“I have but the one church organization, for outside through the mountains there are no churches—­no buildings, no organizations.  People ten and fifteen miles apart can’t very well have churches.  I visit the families.  I have three on this mountain side.  I am well repaid for all the sacrifice of comfort I make, in knowing how glad they are to have me come.  To many of them I am the connecting link with the rest of mankind.  Ah! the world knows nothing of the privations and sorrows and ignorance of many of these poor creatures!  Through the winter I am obliged to stop my visitations, but I generally leave a few books and papers for those who can read, and pictures for the children.”

“Well, parson, I didn’t know there was enough goodness in any man in the United States to make him willing to tramp right into the wildest part of the Allegheny.  Mountains to preach the gospel to half a dozen poor people!” exclaimed Growler, still more astonished.

“My friend,” responded the gentleman earnestly, “the world is full of Christian men and women who are trying to help others.”

Just then my mother said to me, “When I hear the beautiful words that minister speaks and see what he is doing, then indeed do I believe that human beings have hearts.”

As we resumed our journey I wondered if Growler would profit by the sunshiny example of Cheery and the devotion of the parson of St. Thomas.

Later in our travels we came upon some old acquaintances.  Our stopping-place was near an ancient house on a mountain side.  The outlook was the grandest I had ever seen, and though I have traveled much since then I have never found anything to exceed it in beauty.  A glistening river wound its way in a big loop at the foot of the mountain, and beyond it lay stretched out a busy city.

A good many years before a battle had been fought on these heights, which people still remembered and talked about.  I heard them speak of it as the “Battle above the clouds.”  There was still a part of a cannon wagon in the yard which visitors came to see and examined with much interest.  They also often requested the landlady to let them look at the walls of an old stone dairy adjoining the house, because the soldiers had carved their names there.

To me it seemed strange that the guests would sit for hours on the long gallery of this hotel, and go over and over the incidents of the battle, telling where this regiment stood, or where that officer fell, as if war and the taking of life were the most pleasant rather than the most distressful subjects in the world.  In the distance was a mammoth field of graves, miles of graves, beautifully kept mounds under which lay the dead heroes of that sad time.

The days up here were beautiful, but it was at night that this was a scene of surpassing loveliness.  Far below the lights of the city glowed like spangles in the darkness.  Above us was the star-encrusted sky.  It was like being suspended between a floor and a ceiling of glittering jewels.