N INE centuries have gone by since St. Bernard de Menthon

founded a Hospice for travellers on the top of the Great St. Bernard Pass, 8,114 feet up amid the majestic mountains on the Swiss-Italian frontier.
During all that time shelter has never been denied to any living thing born of God by the monks, who are Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine. Thousands of people have received hospitality-and every April and October several flights of swallows cross the Pass and when they reach the summit they are often prevented by snow storms from going further.
They, too, receive shelter, for the moment the monks see them flying round the Hospice all the windows ore opened and the birds immediately enter without the slightest signs of fear and rest until the storm is over. Although they do not take food they allow the Fathers to take them into their hands and caress them.
This Christmas the twelve monks who live at the Hospice throughout the winter will receive many skiers from France, Italy and other European countries who wish to spend Christmas Eve at the Hospice and attend the services in the beautiful chapel.
All of them will be warmly welcomed, for the monks feel that their love of the mountains is closely bound up with the higher preoccupations of the spirit. The monks will give each guest a good bed, plenty of simple food, meat from their own cattle and bread and cheese they have made themselves.
These stores are built up in the summer months as sometimes large parties of pilgrims stay a night at the Hospice and the monks must always be prepared for them. Now that the great tunnel which pierces the mountainside 2,500 feet below the Hospice is open, one might well think that motorists in summer would no longer visit the Hospice but this k for from being the case. During the three months the pass was open last summer over 120,000 cars crossed it and practically every one of them stopped to visit the monks and their world famous dogs.
Following on a tradition that is many years old, there will be a St. Bernard dog for each monk or novice, while the Pass is snow-bound.
Throughout the long, dark months of November, December, January and February the monks and their dogs will occassionally fulfil their task of helping travellers in distress for there are still smugglers trying to take cigarettes from Switzerland into Italy and foolhardy people who attempt to cross the Pass on foot, quite apart from skiers who may have accLiidkee tnts. heir masters, the dogs-the head St. Bernard is always called Barry-find the severe climate of the great St. Bernard very trying as they suffer from heart trouble and rheumatism and generally die when they are nine or ten years old.
Now, more than at any previous time in its history, the Hospice is becoming more and more a place of pilgrimage and prayer. As dusk falls on Christmas Eve in this lonely place, skiers will glide silently over the snows beneath a starlit sky on their way to the welcoming lights of the Hospice.
There, for a few days, they will share the way of life of the kindly, gentle monks who are such dedicated servants of God and their fellow men.
JOHN A. STEEL