In they went, and right by the door was the clock. A fine-looking man dressed elegantly met them. He proved to be a finely educated Swiss, and he explained the various wonders of the clock.
STRASBOURG—CATHEDRAL CLOCK.—Page [96.]
He told them that the clock was built three hundred years ago, and was to run a certain number of years. It shows all fête days for all those years, tells the changes of the moon, eclipses—in fact, everything that one could imagine.
The apostles do not all come out and walk around except at noon, but as it was quarter before six our party saw three men move.
The clock stops at six at night and then commences again at six in the morning.
Mrs. Winter said the longer she looked at it, the more wonderful it seemed to her that any man could think of so many things.
The guide also told them that the man who first conceived the idea of the clock became totally blind when it was nearly completed. Of course he could work no more, and it was never thought the clock would be finished.
He lived thirty years, and after his death another man was found who thought he could complete it. He succeeded, and was paid by the government for his time and work.
Mrs. Winter said, "I think it is the most wonderful thing I ever saw, and I do not know which man I admire the most—the one who conceived such a work, or the man who could carry out such marvellous thoughts of a man whom he had never met."