Morning Star

To The Bible in the Convent of St. Bernard.

Mr. Felice, the French correspondent of the New York Observer, and with whose communications we have often enriched our own columns, gives us in a late communication, an account of the estimation in which the Bible is held by the prior of the convent of St. Bernard, and of the manner in which it is used by the monks, of whom twelve inhabit the convent,

"Being in company," says Mr. Felice, "with two German friends, we had left our baggage in the valley, and among the rest our New Testaments, in which we were accustomed to read a chapter morning and night. One of us therefore went to a monk, and asked him to lend us a Bible.

"We have no Bible," replied the monk, looking down.

"How ? no Bible in the whole convent?" said my friend.

"We have a Bible in the library," said the monk, again looking down ; "but we cannot make use of it, for ourselves or others, without leave of the prior."

We pressed our request, and he at last gave us the Bible secretly. This surprised us much, but we soon learnt the cause of this interdiction of the Bible. About twelve years ago, a pious English family came to the convent, and conversed upon the gospel with one of the monks. The monk sought for the Bible, read it attentively and prayerfully, and five years after, left the convent and joined the Protestant church. We prayed fervently, after reading a portion of the Bible, that the Lord would cause this Holy Book to come into the hands of a man to whom it might be the means of salvation.

This convent, from the attentions and the hospitality which its inmates have shown to strangers, has often been made the admiring theme of the traveller, and in consequence of which many minds have doubtless been conciliated in favor of this kind of establishment. As a house of entertainment to the Alpine traveller, the convent of St. Bernard may have answered useful ends; but as a religious establishment, it is obviously unsustained by the New Testament Scriptures.—Ch. Watchman.