"One day, when the fever left me weak and feeble as a child, who
should enter but the good pastor Ortler. He had heard of my illness,
and leaving home, he had travelled over the hills to nurse me in my
weakness; and when I grew strong enough to bear it, he treated me to
short drives along Lake Leman, whence we could see the meadows that
skirt Geneva, the rough, shaggy mountains of Savoy, and far behind
them, so far that we could not distinguish between cap and cloud, Mont
Blanc and the needles of Chamouni.
"The good pastor Ortler, with his fine voice and clear, earnest eyes,
was in possession at all times of a charm of manner that had for me
an irresistible fascination. But when he talked of God, his greatness
as seen in his works, the magnificent and matchless glory by which we
were surrounded: above all, when he spoke of His tenderness and love,
I realized as I had never done before the beauty of holiness, and the
happiness, in this life even, of a soul firmly anchored in the faith
of Christ.
"Once, I remember, he steadied my feet to a rocky point overlooking
the little town of Ferney, and the deserted chateau of Voltaire. And
then followed a conversation, in which the tenderness of the good
pastor's heart was manifest as he spoke of the fine mind wrecked on
the sands of unbelief. 'And to think of this man's influence,' he
said, with sorrow in his tones, and regrets over a lost life and a
lost soul.
"Upon the shores of the lake stood the old home of De Stael; and
nearly opposite, its white walls reflected upon the bosom of the water
the house where Byron lived and wrote.
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