the

us.

their summits. With herculean might he rends the rocks and levels the mountains. Who is he, and what does he there? That is war, in the person of Napoleon, hewing a path through rocks and glaciers, for the passage of the Bible and the missionary. Under the reign of the Mediator the promise to Christianity is, All is yours. War is yours, and Peace is yours. As we passed on, innumerable nooks of beauty opened to eye, and romantic peaks ever and anon shot up before Now the path led along a meadow, with its large bright flowers; and now along the brink of an Alpine river, with its worn bed and tumultuous floods. Now it rounded the shoulder of a hill; and now it lost itself in some frightful gorge, where the overhanging mountain, with its drapery of pine forests, made it dark as midnight almost. You emerge into daylight again, and begin the same succession of green meadow, pineclad hill, foaming torrent, and black gorge. Thus you go onward and upward. At length white Alps begin to look down upon you, and give you warning that you are nearing those central regions where eternal winter holds his seat amid pinnacles of ice and wastes of snow.

Let us take an individual picture. The road has made a sudden turn; and a valley, hitherto concealed by the mountains, opens unexpectedly. It is some three or four miles long; and the road traverses it straight as the arrow's flight, till it loses itself amid the rocks and foliage at the bottom of the mountain which you see lying across the valley. On this hand is a stream of water, clear as crystal; on that is the ridgy, wavy, lofty mass of a purple Alp. The bright air and light incorporate, as it were, with the substance of the mountain, and spiritualize it, so that it looks of mould intermediate betwixt the earth and the firmament. The path is bordered with the most delicious verdure, fresh and soft as a carpet, and

freckled with the dancing shadows of the tr is a chalet, with a vine climbing its wall doorway; on that is a verdant knoll, plante nut trees; and from amidst their rich, mas spire of the church, with its glittering vane it is the curé's house, buried amidst flowe liage of vines, and the shadows of the syca There is not a spot in the little valley wh clothed and decked with the most painst grandeur has built up a wall all round, as storms that sometimes rage here. It looks quil, and is so shut in from the great worl thinks of it as a spot which happy beings f might come to visit, and where he might their voices, as they walk at even-tide a this earthly Eden.

The road makes another turn, and the s moment,-in the twinkling of an eye. gone, it has vanished like a dream; and savage, overpowering sublimity rises before upon Alp, chasms yawn, torrents growl, jut and far over head is the dark pine forest, a descry, perhaps, the frozen billows of the glad of those still higher and drearier regions her eternal throne, and holds undivided s progress is completely barred. So it looks. rises from earth to heaven. The gate of entered seems to have closed its ponderou and shut you in,-there to remain till power rend the mountains and give you eg mind changes with the scene. The beauty you; now you grow impulsive and stern.

S

around you blend with the soul, as it were, and impart something of their own vastness to it. You feel yourself carried into the very presence of that Power which sank the foundations of the mountains in the depths of the earth, and built up their giant masses above the clouds; which hung the avalanche on their brow, clove their unfathomable abysses, poured the river at their feet, and taught the forked lightning to play around their awful icy steeps. You seem to hear the sound of the Almighty's footsteps still echoing amid these hills. There passes before you the shadow of Omnipotence; and a great voice seems to proclaim the Godhead of Him "who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance."

The road was comparatively solitary. We passed at times a waggoner, who was conveying the produce of the plains to some village among the mountains; and then a couple of pedestrians, with the air of tradesmen, on their way perhaps to a Swiss town to seek employment; and next a cowherd, driving home his herds from the glades of the forest; and now an occasional gendarme would present himself, and force you to remember, what you would willingly have forgotten amid such scenes, that there were such things as armies in the world; and sometimes the long, dark figure of the curé, reading his breviary to economize time, might be seen gliding along before you, representative of the murky superstition that still fills these valleys, and which, indeed, you can read in the stolid face of the Savoyard, as he sits listlessly under the broad easings of his cottage roof.

Anon the evening came, walking noiselessly upon the mountains, and shedding on the spirit a not unpleasant melancholy. The Alps seemed to grow taller. Deep masses of shade were

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Pin

projected from summit to summit. vale, and dashing torrent, and quiet ham view, as if they wished to go to sleep shadows. A deep and reverent silence st if the stillness of the firmament had de Over all nature was shed this spirit of tranquillity. Every tree was motionless. brook, the wing of the bird, the creak voices of the postilion and conducteur, influence of the hour.

But mark! what glory is this which the crest of the snowy Alps? First there light, and then a deep bright crimson, li the sapphire's blaze, and then a circlet of the horizon. It looks as if a great con to begin. But suddenly the light fade pale white rise above you. You can sca the same mountains. But, quick as th comes again. A flood of glory rolls of summits. It is a last and mighty blaz were a struggle for life,-as if it were spirits of darkness against these celestial is over the darkness has prevailed. T torches are extinguished one after one; a of sepulchral hue, which you shiver to remind you of the dead, rise still and above you. You feel relieved when veil betwixt you and them. The night s and beautiful, with troops of stars over streams, all night long, fills the silent echoes.

We now threaded the black gorge of

perceived in the darkness, Fort Lesseillon, which, erecting
its tiers of batteries above this tremendous natural fosse, looks
like a mailed warrior guarding the entrance to Italy. It was
eleven o'clock, and we were toiling up the mountain. We had
left all human habitations far below, as we thought, when sud-
denly we were startled by a peal of village bells. Never had
bells sounded sweeter in my fancy than those I now heard in
these dreary regions. These were the convent bells of the
little village of Lanslebourg, which lies at the foot of the sum-
mit of the Mont Cenis. Here we were to sup. It was a sort
of Arbour in the midst of the hill Difficulty, where we Pil-
grims might refresh ourselves before beginning our last and
steepest ascent. It was a most substantial repast, as all sup-
pers in that part of the world are; and we had the pleasure of
thinking that we were perhaps the highest supper party in
Europe. It was our last meal before crossing the mountain,
and passing from the modern to the ancient world; for the
ridge of the Alps is the limit that divides the two.
side are modern times; on that are the dark ages.

On this

You re

trograde five full centuries when you step across the line. We ate our supper, as did the Israelites their last meal in Egypt, with our loins girded,―scarce even our great-coats put off, and our staff in our hand.

Now for the summit.

We started at midnight. Above us was an ebon vault, studded thick with large bright stars. Around us was the awful silence of the mountains. The night was luminous; for in that elevated region darkness is unknown, save when the storm-cloud shrouds it. Of our party, some betook them to the diligence, and were carried over asleep; others of us, leaving the vehicle to follow the road, which zig-zags up to the summit, addressed ourselves to the old route, which winds steeply upward, now through fo