ore than the solemn
chant of the Office at midnight. The slow, solemn enunciation of
each word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic cadence
through the precipices of the mountains, and died away in the distant
ravines in echoes of heavenly harmony.

An aged father was appointed to entertain the strangers. He led them
to points on the mountain where the view was most enchanting; skilled
in ancient monastic lore, he entertained them with anecdotes and
histories from which he drew the most instructive morals. One cheerful
afternoon, when seated on the rocks viewing a magnificent sunset, the
aged monk told them his own history. He had been a soldier of fortune.
In youth his ambition was as boundless as the horizon; he worshipped
his sword and loved the terrors of battle. Fortune smiled on his
hopes, and he moved on from grade to grade, until he became commander
of a division.

He was present at the fatal field of Salzbach, where the great General
Turenne fell in the commencement of the battle. The aged warrior,
forgetting the gravity of his years and his habit, would speak in the
fire of other days, suiting his action to the word.

He told his listeners the touching tale of his conversion. The death
of the beloved Turenne, and at the same time the demise of his mother,
made him enter seriously into self, repeating the farewell words of
a celebrated courtier who left the French court to don the habit:
"Some time of preparation should pass between the life of a solider
and his grave." He heard the great St. Vincent de Paul preaching on
the vanities of life; his resolutions were confirmed, and tears
started to his eyes as he recounted how happy he was in his home in
the cliffs and the clouds.

Charles loved to hear the aged man's reminiscences of his military
career. Fired with chivalrous aspirations, she could spend a lifetime
in the regions of fancy so fervidly depicted from their Alpine retreat.
Poor Aloysia was attracted to the higher and more real glories of
the virtuous lives of these holy men. She felt she could stay with
them for ever; and there, in the secrecy of her own heart, and before
the alter of our Holy Mother, she made promises that shared in the
merits of vows. When free, she would give herself to the love of God
and the preparation for eternity in some secluded retreat of religion
and virginity.

But the nearer the alter, the further from God. Reverse the picture,
and another m