THE SOUL IN NATURE. 177 rect the mind to it, have over him. "We know ourselves least," Rays Dr. Donne, "We know ourselves least; mere outward shows Our minds so store That our souls, no more than our eyes, disclose So then we will remember, while wandering amidst form and colour, that we ourselves are not mere form and colour; that while all we look on and admire is transitory and changing, we ourselves are eternal; and we are gathering an eternal hue, even from the colours that are temporal. Amidst the wreck of is and was, we will be mindful that "His finger is upon us, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." Most strikingly does John Foster remark that "A man may have lived almost an age, and traversed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, and interpreting the half obliterated characters on its monuments, unconscious the while of a process operating on his own mind to impress or to erase characteristics of much more importance to him than all the figured brass or marble that Europe contains. After having explored many a cavern, or dark ruinous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker recess in his character. He may have conversed with many people, in different languages, on numberless subjects; but having neglected those conversations with himself, by which his whole moral being should have been continually disclosed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to describe the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress of a foreign trader to represent the manners of the Italians or the Turks-to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits or the adventures of the gypsies-than to write the history of his own mind." I have no need of an apology for this quotation, and I may add one short word more, from the same great writer, before we take our Alpen-stock in hand, as a prelude, or grand opening symphony, to the solemn beauty of which sound we may step across the threshold of the great Temple we are entering. This fair display of the Creator's works and resources will be gratifying, the most and the latest, to the soul animated with the love of God, and the confidence of soon entering on a nobler scene. Let me, he may say, look once more at what my Divine Father has diffused even hither, as a faint intimation of what he has somewhere else. I am pleased with this, as a distant outskirt, as it were, of the Paradise toward which I am going." Yes! the Paradise towards which we are going! The trees of Life, the River of the Water of Life, the City of God, the streets of gold, the walls of jasper, the gates of pearl, and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb for the Temple of it; no night, nor storm, nor darkness, nor need of sun nor moon, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the Light thereof. Jerusalem! Jerusalem! CHAPTER XXVII. LAKE LEMAN.-ENTRANCE ON THE VALLEY OF THE RHONE. It must be of a Monday morning, in August, in delightful weather, that you set out with me from Geneva, on a pedestrian tour through the Oberland Alps, which may perhaps be closed with the grass of the Splugen, and a march through the North of Italy, into the secluded valleys of the Waldenses. But as we cannot walk across the Lake, our pedestrianizing begins by sailing in a crowded steamer, on board which we probably find a number of just such travellers as ourselves, accoutred with knapsacks and stout iron-soled shoes, and perhaps a blouse and an Alpen-stock, determined on meeting dangers, and discovering wild scenes, such as no other traveller has encountered. I was happy in having for a companion and friend an English gentleman and a Christian. For this cause, our communion had no undercurrent of distrust or difference, and we could sympathize in each other's most sacred 'feelings, although he was a Churchman and a Monarchist, while I belong ed to the Church with the primitive Bishop, and the State without a King. By the way, that word Churchman is a singular appellation for a Christian. It seems to be taking the species instead of the genus for designation, and it reminds me of the saying, "Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth Temples." It is a pity to put the less for the greater. We are all Churchmen, of course, if we be Christ's men, but we may be furious Churchmen, in any denomination, without being Christ's men at all. We started at half past eight for Villeneuve, at the other end of the Lake, and the day being very lovely, we had a most enchanting sail. A conversation with some Romish priests on board was productive of some little interest. They defended their Church with great earnestness against the charge of saint and image worship, which we dwelt upon. Then we compared our different pronunciation of Latin, repeating the Quadrupedante putrem, et cetera, for illustration. They knew nothing about Greek, and of course had never examined the New Testament in the original. The end of Lake Leman near Vevay and Villeneuve can scarcely be exceeded in beauty by any of the lakes in Switzerland. It very much resembles the Lake of Lucerne. The finest portion of Lake George looks like it, except that the mountains which enclose and border the Lake of Geneva beyond Vevay are vastly higher and more sublime than any in the neighbourhood of the American lakes. To see the full beauty of the Lake of Geneva, the traveller must be upon the summit of the Jura mountains in a clear day; then he sees it in its grand and mighty setting, as a sea of pearl amidst crags of diamonds; coming from France, the scene bursts upon him like a world in heaven. But if in fine weather sailing toward Villeneuve, he have a view, as we did, of the Grand St. Bernard, magnificently robed with snow, he will think also that the sublimity and beauty of this scene, and of the Lake itself, can scarcely be exceeded. The Lake, you are aware, is the largest in Switzerland, being at least fifty miles in length, a magnificent crystal mirror for the stars and mountains, where even Mont Blanc, though sixty miles away, can see his broad glittering diadem of snow and ice reflected in clear weather. How beautifully Lord By ron has described the lake in its various moods, and the lovely scenery, connected with a sense of its moral lessons calling him away from evil, like a sister's voice, Brother, come home! Ah, if the Poet had but followed those better impulses, which sweet Nature sometimes with her simple sermons awoke in his soul! "Clear placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, To waft me from destruction; onee I loved That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved." The lesson of the quiet sail is lost on board the anxious steamer with her noisy paddles; but any traveller may enjoy it, if he will take the time, and few things in nature can be more lovely than a sail or a walk along the Lake of Geneva in some of its exquisite sunsets. Meditation there "may think down hours to moments," and there is something both solemn and melancholy in the fall of the curtain of evening over such a scene, which quickens the inward sense of one's immortality and accountability, and irresistibly carries the heart up to God in prayer. Our boat lands her passengers in small lighters at Villeneuve, where we take a diligence for St. Maurice, some three hours' drive up the Valley of the Rhone. The river runs into the Lake at Villeneuve, and out of it at Geneva; though why the radiant sparkling stream, that issues with such swiftness and beauty, should bear the same name with the torrent of mud that rolls into it, it is difficult to say. Nevertheless, a Christian bears the same name after his conversion that he did be fore; and the new and beautiful characteristics of this river when it rushes from the lake at the republican and Protestant end of it, might well remind you of the change which takes place between the character of a depraved man, and a regenera THE RHONE IN THE LAKE. 181 ted child of God. Our hearts come down wild and ferocious from the mountains, bearing with them rocks and mud, casting up, as the Word of God saith, mire and dirt. So are we in our native, graceless depravity. It is only by flowing into the crystal Lake of Divine Love that we leave our native impurities all behind us, on the shore of the world, and then when we reappear, when we flow forth again from this blessed Baptism, we are like the azure, arrowy Rhone, reflecting the hues of heaven. Then again the muddy Arve from the mountains falls into us, and other worldly streams join us, so that before we get to the sea we have, alas, too often, deep stains still of the mud of our old depravity. The first Adam goes with us to the sea, though much vailed and hidden; but the last Adam is to have the victory. Some streams there are, however, that flow all the way from the Lake to the Sea, quite clear and unmingled. The course of such a regenerated stream through the world is the most beautiful sight this side Heaven. The immense alluvial deposit from the Rhone, where it pours into the Lake, makes the valley for some distance from Villeneuve a dreary bog, which every year is usurping something more of dominion; but you soon get into wilder scenery, which becomes extremely beautiful before reaching St. Maurice. Here Mr. Roger's "key unlocks a kingdom," for the mountains on either side so nearly shut together, that there is only the width of the river and the narrow street between them. You cross a bridge upon a single arch, and find yourself wondering at the great strength of the pass, and entering a village, which is like a stone basket hanging to a perpendicular wall. Farther on, an old hermitage high up overhangs the road, like a gray wasp's nest, under the eaves of the mountain. Hereabouts you cross a vast mound of rock-rubbish, made up of the ruins of one of the various avalanches which from time to time bury whole fields of the verdant Alpine Valleys, and sometimes whole villages. This was an avalanche of mud, glacier, granite, and gravel, which came down from the lofty summit of the Dent du Midi in 1835, not swiftly, but like thick glowing lava, and covered the valley for a length of nine hundred feet. At St. Maurice you pass from the Canton de Vaud to the |