from His birth until His ascension; and when spring returned, the inspired bard took his harp and wandered from mountain to mountain, carrying everywhere with him the message which he had heard; and thus the "sweet story of old" was first told on these majestic Alpine tops, and the song of the Lamb found not only an echo in the silent nooks of the mountain dells, but sank like a life-giving seed into many a heart. In the meantime, Zacheo translated to the people in the Einfishthal the remaining three Gospels; and many were the beautiful moonlight nights in which, sitting under a gigantic oak tree, surrounded by groups of eager listeners, he preached to them the Word. Many tears flowed from eyes which till now never had known what tears were. Hoary heads were bowed with deep veneration before the beautiful ideal of a God who left all the glories of heaven to die for his enemies; and mothers pressed their sleeping babes closer to their throbbing bosoms when they heard of Him who called little children unto Him, and assured their mothers that theirs was the kingdom of heaven. Truly the Spirit of God was with Zacheo. The dense darkness began to give way to the morning light; the warm beams of grace began to melt the hard crust around their hearts, just as the natural sun melted daily some of the ice of their glacier, and many were born again in these solemn nights. Even the blind ruler began to feel some strange heavings and stirrings in his breast.

Oh, what a different message Zacheo's was to what he had believed until now! Love your enemies; pray for them! Render good for evil; blessings for curses! Strange message! Their spirit was a destructive power and nothing else; this Father and Son-this Holy Spirit-they

were all grace, pity, mercy, "and their precepts love and goodness."

Sometimes a longing feeling would steal over the old man's heart, just as he had felt as a little boy, when, bruised by some fall on the rocks, or weary from his rambles, he had come to pillow his little head on his mother's breast. "Come unto me all that are weary!"-Odo's hairs were grey; his eyes were blind; he, too, was weary!

"Whosoever believeth on me shall not perish, but have eternal life!"

The unknown future had till now been hanging over him like a dark cloud. Even his benighted soul could not conceive the idea of a perfect annihilation after death; but where was that living thing that throbbed within him to go to after the eyes were closed in death?

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.'

Thus Zacheo reads! He calls death going home, falling asleep with Jesus. Soon Odo's eyes would be closed. Oh, that he, too, could thus

fall asleep!

And then to think of what Christ did for men, Zacheo said, for men like Odo, too! How the heart-thrilling scenes upon Gethsemane and Calvary

the bloody sweat, the crown, the cross, the awful sufferings of that innocent one, and, above all, His prayer for those who nailed Him to the tree

touched the blind man's heart! Oh, the wonderful power of redeeming love Few souls may have been converted by fear of the terrors of hell; but myriads, which no man can number, have all been drawn heavenwards by the love of Christ!

But oh, if all this was but a beautiful myth-a tale such as his bard used to compose and sing to him. What if the anger of the mountain spirit should be kindled against him and his people, if he yet longer with

eld his victim? Oh, the perplexing thoughts, the contradictory duties what was right, what true?

The service of Odo's spirit was terror, slavery, and misery-the service of that unknown God was life and liberty, was all light and sunshine. Oh, that he could find the right way!

Thus the conflicting reasonings and feelings tossed Odo's soul like a barque on a troubled sea. He longed for liberty, but dared not break the old fetters, and at last-poor compromise he resolved to let the spirit once more have his victim, and to see whether that wonderful God which Zacheo served was mightier than their spirit, and would save Zacheo by some wonderful interference. The increasing heat also caused the glacier to work more than in other years, and every new cleft, every noise that was heard in the interior of that enormous ice-palace, seemed to Odo to forebode the coming vengeance of the spirit. could bear it no longer. Zacheo's doom was fixed!

He

The last page of the Gospel of St. John was read. The revelation had passed like a strange and wonderful vision before their minds. "Even so, come Lord Jesus." Zacheo had prayed, and the Lord came. He descended into the soul of this His faithful servant, and brought with Him grace and courage to bear what must come.

"Zacheo, I am now compelled to keep my word to the spirit. Thou hast finished the book, now thou must prepare for death," said the chief.

Oh, poor Zacheo! After a whole year's patient devoted teaching and wrestling with these poor benighted souls, is this to be his only reward? Have all his loving entreaties, all the wonderful truths which he had proclaimed, all the invitations to

come and live, been just as water spilled on the ground? Must he die before one of these immortal souls has given him a clear sign that it had passed from death to life-that it was saved? Bitter! bitter were the tears which gushed from Zacheo's eyes at this news. He did not fear death; he was, like Paul, ready to be offered

but what then? Who would finish the work he had begun? Alas! would no one help to save those who had no pity on themselves? "But thy will be done, my God." These were the only thoughts that found utterance from Zacheo's trembling lips, and, like his Master, he patiently gave himself up into the hands of his murderers. The Bible was tied on his back; the blind man bade him a sorrowful farewell, hurried into his hut and buried his face in his hands, that he might not hear Zacheo's retreating footsteps, as, accompanied by the whole tribe, the brave dwarf was led up to the glacier.

And did none of those to whom he had appeared like an angel of mercy plead his cause and try to save him? None had the courage. Many tears fell, many sobs rent the air as he was thus led forth to die; but they were as yet unable wholly to throw off the yoke of superstition which had kept them in miserable bondage all their lifetime. They loved the sweet stories of the new God, they longed to be happy-but still they never dreamt of opposing Odo's decree, nor of doubting the existence of the spirit. Poor Zacheo must die! How difficult it is for the human heart to discern the things from above, and how slow is the old Adam to give way to the

new man!

But Zacheo's face was calm and serene, like that of Stephen when he saw the heavens open, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. Had. He not said, not said, "Thy

strength shall be equal to thy day?" Had He, the mighty Saviour of our race, not hallowed the martyr's path by His own footprints? He too went up the mountain, bearing not only His own cross, but the weight of the sins of the whole world and the servant was not greater than his Master. Zacheo would not shrink from the death that would only destroy the body, but send the soul to glory!

At last, after three hours' marching, they came in sight of the glacier. There it stood, a glorious monument of the power and wisdom of God, cold, and seemingly immoveable, and yet, what a fit emblem of the silent persevering strivings of the Holy Spirit. Though to the Though to the casual admirer this glacier seemed but a gigantic agglomeration of pillars and obelisks of ice, a petrified sea without life or motion, yet it was, as it were, a living, working agent in the great economy of God, carrying out a perpetual mission; for it is a huge condensator of snow and water, which, but for it, would descend to the valleys during the summer heat in destructive streams, and inundate the plains. Motionless as it seems, it is continually advancing downwards. Reliable natural philosophers tell us that glaciers daily advance eight inches, shifting along with them huge rocks which are imprisoned in their icy arms, and finally depositing them in the valley.

Zacheo now stood before this mountain crown; and as he looked at it, as he thought that soon this glacier would be his tomb and glittering mausoleum, his heart beat quicker, but not with fear. This tomb had nothing of the darkness of the grave. Every obelisk of ice, every crystal column, glistened in the sunshine; a strange, flitting, quivering sea of light seemed to tremble all over the glacier, as if it were a lake of molten

fire, for myriads of melting waterdrops and tiny threads of water reflected the sunlight in all the colours of the rainbow. It was a surpassingly beautiful spectacle; and oh, how it preached the glory of the God who made heaven and earth! But, alas! of all those who gazed upon this majestic sight, there was but one heart which knew and loved its Creator,-to the others the glacier was still the abode of their terrible mountain spirit; and when, caused by the great tension of these huge masses of ice, large clefts and crevasses would suddenly open, accompanied by a strange rumbling noise like that of subterranean thunder, the poor benighted people mistook this noise for the voice of the spirit, and eagerly threw down living human victims to appease his anger.

Into one of these clefts Zacheo had to be thrown; and the heart of the bravest might shrink from the lingering death of cold and hunger which would await him. there. But Zacheo's mind was full of other thoughts than his own probable sufferings. As he looked upon those hundreds of beings in whose bosoms throbbed a never-dying soul, and who, in spite of his earnest teaching, still refused to yield their hearts to the strivings of the Holy Spirit, and obstinately clung to that idol which could save neither bodies nor souls, his loving heart trembled with compassion and pity. He looked round to find a place from whence he could once more address them, and perceiving a so-called "glacier table," he at once leapt upon that suitable pulpit, which the Lord Himself had erected for His minister in the temple of nature. These glacier tables are large flat rocks, imprisoned in the ice, but underneath which the ice has partly melted away, till it often forms but

A wave of Zacheo's hand sufficed to hush the lamenting crowd, for though he could not command their superstitious minds, still he could command their love. Once more he spoke to them of his God, and the words dropped from his lips with all the solemn energy of a man who longs to press a whole life's loving teaching into the space of a few fleeting moments. His eyes sparkled, his lips quivered, large drops stood on his brow, as he strove with his murderers to save their souls even at the last hour of his life. "Oh!" he cried, "can such love as His not melt your hearts? Can such mercy and grace not subdue your spirits? Oh! believe a dying man, there is but one God, Jehovah, who made heaven and earth; there is no hope for you in this life, and in the life to come, but alone in the name of Jesus, your Saviour and your God!" At this moment a thundering noise was heard in the glacier, and a new cleft opened before their very eyes. Shrieks of horror rent the air. is the spirit," they cried; "throw him down, or we shall all perish!"

"It

The scene which now followed, no pen can describe. Every feeling of pity was drowned in the blind instinct of self-preservation, and, without a word of farewell, the dwarf was hurled from his platform and thrown into the cleft; and then they all dispersed, as if scattered by the whirlwind, lest they too might be swal

lowed.

But the Lord's arm is not shortened that it cannot save. The cleft into which Zacheo was thrown was very narrow, and the huge Bible, which had been tied cross-ways on his back, catching with its margins at the sides of the deep chasm, had thus providentially laid itself between Zacheo and death, and pre

There he lay, pillowed on the very book for which he had to lose his life, for the Lord himself had laid underneath him His everlasting arms, and he was quite safe there!

Thus lying on his back, the dwarf had comparative leisure to survey his situation, and to consider the best way of escape from his icy tomb. A glance upwards showed him the impossibility of ascending; and after having contrived to turn himself, he began to creep downwards, and arrived at last, much bruised and half benumbed, at the glacier gate at the bottom of the glacier. There, in this mysterious cave, Zacheo lay, not like Elijah in the cave of Horeb, murmuring and desiring to die, but like Daniel, as he praised the God of his deliverance in the lion's den; and Zacheo's voice of praise rose to the glittering vault, and was echoed back by the crystal walls of the cavern.

How wonderful that cave looked! How fantastically the long icicles dropped from the ceiling, like festoons of silver tassels! The ceaseless regular falling of the water-drops broke the stillness, like the pulsation of the great heart of nature, and the little stream that issued from the cave softly murmured, as it were, the praise of God.

A stream of light had found its way even into this deep cave, and suffused it with that intense blue colour so peculiar to glacier caves, and which is beautiful beyond description.

There Zacheo lay, dreaming of that blue sky above which he never thought to behold any more, and turning over and over in his gratified heart the wonderful dealings of the God whom he served. But at last the extreme cold began to tell on him, and to make his wounds smart painfully. Then creeping on his hands and feet,

he followed the little stream in its course, and at last he arrivedthough half fainting with pain and cold-at the foot of the mountain.

Now, if Zacheo had only sought "his own," he would have hurried home as quickly as his stiff limbs would have permitted him to do; he would have sought at once the warm fire on his mother's hearth, secure of that mother's loving sympathy to comfort him for all the hardships he had undergone. But Zacheo's soul was no more his own, nor was his body-they belonged now more than ever to the God who had preserved them-and he panted with desire to proclaim His goodness to the poor Teutons. No thought of selfish fear or cowardly doubt filled his mind; and after having knelt down and thanked God once more, the brave dwarf again began the now doubly painful ascent; and when the sun was going down, and painting that white glacier with the loveliest crimson hues, Zacheo once more stood before the astonished tribe. Another panic now seized the poor superstitious men. "It is his spirit they shrieked. 'He is sent back to fetch more victims !" And again the wild flight began. But Zacheo gently laid hold on one of the fugitives; allowed him to handle him, and to persuade himself that he still was flesh and blood. By-and-bye one after another tried the experiment, and then their terror changed into idolatrous worship, and, throwing themselves at his feet, they would have adored him as one of the gods of Walhalla.

But Zacheo led their poor wandering minds once more back to that God who had been mighty to save; and the joy of the people knew no bounds after they had heard the story of his deliverance. Seating the exhausted dwarf on their shield, two of the strongest youths carried

him in triumph on their shoulders, and, followed by the whole tribe, they at once went to the house of the chief. And when the old man heard the touching tale, his blind eyes saw the truth as it is in Jesus, and, stretching out his trembling hands over the assembly, he cried with a loud voice-" Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth shall be our God, and Zacheo shall be our priest!"

The Bishop of Sion stood at the gate of his church. His eyes rested sadly on the brow of that mountain, whither, a year ago, he had sent his last messenger, but whence he had never returned. Suddenly loud shouts of joy and the sound of many footsteps attracted his attention, and a wonderful procession presented itself to his astonished

eyes.

Seated on a richly-caparisoned mule, he saw the very dwarf who had just been present to his mind riding towards him; and with his head bare, and with tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, the noble Freiherr of Raren himself was leading the mule, around which the eager crowd pressed with shouts of joy.

But who are those wild-looking men that follow in the rear? They are deputies from the inhabitants of the Einfishthal, who come to ask the Bishop to make Zacheo their priest, and to send them up more men who can tell them of Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, how wonderful are the ways of God! What the mighty nobleman with his hundred vassals had not been able to perform, a poor despised deformed dwarf had accomplished, for he had not gone up in his own strength; and the Lord often chooses the mean things of the earth "to do great things for Him!"

Once more Zacheo knelt at his mother's feet; once more her tears fell like warm showers on his brown withered cheeks; but now they were