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Some of these

fastly on our world, to speak to us of theirs. mountain peaks of snow you can see only through the perspective of other mountains, nearer to you, and covered with verdure, which makes the snowy pyramids appear so distant, so sharply defined, so high up, so glorious; it is indeed like the voice of great truths stirring the soul. As your eye follows the range, they lie in such glittering masses against the horizon-in such grand repose-they shoot into the sky in bright weather in such infinite clearness, so pure, so flashing, that they seem never to lose the charm of a sudden and startling revelation to the mind. Are they not sublime images of the great truths of God's own word, that sometimes indeed are vailed with clouds, but in fair weather do carry us, as in a chariot of fire and with horses of fire, into eternity, into the presence of God?

The atmosphere of our hearts is so misty and stormy, that we do not see them more than sixty times a year, in their glory: if every Sabbath-day we get a view of them without clouds, we do well; but when we see them as they are, then we feel their power, then we are rapt by them from earth, away, away, away, into the depths of heaven!

In some circumstances, when we are climbing the mountains, even the mists that hang around them do add to the glory of the view; as in the rising sun, when they are so penetrated with brightness, that they softly rise over the crags as a robe of misty light, or seem like the motion of sweet nature breathing into the atmosphere from her morning altars the incense of praise. And in the setting sun how often do they hang around the precipices, glowing with the golden and crimson hues of the West, and preventing us from clearly defining the forms of the mountains, only to make them more lovely to our view. So it is sometimes with the very clouds around God's word, and the lights and shades upon it. There is an inscrutability of truth which sometimes increases its power, while we wait with solemn reverence for the hour when it shall be fully revealed to us; and our faith, like the setting sun, may clothe celestial mysteries with a soft and rosy-coloured light, which makes them more suitable to our present existence, than if we saw them in the clear and cloudless atmosphere of a spiritual noon.

You have a fine point for viewing Mont Blanc, without going out of the city, from the ramparts on the west side of Rousseau's Island. Here a brazen Indicator is erected, with the names of the different mountain summits and ridges, so that by taking sight across the index you can distinguish them at once. You will not mistake Mont Blanc, if you see him; but until you get accustomed to the panorama, you may easily mistake one of his court for the King, when the Monarch himself is not visible.

A still better point of view you will have at Coppet, ascending towards the Jura. In proportion as you rise from the borders of the Lake, every part of the landscape becomes more beautiful, though what you wish to gain is the most commanding view of the mountains, every other object being secondary. In a bright day, nothing can be more clearly and distinctly defined than Mont Blanc, with his attendant mighty ranges, cut in dazzling snowy brightness against the clear blue sky. The sight of those glorious glittering fields and mountains of ice and snow produces immediately a longing to be there among them. They make an impression upon the soul, of something supernatural, almost divine. Although the whole scene lying before you is so beautiful (the lake, the verdant banks, the trees, and the lower ranges of verdure-covered mountains, constituting in themselves alone one of the loveliest pictures in the world), yet the snowy ranges of Mont Blanc are the grand feature. Those glittering distant peaks are the only thing in the scene that takes a powerful hold upon the soul; but they do quite possess it, and tyrannize over it, with an ecstatic thraldom. One is never wearied with gazing and wondering at the glory. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help!

Another admirable point, much farther from the lake and the city than the preceding, and at a greater elevation, is what is called the promenade of the point Sacconex. A fine engraving of this view is printed on letter paper for correspondence; but there is not sufficient distinctness given to the outlines of Mont Blanc and the other summits of the glittering snowy range, that seems to float in the heavens like the far-off ala

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baster walls of Paradise. No language, nor any engraving, can convey the ravishing magnificence and splendour, the exciting sublimity and beauty of the scene. But there are days

in which the air around the mountains seems itself of such a hazy whiteness, that the snow melts into the atmosphere, as it were, and dies away in the heavens like the indistinct outline of a bright but partially remembered dream. There are other days in which the fleecy clouds, like vails of light over the faces of angels, do so rest upon and mingle with the snowy summits that you can hardly tell where one begins and the other ends. Sometimes you look upon the clouds thinking they are mountains, and then again Mont Blanc himself will be revealed in such far-off, unmoving, glittering grandeur, in such wonderful distinctness, that there is no mistaking the changeful imitations of his glory for the reality. Sometimes the clouds and the mountains together are mingled in such a multitudinous and interminable array of radiances, that it seems like the white-robed armies of heaven with their floating banners, marching and countermarching in front of the domes and jewelled battlements of the Celestial City. When the fog

scenery, of which I will give you a description, takes place upon the earth, and at the same time there are such revelations of the snowy summits in the heavens, and such goings on of glory among them, and you get upon the mountain to see them, it is impossible to describe the effect, as of a vast enchantment, upon the mind.

The view of Geneva, the Lake, and the Jura mountains from Coligny, is much admired, and at sunset perhaps the world cannot offer a more lovely scene. It was here that Byron took up his abode, a choice which I have wondered at, for you cannot see Mont Blanc from this point, and therefore the situation is inferior to many others. Ascending the hill farther to the East, when you come to Col. Tronchin's beautiful residence, you have perhaps the finest of all the views of Mont Blanc in or around Geneva. Go upon the top of Col. Tronchin's Tower about half an hour before sunset, and the scene is not unworthy of comparison even with the glory of the sunrise as witnessed from the summit of the Righi. It is surprising to see how long

Mont Blanc retains the light of day, and how long the snow burns in the setting sun, after his orb has sunk from your own view entirely behind the green range of the Jura. Then, after a succession of tints from the crimson to the cold gray, it being manifest that the sun has left the mountain to a companionship with the stars alone, you also are ready to depart, the glory of the scene being over, when suddenly and unaccountably the snowy summits redden again, as if the sun were returning upon them, the countenance of Mont Blanc is filled with rosy light, and the cold gray gives place for a few moments to a deep warm radiant pink (as if you saw a sudden smile playing over the features of a sleeping angel), which at length again dies in the twilight. This phenomenon is extremely beautiful, but I know not how to account for it; nor was any one of our party wiser than I; nevertheless, our ignorance of causes need never diminish, but often increases the pleasure of beautiful sights.

Beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc there dwell side by side one of the truest forms of liberty, and one of the most thoroughgoing despotisms in the world, together with the brighest piety and the deepest superstition. A line divides these kingdoms. Beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc there have been transacted some of the most glorious and most humiliating scenes recorded in history. We are now on a spot consecrated to Freedom and Truth. We can take our Bibles to the top of this tower, and we might read from them and teach from them, unmolested, to as many thousands as could assemble within reach of our voices. But in the direction in which you are looking towards Mont Blanc, you see the smoke ascending from the cottages. within the boundary line of the kingdom of Sardinia. Step across that line and enter those cottages, and your teachings with the Bible in your hand will carry you to prison. There is religious tyranny, here is religious liberty. The grass is as green there as it is here; the air is as bright and sweet there as it is here; you can see the kingly crown of Mont Blanc glittering there, as massive and silvery as it does here. The difference is not in external nature, but in the world of souls.

Looking from the tower, a little to the left, across the grove

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which surrounds it, you see a delightful work of the taste and piety of Colonel Tronchin, in a private hospital, erected and supported at his own expence, where a number of the poor and sick are taken care of with the utmost benevolence, without any distinction as to their religion, whether they be Protestants or Romanists. There is religious worship and instruction in the hospital, and sentences from the Scriptures are engraven here and there upon the walls, as in some of the cottages of Switzerland; and results both unexpected and delightful have been known to come from the perusal of these lessons. We attended the evening worship in this benevolent little retreat. Colonel Tronchin read the Scriptures, with some familiar and deeply interesting remarks, and led his needy flock, gathered from the highways and hedges, in prayer. No visitor can come to this spot without blessing it, nor can any go, without feeling that its excellent proprietor has here put his money into a bank, where his Lord, at his coming, "will receive his own with usury."

CHAPTER III.

CLOUD-LAND AND MOUNTAIN SCENERY FROM THE GRAND SALEVE.

I MUST not omit to carry you on one excursion from Geneva, which many travellers miss entirely, either because they are not in the region at the season in which it is to be enjoyed, or because they have not time and curiosity, a combination quite requisite for undertaking the expedition.

In the autumn, when the fogs prevail, it is often a thick drizzling mist in Geneva, and nothing visible, while on the mountain tops the air is pure, and the sun shining. On such a day as this, when the children of the mist tell you that on the mountains it is fair weather, you must start early for the range nearest Geneva, on the way to Chamouny, the range of the Grand Saléve, the base of which is about four miles distant, prepared to spend the day upon the mountains, and you will witness one of the most singular and beautiful scenes to be enjoyed in Switzerland.