The Patriot Saint of Switzerland [pp. 161-172]

THE PATRIOT SAxINT OF SWZTZERLAND.
man putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for
the kingdom of God" (Luke ix. 62).
Giving himself up to the lead of an interior guide, he first
went far westwards, and was about to pass the frontier of his
country near Liestahl, in the canton of Basel, when he was stayed in his course and forbidden to go farther by a vision of celestial light bidding him to return into the solitude of that mountain valley a few miles distant from his home, and called the
Ranft. The writer of these lines has himself visited this remote and woodland valley, formed by a wild torrent named the
Melcha. Sheltered from the sun by the thick woods that cover
the slopes, it is only accessible by some unfrequented paths. The
eye sees nothing but the azure sky above and the dark tints of
the wood mingled with the more brilliant verdures of the fields
below; the ear hears naught but the continual rush of the foaming waters leaping over scattered stones. Nicholas had already
passed some time hidden in these woods when his own brother,
Peter, discovered him.
It was shortly perceived that he was practising a total and perpetual fast, abstaining from even the smallest particle of earthly food
and drink. At once the people began to flock into the solitude
and see with their own eyes this living wonder of an angelic life.
So great was the awe he inspired, so miraculous the impression
he made, so above every suspicion his subsistence without earthly nutrition, that the people in a public meeting (Landgemeinde)
passed a resolution to build him in this wilderness a wooden
chapel with cell adjoining. The chapel had three altars and was
twenty-eight feet long by eighteen wide, whilst the adjoining
cell-a real prison, as Bishop John Francis of Constance expresses himself in a letter dated the I4th of July, i647-was but
nine and one-half feet in length and was only six feet high, thus
not even permitting the very tall man to stand erect. Two small
windows opened, one into the chapel and the other into the open
air, whilst a rough board, which was both his resting-place and
table, was the only furniture of the locality, all which, in their original shape, may at this day be seen. It involves something miraculous that such a strange mode of life met with unfeigned credit,
approbation, and reverence. There the people went on an uninterrupted pilgrimage; there the coadjutor-bishop of Constance,
on the 28th of April, I469, consecrated by public request the chapel
to the Blessed Virgin; there Sigismund, Duke of Austria, sent a
precious chalice; there so many presents came together that
Nicholas was enabled to make an endowment for a priest who
should regularly say Mass in his chapel; nay, Pope Paul II., hear
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[May,