THE MER DE GLACE.





SHOULD like to tell our readers a story about the Mer de Glace.
"What is that?" asks one.  I will tell you. The big brothers and sisters who study geography know all about it, but the little folks do not ; so if you would like to know about Tommy, who lived near this great Mer de Glace, I will tell you about him, and then you will find out what the Mer de Glace is.
Tommy's mother was so poor that she could scarcely get food enough to feed the five little boys and girls who looked to her for support. She was not idle by any means. She worked harder than you ever see women work in this country; for in Switzerland, where she lived, the poor women work in the fields, and sometimes carry home the hay and grain on their heads. Sometimes they even help the old donkeys to draw the plough or cart. But Marie, that was her name, had hurt her back, and could not go out into the field to work, and she did not know how she could get bread for the children. She sat down and cried.
Tommy did something better; he kneeled down and prayed. He had been the Sunday before to the famous old Church of St. Peter's, in the city of Geneva, called Calvin's Church, because a great man by that name used to preach there. He heard the minister talk to the people about the power of prayer, and tell them how Jacob wrestled in prayer. So Tommy, when he saw his poor mother crying and lamenting, went out of the house, and looking up to the grand snow-topped mountains, he remembered what the minister had read:
"I
will look up unto the hills whence cometh my help; my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth;" and Tommy prayed as he had never prayed before.
But Tommy was an ignorant little boy; he did not know as much about the Bible as the boys of his age in this country who go to Sabbath-school every Sabbath, and so he thought that the verse meant that his help must really come from the hills. So he said to himself, "That is what the minister preached, I am sure; so if my help is to come from the hills, I must be nearer to them, and I had better try to get a ride to Chamouni, where I will be right among the mountains."
Just then Peter, who drove a coach to Chamonni ,came along and asked Tommy to pick up his whip, which had fallen, away back on the road.
Tommy ran cheerfully and picked it up, and before Peter knew what he meant to do, he had climbed up
and seated himself on the coach-box beside him.
"Don't drive me away," he said to Peter. "I have an errand to Chamouni."
As Peter was a good natured man, he let Tommy ride beside him to Chamouni.
As they rode on, he told Peter how his mother had hurt her back, and could not work, and how much he wanted to help her get bread for the children.
"What can you do?" asked Peter.
"I used to take care oft he horse until we sold it,"
said Tommy," and I loved our old horse very much."
"If you are kind to animals, and you must be if you love them, perhaps I can find something for you to do," said Peter.
Now I come to the point in my story in which I must tell you about Mer de Glace.
It is a great sea of ice which lies in between two mountains; it is twelve miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. Visitors from all parts of the world come to visit this great glacier, for it never melts in summer as our frozen rivers and lakes do. It looks like, a great frozen sea that has been ploughed to make it rough, and so they call it the Mer de Glace, which means, sea of ice.
Visitors ride from Chamouni to the edge of this Mer de Glace, and leave their horses at a place called Le Chapetal.
Then they walk across the ice sea, while the boys who go with them lead their horses round to the other side to a place called Montanvert, and the boys wait there with the horses until the ladies and gentlemen come for them.
This work was what Peter found for Tommy to do. The boy who led one of the horses before this was bad tempered and beat the horse, and so lost his place; but Peter knew how kindhearted and affectionate Tommy was; so he recommended him for the work, and after this he was able to earn some money, and he sent it every week by Peter to his mother over in Geneva to buy bread for the children.
He told one of the ladies, whose horse he was holding one day, that he did as the Lord told him; he looked unto the hills whence came his help.
"And did you feel, Tommy," asked the lady, "that your help came from the Lord?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am; but if I hadn't looked to him, he wouldn't have helped me," replied Tommy.
Wasn't that a good answer from a poor little Swiss boy?
You have been taught to look to the Lord. I wish that you might learn to have the same trust in him that this little lad had on the borders of the Mer de Glace.






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