worship of the Black Virgin, presented to him by the Abbess Hildegard of Zurich. He was murdered, and respect for his memory induced a religious community to establish themselves there. On the occasion of the consecration of the chapel erected by them, the Bishop, it is related, was anticipated by angels, who performed the rite to heavenly music at midnight. Leo VIII. declared this consecration to be a full and perfect one, and forbade the repetition of the rite; and Pope Benedict VIII. placed Count Meinrad in the catalogue of saints one hundred and fifty years after his death. The inscription over the church-door at Einsiedeln is “_Hic est plena remissio peccatorum a culpa et a pœna_” (“Here is plenary remission of sins from their guilt and from their punishment”). There is a copious fountain before the church, and another tradition has it that the Saviour visited the shrine and drank from it. This fountain has fourteen jets, carved to imitate the heads of strange beasts and birds, and the pilgrims must drink of every one to make sure that they should not miss the right one, which is said to have refreshed our Lord.