chasms, we could see the smoothness broken.

Mont Blanc is on the right of the valley, looking up from the Col de Balme; the left range being much lower, though the summit of the Buet is nearly 10,000 feet in height. Now on the Col de Balme we are midway in these sublime views, on an elevation of 7000 feet, without an intervening barrier of any kind to interrupt our sight.

On the Col itself we are between two loftier heights, both of which I ascended, one of them being a ridge so sharp and steep, that though I got up without much danger, yet on turning to look about me, and come down, it was absolutely frightful. A step either side would have sent me sheer down a thousand feet; and the crags by which I had mounted upward appeared so loosely perched as if I could shake and tumble them from their places by my hand. The view in every direction seemed infinitely extended, chain behind chain, ridge after ridge, in almost endless succession.

But the hour of most intense splendour in this day of glory was the rising of the clouds in Chamouny, as we could discern them like stripes of amber floating in an azure sea. They rested upon, and floated over, the successive glacier gorges of the mountain range on either hand, like so many islands of the blest, anchored in mid heaven below us; or like so many radiant files of the white-robed heavenly host floating transversely across the valley. This extended through its whole length, and it was a most singular phenomenon; for through these ridges of cloud we could look, as through a telescope, down into the vale, and along to its farther end; but the intensity of the light flashing from the snows of the mountains, and reflected in these fleecy radiances, almost as so many secondary suns, hung in the clear atmosphere, was well nigh blinding.

The scene seemed to me a fit symbol of celestial glories; and I thought, if a vision of such intense splendour could be arrayed by the divine power out of mere earth, air, and water, and made to assume such beauty indescribable at a breath of the wind, a movement of the sun, a slight change in the elements, what mind could even dimly and distantly form to itself a conception of the splendours of the world of heavenly glory.

And if it sometimes blinds us to look even at earthly glories steadily, what training and purifying of the soul must it require to look at God and his glory! I love the spirit of the Poet Cowper in his communion with nature; so heartfelt, so simple, so truly Christian. It is the spirit not of mere sentimentalism, nor merely a refined taste, nor of a powerful imagination only, nor merely of tender and elevated thought, of which you may find so much in the pages of Wordsworth, but of pure, heartfelt devotion, of sincere and humble piety, bringing you directly to God.

'These are thy glorious works, thou Source of Good,
How dimly seen, how faintly understood!

Thine and upheld by thy paternal care,

This universal frame, thus wondrous fair."

Alas! how many are the persons who love to look at nature, but do not love to look at nature's God. This is the case certainly with many of those who travel in Switzerland. Indeed it is the case with every man naturally, for this is natural religion.

"The landscape has his praise,

But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed
The Paradise he sees, he finds it such,

And such well pleased to find it, asks no more.”

And yet, there could not be a discipline better fitted to lead the heart to God, as well as to invigorate the mind, and inspire it with new and elevated views of the Divine Glory, than the discipline of travel among the regions of the Alps. The atmosphere is as bracing to the mind as it is to the body; and these stupendous scenes are as good for the heart as they are for the mind, if they be but rightly studied. But it is not mere taste that will sanctify them. Mere cultivated taste is a cold commentator on the works of nature; as unfit for such an office as mere learning without piety for the office of a teacher of the word of God. There are two books of God, two revelations; they are both open before us, God's word on the one side, and sun, moon, and stars, seas, vales, and mountains throughout the year, with our own mortal and immortal frame, so fearfully and wonderfully made, on the other.

Now, whoever loves to read one of these books, because God made it, will love to read the other, and find God in it. But this is the teaching of Grace, not Nature. Nature may teach men to be astronomers, threading the spheres, and viewing their stations, surveying the stars, as if among them they designed to make a purchase. Nature may teach men to be subtile chemists, poring among the principles of things, and following the traces of death, and the laws of matter. But nature alone brings not man to God; "the homely nurse doth all she can," but she cannot make her foster-child love her Creator!

"What hath not man sought out and found
But his dear God? who yet his glorious law
Embosoms in us, mellowing all the ground
With showers and frosts, with love and awe;
So that we need not say, where's this command?
Poor man thou searchest round

To find out Death, but missest Life at hand?"

GEORGE HERBERT.

CHAPTER XII.

STARTING FOR THE TOUR AROUND MONT BLANC.

WHEN you hear the guides speak of making the Tour of Mont Blanc, you are apt to think of a pleasant circle at the base of the mountain, where, without much terror of its storms or down-rushing armies of glaciers and avalanches, you can always keep it in sight, and tread softly as in the Vale of Chamouny. This is a great mistake; for the Tour of Mont Blanc takes you across the great St. Bernard, up the Val d'Aoste, through the Allée Blanche, across the Col de la Seigne, over the Col de Bonhomme, and so on by St. Gervais, a route in great part on the uninhabitable extreme verge of nature's life—wild, awfully sublime, and often dangerous and utterly impracticable. It is a circle of four or five days, or if you please, a week, provided you have pleasant weather; if not, you may be obliged to return by the way you came, leaving the untrampled glaciers for the excursions of your imagination. You may have the

THE TOUR OF MONT BLANC.

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great view of Mont Blanc from the Val d'Aoste, without tempting the weather or braving the perils of the high passes; and, if you choose, can stop at Courmayeur: but you will not have made the tour of the mountain, nor seen the stupendous upcoiling piles of glaciers, nor the white cataracts roaring down among them, nor the shattered chaos of enormous rock-fragments, as if a granite world had exploded. It is, without any exaggeration, one of the grandest excursions in Switzerland; and, through the Val d'Aoste, one of the loveliest.

It was my first pedestrian tour alone;-it required not a little courage and perseverance to set out and continue going. I experienced a feeling of my dependence on God, and of His care as my only friend and protector, such as I have rarely had. Never, even in preparing to cross the Atlantic, did I feel this more deeply. This sentiment was heightened by my having to leave my luggage in the care of the keeper of the hôtel, with directions, in case of any accident, or if he did not hear from me by a certain time, to send my effects to the care of Dr. Malan at Geneva. This was somewhat like making a will before a long journey. My feelings were caused principally by my being alone, in a strange country, far from relatives and friends, unknown. How much these circumstances heighten our sense of being on a pilgrimage here below! Pilgrims, pilgrims, pilgrims; such we are: but, in the midst of society, with a thousand ties to bind us, and a thousand props to support us, and many dear friends, relatives, and companions with us, we do not daily feel it, daily realize it. Now I felt that I was a pilgrim in more senses than one, and to be alone, where danger waits upon you, or when you think it does, is to be brought very near to God. It is good to be among the mountains, alone-good, both for the mind and the heart. Not that a man is nearer to heaven, in place, upon the mountain tops, than at his own fire-side, though nearer the blue sky and the It makes one think of Milton:

stars.

"He that hath light within his own clear breast
May sit i' the centre and enjoy the day.

But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon."

Just so, he that hath the spirit of heaven within him walks upon the Delectable Mountains, though he be working in a coal-mine, or following the plough a-field in a rainy day; while he with the spirit of earth hath his soul chained in Plato's cave, though his feet be treading the heights of Monte Rosa in the sunrise. We must be above the world while in the world, or we shall not be above it when out of it.

But it is not without a purpose that we are told in the Scriptures of our blessed Lord's love of the mountains and of soli

tude. He went apart into a mountain, to pray; he withdrew himself into a desert place, and there prayed; he went out into the wilderness, and prayed; he went up into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God; he went up into a mountain to pray, when he was transfigured, and on the mountain his disciples saw his glory. When the soul is fitted for it, there is a natural connection between the mountain-tops and prayer and spiritual glory. It was not as a monk, not as quitting the world, that our Saviour frequented the mountains, but to fit himself the better to endure the world's atmosphere, and fulfil his life of suffering love to its inhabitants.

I would not counsel a man to make the tour of Switzerland alone; it is better to have a friend; but sometimes it is good, both for the mind and heart, to be for days upon the mountains, alone. Nevertheless, when you get a little accustomed to it, it needs much watchfulness and some effort, even there, not to forget God. A scene of overwhelming sublimity lifts the mind and heart directly to him, but you want to be musing of him, not merely when the mountains make you think of him, when, with a silent but irresistible voice of power and glory they say to you, God! but also amidst more humble scenes— in the valleys, with the flowers, by the brooks, beneath the trees, or where, upon the dusty highway, your mind turns in upon itself.

Not having been prepared for this journey when I left Geneva, I was forced to borrow a military knapsack from my former guide, in which I could put a few articles of clothing and toilette sufficient for my tour, and carry it with ease upon my shoulders. I queried much whether I should take a cloak,