Letters of Rev. John W. Alvord

-fect upon my health has been excellent. I kept up my baths night & morning, drinking of cold water & exercised much more than at Elgersburg. Indeed my weariness some nights would be excessive, & every bone in my body aching—but the hardest bed seemed refreshing & my sleep was sweet. In the morning I would push on again with increased strength. —You would like to have seen me with my staff & guide as I started across the Thuringian mountains—or again as along the lovely lakes of Constance or of Zurich I wandered quite alone—my bag on the end of my umbrella over my shoulder—The Alps towering above me & the bright mountain air around. One sabbath I spent very pleasantly at a little ^Swiss^ village called B_ [illegible]—betweenZurich & Horgen my temple of worship the vine clad hills which look out upon smiling villages & over that beautiful sheet of water ^as^ upon a rustic seat I opened my Bible & read "I am the true vine & my Father is the husbandman" & then looked ^upon^ the pruned yet loaded vines around me & thought & prayed that myself & all Christians might be such. I have never enjoyed myself better. Then you might see me the following week toiling with my Alpine pike up the Rigi for three hours where I slept 5700 feet above the level of the sea the dense clouds beating at my window, or the next morning as I stood gazing with a hundred others, watching the roseate hues of the sun ^sunrise^ as they seemed to set on fire the snowtopped mountains ^crags^ 5000 feet above us—& then plunged down the mountain side & across the Lake of the 5 Cantons—past Lucerne. Following us you would see me the next day climbing the "Wengern Alp, Switzerland|Wengern Alp]] ^on foot^