grand views of sacred theology and history, his living piety, and his great experience in the deep things of God, was like a mountain glacier, in one respect, as the "parent of perpetual streams,' that are then the deepest, when all the fountains of the world are driest; like, also, in another respect, that in climbing his theology you get very near to heaven, and are in a very pure and bracing atmosphere; like, again, in this, that it requires much spiritual labor and discipline to surmount his heights, and some care not to fall into the crevasses; and like, once more, in this, that when you get to the top, you have a vast, wide, glorious view of God's great plan, and see things in their chains and connections, which before you only saw separate and piecemeal.

CHAPTER VII.

The Moon and the Mountains. Village of Leuk.

THE village of the Baths of Leuk is at the head of this gorge, at the foot of the celebrated pass of the Gemmi. The wonders of the scenery are greater than the marvels of Oriental romance; it is a totally different world from that which lies below you, that where you were born. You seem to have risen to the verge between the natural and the supernatural, between the visible and the invisible; or to have come to the great barriers, behind which lies open "the multitudinous abyss," where Nature hides her secret elemental processes and marvels. Strange enough, the village in the remembrance reminds me of Nicomedia in Turkey. The moon rose about eight o'clock from behind the mountains beneath which the baths and the hamlets are situated, so that we had the hour and the scene of all others in some respects most beautiful. No language can describe the extraordinary effect of the light falling on the mighty perpendicular crags and ridges of the Gemmi on the other side, while the village itself remained in darkness. It appeared as if the face of this mountain was gradually lighting up from an inward pale fire, suffused in rich radiance over it, for it was hours before we could see the moon, though we could see her veil of soft light resting upon those gigantic, rock-ribbed, regal barriers of nature.

There is an inexpressible solemnity to the mind in the sight of those still and awful forms rising in the silent night, how silently, how impressively! Their voice is of eternity, of God; and why it is I cannot tell, but certain it is, that the deep intense blue of distant mountains by day impresses the mind in the same way with a sense of eternity. Vastness of material masses produces the same impression on the mind as vastness of time and space; but why intensity of color should have so pecu

liarly sublime an effect I know not, unless it be simply from connection with such vastness of material form. At all events the mountains in these aspects do raise the mind irresistibly to God and eternity, making the devout heart adore him with praise and awe, and compelling even the careless heart into an unusual sense of his power and glory. Sometimes the mountains seem as if shouting to one another, God! Sometimes they seem repeating in a low, deep, stilly murmur of adoration, God! Sometimes they seem to stand and gaze silently at you with a look that goes down into the soul, and makes the same impression, God!

How different it is with men, their huts, their palaces, their movements, their manners! Often there is nothing to remind you of God, save the profane oath, in which his dread, sacred name drops from the lips in blasphemy; that fearful oath, which on the continent of Europe has given a name to Englishmen, and of which no European language can afford a rival or a parallel.

This beautiful night, after the moon was fully risen, I could not resist the temptation, notwithstanding the fatigues of the day, to walk down alone to that deep, wild, fir-clad gorge, through which the torrent of the Dala was thundering, that I might experience the full and uninterrupted impression of moonlight and solitude in so grand a scene. As I passed down from the village through the meadow slopes toward the black depths of the ravine, one or two peasants were busied, though it was near midnight, silently mowing the grass; I suppose both because of the coolness of the night, and to secure their hay during the pleasant weather. A beautiful grey mist, like the moonlight itself, lay upon the fields, and the sweep of the scythes along the wet grass was the only sound that rose upon the perfect stillness of the atmosphere, save the distant subterranean thunder of the falls of the Dala, buried in the depths of the chasm. Looking down into those depths amidst the din and fury of the waters, the sublimity of the impression is greatly heightened by the obscurity; and then looking upward along the forest of dark verdure that clothes the overhanging mountain, how still, how beautiful in the moonlight are those rising terraces of trees! They seem as if they too had an intelligent spirit, and were watching the night and

enjoying its beauty. My friend was sound asleep at the inn. Who was wisest, he or I? Considering the fatigues of the day, and those to be encountered on the morrow, there was great wisdom in the act of sleeping. But then again it is to be considered that any night is good for sleeping, while such a night as this for waking might not again be enjoyed, with all its accessories, in a man's lifetime.

These laborers, that were but making hay, couid toil all night, and the day after go to their work as usual. But all the hay in Switzerland would not be worth the impulse that might be gained from such a night as this, were the soul only prepared for it. Night and the stars! Silence and voices deep, calling the soul to hear them, not the sense! What music were it, if those living lights, waxing in splendor, would let us hear, as Dante saith, "the chiming of their angelic bells."

"One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine,

And light us deep into the Deity:

How boundless in magnificence and might!

O what a confluence of ethereal fires

From urns unnumbered, down the steep of heaven!
My heart at once it humbles and exalts,

Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.

Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard
By mortal ear, the glorious Architect,

In this, his universal Temple, hung
With lustres, with innumerable lights,
That shed religion on the soul, at once
The Temple and the Preacher !

Who sees Him not,
Nature's controller, author, guide, and end?
Who turns his eye on nature's midnight face
But must inquire,-What hand behind the scene,
What arm Almighty put these wheeling globes

In motion, and wound up the vast machine?
Who rounded in his palm these spacious orbs?
Who bowled them flaming through the dark profound,
Numerous as glittering gems of morning dew,

Or sparks from populous cities in a blaze,

And set the bosom of old Night on fire?"

What grand lines are these! The sublimity of Young rises sometimes higher than that of Dante, as his devotion is more direct

and scriptural. The grandeur of that image or conception of the spacious orbs bowled flaming through the dark profound, numerous as glittering gems of morning dew, could scarcely be exceeded. It is like the image of the same great Poet, of Old Time sternly driving his ploughshare o'er Creation. The Poem of the Night Thoughts is full of great and rich materials for the mind and heart; it is one of the best demonstrations in our language of the absurdity of that strange idea of Dr. Johnson, that devotion is not a fit subject for poetry! Let the Christian stand at midnight beneath the stars, with mountains round about him, and if the influences of the scene are rightly appreciated, though he may be no Poet, he will feel that Prayer, Praise, and the highest Poetry are one.

"In every storm that either frowns or falls

What an asylum has the soul in prayer!
And what a Fane is this, in which to pray!
And what a God must dwell in such a Fane!"

NIGHT THOUGHTS, IX.