While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in
sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, but
divides, leaving the church and parsonage unharmed. The rumor of this
new wonder spreads like fire in withered grass, and among thousands of
others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, on their way to some
convention, stop to convince themselves of the authenticity of the
miracle, and to determine the attitude which they are to assume toward
it. Then follows a long discussion between the bishop and the clergy
regarding the value of miracles, some maintaining that the church has
outgrown the need of them, others that they are indispensable--that
Christianity cannot survive without them. For has not Christ promised
that "even greater things than these shall ye do?" Is not this a case of
the faith which verily can say to the mountain, "Rise up and cast
thyself into the sea?"
The other miracle, scarcely less marvellous than the deflection of the
avalanche, is that Clara, who has slept for the first time in a month,
now rises from her bed and goes forth to meet her husband, and falls
upon his neck amid the ringing of the church-bells and the hallelujahs
of the assembled multitudes.
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