vation of our spiritual being we discipline in the best manner our intellectual being; we come into a power of appreciating and enjoying the banquet, which God hath placed before all men, but from which so many do voluntarily exclude themselves. So it is, that one traveller meets angels at every step of the way, and to him it seems as a walk in Paradise; while another meets but the outward form of things. One traveller throws a shroud over nature, another a wedding-garment; one clothes her with the carking anxieties of his own mind, another sees no beauty in her.

"A primrose by the river's brim,
Or at the cottage door,

A yellow primrose is to him,
And it is nothing more."

Not so does a mind read nature, or listen to her teachings, whose inward sight has been purified and illumined from above. "God's excellency," says Jonathan Edwards, describing the exercises of his mind after his conversion, "God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars, in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, and trees; in the water and all nature, which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for a long time, and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things; in the meantime singing forth, with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer."

Sweet, indeed, was this frame of mind; delightful would it ever be, so to wander over God's bright world, interpreting nature by ourselves, and singing, with a low sweet voice, our praises of the Creator. Then only do we feel the beauty and the glory that is around us, when there is a mind at peace within us. Coleridge's words are as true as they are beautiful.

"O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold of higher worth,

Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth ;-

And from the soul itself there must be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!"

You, then, kind reader, are my companion by the way, so long as you please to join me in these pages, and I shall talk with you quietly and frankly in my pilgrimage; supposing you to be a friend. If you could answer me, you might suggest a thousand thoughts, fancies, feelings, more beautiful than those I utter to you; I might find that you have a far deeper sympathy with nature than I have, and a heart singing God's praises more constantly. If, therefore, you discover any vein of thought in the conversation (which in this case I have all to myself) that pleases you, I shall be glad; if anything that does you good, I shall be more glad; if you find anything that displeases you, I can only say, it would be somewhat wonderful if you did not; but it is not certain, because it displeases you, that therefore it is wrong. We are going through a glorious region; I have only to wish that I could fill my journal with thoughts as grand as the mountains, and as sweet as the wild flowers. We begin with Geneva, and some of the pleasant excursions amidst the scenery around that city. Then we will visit the Vale of Chamouny, and from that spot make the tour of Mont Blanc, through the lovely Val d'Aoste in Italy. After this, we have before us the magnificent Oberland Alps, and the wonderful pass of the Splugen.

CHAPTER II.

Mont Blanc from Geneva and its outskirts.

GENEVA is a spot where one may study the beauty of nature in all its changes and varieties, and where that beauty passes also into sublimity, in the mighty Jura range of mountains, and in the magnificent view of the flashing snowy Alps, with Mont Blanc towering in the centre. There are many delightful excursions within the compass of a few hours, or a day going and returning. There is the Lake, so grand and beautiful at its other extremity, around Vevay-there is the arrowy Rhone, so blue and rapid, and its junction with the Arve, combining so many points of interest and beauty, from the heights that overlook the rivers. There are the various commanding views of Mont Blanc, especially at sunset, with the changing hues from the dazzling white to the deep rich crimson, from the crimson to the cold grey, from the grey to the pink, till the color is lost in the dimness of evening. Then there are the golden hues of twilight shadowed in the lake, and the light veil of mist drawing across the foliage of the valley as the evening shuts in upon it. Then you continue your walk in the soft light of the moon and stars, in which the vast shadows and dark rising masses of the mountains appear so solemn, almost like spiritual existences slowly breathing into your heart a sense of eternity. How these forms of nature brood upon the soul! The powerful impression which they produce, so deep, so solemn, like great types of realities in the eternal world, is sometimes quite inexplicable. It is like the awe described in Job as falling upon the soul in the presence of an invisible Spirit. The heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place. God thundereth marvellously with his voice. He casteth the garment of his clouds around the mountains; then the bright light is gone; then the wind passeth and cleanseth them.

Fair weather cometh out of the north with God is terrible majesty.

Mont Blanc is clearly visible from Geneva perhaps once in the week, or about sixty times in the year. When he is visible, a walk to the junction of the Arve and the Rhone either by the way of the plains on the Genevan side, or by way of the heights on the side towards the south of France, affords a wonderful combination of sublimity and beauty on the earth and in the heavens. Those snowy mountain ranges, so white, so pure, so dazzling in the clear azure depths, do really look as if they belonged to another world—as if, like the faces of supernatural intelligences, they were looking sadly and steadfastly on our world, to speak to us of theirs. Some of these 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 veiled 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 Sabbathday 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 shade 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-colored 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