describe this scene? It seemed as if the Deity had once taken the chain from His wildest laws, to see what awful strength they could put forth, and what a chaos of mountains they could tumble together. High over all, with its smooth round top, stood Mont Blanc, like a monarch with his mountain guard around him. Yet how silent and motionless were they all, as if in their holy Sabbath rest."

The tourist now plucks a few flowers, which rise from the margin of the snow, for God makes the light of beauty to cheer the most lonely places,— and, standing in that great solitude, exclaims, "Hark! a low rumbling sound rises on the air, swelling to the full-voiced thunder. I turned, and lo! a precipice of ice had loosed itself from the mountain, and, falling over, plunged, with a crash that shook the hills, into the plain below. I stood awe-struck and silent. It was the first avalanche I had heard; and its deep voice echoing amid those mountain solitudes awoke strange feelings within me. The mass from which it had split was of a pale blue, contrasting beautifully with the dull white of the surrounding glacier.'

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A transient cloud had gathered over the kingly mountain, when suddenly the guide shouted, the tourist looked up, and saw Mont Blanc covered with a pale rose-coloured light, deepening into pink, until the surrounding peaks were bathed in the same ruddy glow. The sun had set to the traveller; but the whole range of majestic mountains were coloured by reflected light, and seemed transparent as a rose-tinted shell, and the fit home of spiritual

beings. It was a combination of beauty and sublimity, and therefore sublimely beautiful.

Professor Forbes, speaking of the extraordinary grandeur of Alpine scenery, says in his work on the Tour of Mont Blanc and of Monte Rosa:-"New peaks began to rise before us, and especially the Mont Cervin, or Matterhorn, and the Dent d'Erin; whilst to the westward, the summits of Mont Collon, and the neighbouring chains, peeped over the wilderness of snow and ice. The col, or pass, lay considerably to the right; but seeing just before us a snowy summit, which alone concealed from us the view of Monte Rosa and the great chain of Alps in that direction, I proposed, as we had gained the heights at a very early hour, and with far less difficulty than I expected, to climb to the top of it to enjoy the view. Accordingly, we walked right over towards the precipice stretching from the Dent Blanche to the Stockhorn. As we approached it, I caught one of those glorious bursts of scenery of which all description must ever fail to realize the incommunicable grandeur, and one sight of which and at once instantly repays the traveller for days of toil and sleepless nights."-P. 222.

It was the vision of Mont Blanc which awakened such deep and powerful emotions in the soul of Coleridge, and which called forth his magnificent Hymn-one of the grandest ever written by human pen. It will furnish an illustration of a sublime composition.

"HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF

CHAMOUNI."*

" Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course-so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O Sovran Blanc ?
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above,
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial black ;
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from Eternity.

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my Life, and Life's own secret joy,
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

* Besides the rivers Arvé and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the glaciers the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."

Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale!
O, struggling with the darkness all night long,
And all night visited by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink;
Comparion of the Morning Star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald; wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered, and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?

And who commanded (and the silence came)
Here let the billows stiffen and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow,
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once, amidst their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!

Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements!

Utter forth God! and fill the hills with praise!

Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depths of clouds that vail thy breast,
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,

To rise before me,—Rise, O ever rise!

Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God!"

There is always more or less of terror as we realize the presence of the supernatural. A supposed spirit walking on stormy waters awakens a powerful feeling in the mind; as for example, the fishermen of Galilee, who were afraid when they saw Jesus alone on the sea. Men fear to enter gloomy caverns, not so much from the apprehension of robbers, smugglers, or wild beasts, as from a fear of ghosts. Not only children, but men and women fear to cross a churchyard when alone at midnight, or to walk by ruined castles or haunted chambers. This feeling of fear depends very much on training and the state of the conscience; but man has a natural fear of the supernatural.