/ (
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 -«3 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 m THE 
 
 SHADOW OF MONT BLANC. 
 
 ,-d332b_ 
 
 ^ § <ik^=^'--'*^^^^ 
 
 S&-V
 
 PBErACE. M|(3£i, ^ 
 
 A Preface is a thing of inconsistencies. Though it comes 
 first in the Book, it is last in the Author's thoughts; the first 
 thing with the reader, it is the last with the writer and the 
 printer. Though it is the shortest part of the Book, it is by 
 far the most difficult. And though it is no part of the Book, 
 it is sometimes the only part read, and the longest remembered. 
 
 It is always demanded by custom, though oftentimes wholly 
 unnecessary. It is like a visit of ceremony, with half an ex- 
 cuse for not calling sooner, and half an apology for calling at 
 all. It is like the title Esq., which is no part of any man's 
 name, and yet every man writes it on a letter to his neighbour. 
 It is like notes at the bottom of the page, which, if they contain 
 Anything important, had better be put in the body of the work. 
 Finally, it is like standing at the door in a rain-storm, and 
 sending in the servant to announce your name. 
 
 A Preface in the present case might have been spared, inas- 
 much as there is an introductory chapter. But perhaps it may 
 be set down as one of those graces in book-life, like the touch 
 of your hat to a friend across the street, which softens the 
 manners, and does not permit men to be brutes. This doubtless 
 is the philosophy of it, though the etymology intimates that it 
 is simply the art of putting the best face foremost. 
 
 It may be questioned whether it were not better not to have 
 jmhlished at all ; but this should have been thought of before. 
 When I first wrote, I was thinking of dear friends, just as in 
 collecting my Alpine Flowers, and of the pleasure I would give 
 them, if ever permitted to show them my mountain treasures. 
 To write merely for the public is but poor business; it makes 
 a sort of commercial traveller out of a man, who goes about 
 like an Argus, seeing with a hundred ej'es, not one of which is 
 his own; seeing everything for the public, nothing for himself; 
 a kind of commission agent to trade with nature, and drive the 
 best sneculations. 
 
 1048596
 
 rUEFACE. 
 
 "Those tourists, Heaven preserve us, needs must le;id 
 A profitable life!" 
 
 They climb the crags, ami beat about the bushes, for mares' 
 nests, that they mav show and sell the eggs. What can they 
 see of Nature's own, of Nature's hidden treasures, which come 
 to view all spontaneously, just as the graceful attitudes of child- 
 ren are seen only when you are not watching for them, and be- 
 fore they have been taught to dance. 
 
 On the other hand, to write for dear friends, and then pub- 
 lish, if need be, as an after thought, is not so bad. Nor need 
 the Author tell his reasons for so doing. If the public are 
 pleased, that is reason enough ; if not, they care nothing at all 
 about it. For his own gratification and benefit, it is better for 
 the traveller in so glorious a region as that of the Alps, always 
 to write, whether he publishes or not; and then, the copying 
 and filling up of his journal is as pleasing as the revisiting of 
 a beautifid gallery of paintings. If he could make the descrip- 
 tion as interesting to his reader, as the visit was to himself, he 
 would never need an apology for a Book. I do quite de- 
 spair of this, and yet I have attempted my Pilgrim Story. 
 
 In speaking of the shadow of Mont Blanc, and of Day and 
 Night, of Morn and Eve, of Sun and Moon and Stars upon 
 the Mountain, I could adopt what Dante says of the light of 
 Paradise, except that my dream of glory is better remembered ; 
 and this shall be my Preface. 
 
 "As one who from a Dream awakened, straight, 
 AH he hath seen forgets; yet still retains 
 Impression of the feeling in his Dream; 
 E'en sueh am I : for all the vision dies, 
 As 't were away; and yet the sense of sweet. 
 That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart. 
 Thus in the sun thaw is the snow unsealed ; 
 Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost 
 The Sybil's sentence. eternal beam! 
 Whose height what roach of mortal thought may soar V 
 Tield me again some little particle 
 Of what thou then appearcdst; give my tongue 
 Power, but to 'leave one sparkle of thy glory, 
 Unto the race to come, that shall not lose 
 Thy triumph -wholly, if thou waken ought 
 Of memory in me, and endure to hear 
 The record sound of this unequal strain." 
 
 Cakey's Dakte, Taradise, Canto xxxiii. 
 
 ■"s^-r^ 

 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 
 Introduction. — Interpretation of Nature, 
 
 Mont Blanc from Geneva and its Outskirts, . 
 
 Cloud-Land and IMountain Scenery from the Grand Salev 
 
 Junction of tlic Arve and the Rhone, 
 
 The Truth of Christ and its Defenders in Geneva, 
 
 Dr. IMalan, Dr. Merle D Aubignc, and Dr. Gausscn, 
 
 Dr. ISIcrle D'Auhigne, • . ... 
 
 Dr. Gausscn.— The Children of the Oratoire.— Religions 
 Liberty, . 
 
 Chamouny and the Mer de Glace, . . . 
 
 Cascade des Pelerines. — Swiss Family. — Coleridge's Ilymn 
 
 Mont Blanc from the Col de Balme, 
 
 Starting for the Tour around Mont Blanc, 
 
 Cascade Barberina and Pass of the Tete Noire, 
 
 Pass of tlie Grand St. Bernard 
 
 IIos2)ice of the Grand St. Bernard, 
 
 Descent into the Val d'Aoste. — Romish Intolerance, am: 
 that of State and Church, .... 
 
 Lower Valley of Aoste into Ivrea and Turin, . 
 
 The Grand St. Bernard by Moonlight. — Flood of the 
 Drance, ....... 
 
 Sunset. — The Tete Noire. — The Valorsine by Moonlight 
 — Piety of the Guides, 
 
 City of Aoste. — The Sabbath.— The Peasants.— Monu- 
 ment to John Calvin, ...... 
 
 Antiquities, Calamities, and By-Laws of Aoste. — Mont 
 Blanc from Ivrogne, ...... 
 
 Mont Blanc from the Upper Val d'Aoste,
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PARE 
 
 XXIII. Pass of the Col de la Seigne, . , . .150 
 
 XXIV. Pass of the Col de Bonhomme, . . . .155 
 XXV. Cbamouny to Geneva. — The Bishop of Cashel Preach- 
 ing in the Dining- Ilall, 1G2 
 
 JUNGFRAU ALP. 
 
 XXVI. Introduction. — The serious side of Travel, 
 XXVII. Lake Leman. — Entrance on the Valley of the Rhine, 
 XXVIII. Ecclesiastical Despotism in the Valais. — Pleasures of 
 the Jesuits, ....... 
 
 XXIX. Physical Plagues of the Canton du Valais and of Swit- 
 zerland. — Hospital for the Cretins, 
 XXX. Gorge of the Dala, 
 XXXI. Elements of the Landscape. — Alpine Flowers. — Jona- 
 than Edwards, .... 
 
 XXXII. The Moon and IMountains. — Village of Leulc, 
 
 XXXIIL Baths of Leuk, 
 
 XXXIV. Pass of the Gemmi.— Trials of Faith, 
 XXXV. Pass of the Gemmi. — Successive Splendours of the 
 
 View, 
 
 XXXVI. Canton Berne. — Scripture on the houses. — Truth a 
 
 good Talisman, 
 
 XXXVII. Picturesque Cottages. — A picturesque Language. — 
 
 Right and unright Innovation, 
 
 XXXVIII. Kandersteg.— Frutigen.— The Blumlis Alp.— Lake 
 
 and Village of Thun, 
 
 XXXIX. Thun to Intcrlachen. — Intcrlachcn to Lauterbrunnen. 
 
 — Bible in Schools, . . . . , 
 
 XL. Staubach Cascade and Vale of Lauterbrunnen, 
 XLI. The Wengern Alp and Morning Landscape and Music, 
 XLII. The Jungfrau Alp and its Avalanches, 
 XLI II. Mortar-avalanches. — Valley and Glaciers of Grindle- 
 wald, ....... 
 
 XLIV. Pass of the Grand Scheideck to Meyringen, 
 XLV. Glacier of Rosenlaui and Falls of the Reichenbach, 
 XLVI. Twilight, Evening, and Night in .'witzerland. — A 
 Sabbath in Meyringen, ..... 
 
 181 
 
 2^9
 
 — APTER «*•*"« 
 
 XLVir, From l^Ieyringen to the Pass of the GrLmsel, . . 254 
 XLVIII. Upper Ilasli and the river Aar. — Falls of the Aar.— 
 
 Desolation of the Pass, 257 
 
 XLIX. Hospice of the Grlmsel. — Glaciers of the Aar, . . 2G1 
 L, Lake of the Dead. — Glacier of the Ilhone. — Pass of the 
 
 Furca, „ . 265 
 
 LI. The Devil's Bridge. — f"'avage defiles of the Reuss, . 268 
 
 LIL Legends of the Pass. — Cowper's Memoria Technica, . 272 
 
 LIII. Associations. — Canton Uri, and the IWemoirs of Tell, 276 
 LI V. Traditions of Freedom. — Religious liberty the garrison 
 
 of civil, 270 
 
 LV. Lake of Uri and Town of Lucerne, .... 287 
 
 LVI. Ascent of the Righi. — Extraordinary glory of the view, 292 
 LVir. Lucerne to Einseidlen. — Dr. Zay's history of the Ross- 
 
 herg Avalanche, ....... 302 
 
 LVIII. Morgarten, Sempach, and Arnold of Winkelried, . 307 
 
 LIX. Pilgrimage of Einseidlen and worship of the A^irgin, 309 
 LX. Zurich and Zwinglo. — Banishment of Protestants from 
 
 Locarno, . . . . . . . .317 
 
 LXI. Scenery on the Lake of Zurich. — Poetry for Pilgrims. 
 
 — Grandeur of the Lake of Wallenstadt, . . 322 
 LXII. Baths of Pfeffers. — Gorge of the Tamina. — Coire and 
 
 the Grisons, 327 
 
 LXIII. Course of the Rhine. — Louis Philippe. — The royal 
 
 Schoolmaster at Reiehenau. — Reiclienau to Thusis, 330 
 LXIV. Terrific grandeur of the Sphigen. — The Vi.i Mala. — 
 
 Creation as a Teacher of God 334 
 
 LXV. Natural Theology of the Splugen, . . . .340 
 LXVI. Pass of the Splugen into Italy, — The Cardinell and 
 
 Macdonald's Army. — Campo Dolcino and Chiavenna, 343 
 
 LXVII. The Buried Town of Pleurs, 349 
 
 LXVIII. Beauty of the Lake of Corao. — Como to Milan. — Leo- 
 nardo da Vicini, ....... 354 
 
 I,XIX. The Cathedral of Milan.— The Gospel in Italy, . 357 
 
 LXX. Silvio Pellico, and the Bible in Italy, . . . 3f.l 
 
 LXXI. The Farewell. — Swiss character and freedom, . . 364
 
 \f< 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SHADOW OF MONT BLANC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 
 
 THE Fasciculus of leaves from the jom-nal of a summer's 
 travel here presented to the reader is more like a familiar 
 letter than a hook ; it was written at first for the perusal of a 
 few friends, and it makes no pretensions to depth or greatness, 
 but is a quiet expression of thoughts and feelings, which any 
 man may experience amidst the wonders of Alpine scenery. 
 There is neither political economy, nor geology, nor botany, 
 nor musical nor theatrical nor statistical information much 
 attempted in it. And yet it is possible to find in such a jour- 
 nal a book which may beguile aiul benefit both the traveller 
 among the Alps and the pilgrim at home; a book "which 
 meets us like a pleasant thought when such is wanted." 
 Mere descriptions, be the scenery ever so grand, are cloying and 
 tiresome, and soon become tame. It is like living upon pound- 
 cake and cream, or rather upon whip- syllabub. But if, while 
 the eye is pleased, the heart may be active, and the mind 
 awakened into deep thought— if the thought be such as befits 
 the immortal tenant of a world so beautiful, then will the mind 
 and heart be at harmony with nature, and tlie language, which 
 the very frame of the world speaks, will be understood, and the 
 spirit which pervades such a world will imbue the being as a 
 calm and gentle element. 
 
 Nothing is more desirable than for a traveller so to converse 
 with nature as well as with mankind. We do not con men's 
 
 m 
 
 ■t^-
 
 ■^ L 
 
 ^^^ ■j l ^ ^jig--^^^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A IILGIIIM. 
 
 features alone ■when wo meet them ; we do not report their 
 eyebrows, their noses, their lips, the colour of their eyes, and 
 think we have done with them ; we learn their habits, thoughts, 
 feelings ; we speak to their souls. And Nature hath a soul as 
 well as features. But a man's own soul must be awakened 
 within him, and not his pleasure-loving faculties and propensi- 
 ties merely, if he would enter into communion with the soul 
 that is in nature Otherwise, it is as with a vacant stare that 
 he sees mountains, forests, bright skies, and sounding cataracts 
 pass before him ; otherwise, it is like a sleep-walker that he 
 himself wanders among them. What is not in himself he finds 
 not in natiu-e; and as all study is but a discipline to call forth 
 our immortal faculties, no good will it do the man to range 
 through nature as a study, if his inward being be asleep, if his 
 mind be world-rusted and insensible. 
 
 " It were a vain endeavour 
 Though I should gaze for ever 
 On that green light that lingers in the west ; 
 I may not hope from outward forms to win 
 The passion and the life, whose fountains are within." 
 
 And hence the extreme and melancholy beauty of that pas- 
 sage in John Foster's writings, Avhere he speaks of the power 
 of external nature as an agent in our education, and laments 
 the inward deficiency in many minds, which prevents our 
 " foster-mother " from being able to instil into them her sweet- 
 est, most exquisite tones and lessons. " It might be supposed," 
 he says, " that the scenes of nature, an amazing assemblage 
 of phenomena, if their eft'ect were not lost through familiarity, 
 would have a powerful influence on all opening minds, and 
 transfer into the internal economy of ideas and sentiment some- 
 thing of a character and a colour correspondent to the beauty, 
 vicissitude, and grandeur which continually press on the senses. 
 On minds of genius they often have this efl"ect; and Beattie's 
 Minstrel may be as just as it is a fascinating description of the 
 feelings of such a mind. But on the greatest number this in- 
 fluence operates feebly ', you will not see the process in child- 
 ren, nor the result in mature persons. The charms of nature 
 are objects only of sight and hearing, not of sensibility and 
 
 i(^
 
 y 
 
 t 
 
 ^^A^^^^^ 
 
 INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 
 
 imagination. And even tlie sight and hearing do not receive 
 impressions sufficiently distinct and forcible for clear recollec- 
 tion ; it is not therefore strange that these impressions seldom 
 g-o so much deeper than the senses, as to awaken pensiveness 
 or enthusiasm, and fill the mind with an interior permanent 
 scenery of beautiful images at its own command. This defect 
 of fancy and sensibility is unfortunate amidst a creation infi- 
 nitely rich with grand and beautiful objects, which, imparting 
 something more than images to a mind adapted and habituated 
 to converse with nature, inspire an exquisite sentiment, that 
 seems like the emanation of a spirit residing in them. It is 
 unfortunate, I have thought within these few minutes, while 
 looking out on one of the most enchanting nights of the most 
 interesting season of the year, and hearing the voices of a com- 
 pany of persons, to whom I can perceive that this soft and 
 solemn shade over the earth, the calm sky, the beautiful stripes 
 of cloud, the stars and the waning moon just risen, are all 
 blank and indifferent." 
 
 Unfortunate, indeed ; for did not God design that the walls 
 of our external abode should be, as it were, at least as the 
 scaffolding wherewith to help to build up the inward temple of 
 the mind, and that the silent imagery upon the one should be 
 reflected in the tliouglitful treasures and instructive galleries of 
 the other ? Nature is as a book of hieroglyphics, which the 
 individual mind must interpret. 
 
 What can be more desirable than an interior permanent 
 sceneiy of beautiful images, so formed ? Much depends upon 
 a man's inward spiritual state, which, even by itself, when its 
 pulse beats in imison with His Spirit who rules imiversal na- 
 ture, may supply what might have seemed an original defect 
 of taste and sensibility. So the great metaphysician of New 
 England, who never suspected himself, nor was suspected by 
 others of being a poet, and Avhose character might have been 
 deemed defective in its imaginative parts, was drawn, by his 
 deep and intense communion with God and tlic love of his 
 attributes, into such communion with external nature, and such 
 sensitive experience of her loveliness, so simple and yet almost 
 ecstatic, sis Gowper himself might have envied. So certain it 
 
 m 
 
 15^ 
 
 ■=<£S'
 
 14 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 is that by the cultivation 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 volun- 
 tarily 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 con^iersion, " God's excellency, 
 his wisdom, his purity, and love, seemed to appear in every 
 thing ; 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 sk^', 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 Re- 
 deemer." 
 
 Sweet, indeed, was this frame of mijid ; delightful would it 
 ever be, so to wander over God's bnght 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 aroimd us, when there is a mind at peace ANTth- 
 in us. Coleridge's Avords a>re as true as they are beautiful. 
 
 " lady ! we receive but what we give. 
 And ill our life alone does nature live ; 
 Ours is her wedding-gxii-ment, ours her shroud • 
 And would we aught behold of hi»lier worth 
 Than that inanimate cold world allowed 
 
 m
 
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 f 
 
 To the poor loveless evcr-nnxious crowd, 
 Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth 
 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud 
 Enyeloping 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 sym- 
 pathy 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 any thing that 
 does you good, I shall be more glad ; if you find any tiling 
 that displeases 3'ou, I can only say, it would be somewhat won- 
 ilerful if you did not ; but it is not certain, because it disj)leases 
 you, that therefore it is wrong. We are going through a glo- 
 rious region ; I have only to wish tliat 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 plea- 
 sant 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 wonderfxd pass of the Splugen. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 1^ 
 
 MONT BLANC FROM GENKVA AND ITS OUTSKIRTS. 
 
 Geneva is a spot where one may study the beauty of nature in 
 all its changoS and varieties, and where that beauty passes also 
 into sublimity, in the mighty Jura range of mountains, and in 
 the magnificent view of tlic flashing snowv Alns, with Mont
 
 "WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 Blanc toweriug in the centre. There are many delightful ex- 
 cursions within the compass of a few hours, or a day going 
 and returning. There is the Lake, so grand and hcautiful at 
 its other extremity, around Vevay — there is the arrowy Rhone, 
 so hlue and rapid, and its junction with the Arvc, comhining 
 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 gray, from the gray to the pink, till the 
 colour is lost in the dimness of evening. Than there are the 
 golden hues of twilight shadowed in the lake, and the light 
 vail 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 
 ,he soul ! The powerful impression which they produce, so 
 deep, so solemn, like great types of realities in the eternal 
 Avorld, is sometimes quite inexplicable. It is like the awe des- 
 cribed in Job as falling upon the soul in tlie presence of an 
 invisible Spirit. The heart trembleth, and is moved out of his 
 place. God thundereth marvellously with his voice. He cast- 
 eth the garment of his clouds around the mountains; then the 
 bright light is gone ; then the wind passeth and cleanseth 
 them. Fair weather comcth out of the north : Avith God is 
 tci-rible 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 stead-
 
 §^^^^^ 
 
 -^1 
 
 ^[ 
 
 
 y 
 
 llONT BLAXC FROM GENEVA 
 
 fastly on our world, to speak to us of tlieirs. Some of these 
 niountaiu peaks of snow you can see onljthrougli the perspec- 
 tive of other mountains, nearer to you, and covered with ver- 
 dure, 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 hori- 
 zon — in such grand i-epose — 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 ichen 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 moun- 
 tains, even the mists that hang around them do add to the 
 glory of the view; as in the rising sun, when they are so pene- 
 trated 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 in- 
 cense of praise. And in the setting sun how often do they 
 hang around the precipices, glowing with the golden and crim- 
 son 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 Avhen 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 om- present existence, than 
 if we saw them in the clear and cloudless atmosphere of a spi- 
 ritual noon. 
 
 B 
 
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 ^^^^4^'
 
 k^^^^^^. 
 ^^^^^^^- 
 
 riLGRIM. 
 
 >^ Yoli have a fiue point for viewing Mout Blauc, without go- 
 ^ ing out of the city, from the ramparts on tlie west side of 
 Rousseau's Island. Here a hrazen 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; hut 
 until you get accustomed to the panorama, you may easily 
 mistake one of his court for the King, when the Monarch him- 
 self is not visible. 
 
 A still better point of view you will have at Coppet, ascend- 
 ing towards the Jura. In proportion as you rise from the bor- 
 ders of the Lake, every part of the landscape becomes more 
 beautifid, though what you wish to gain is the most command- 
 ing 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, con- 
 stituting in themselves alone one of the loveliest pictures in the 
 Avorld), yet the snowy ranges of Mont Blanc are the grand fea- 
 ture. Those glittering distant peaks are the only thing in the 
 I scene that takes a powerful hold upon the soid ; but they do 
 ^ quite possess it, and tyrannize over it, with an ecstatic thral- 
 dom. 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 Avhat 
 
 is called the promenade of the point Sacconex. A fine eugrav- 
 
 ' ing of this view is printed on letter paper for correspondence ; 
 
 '.. . but there is not sufficient distinctness given to the outlines of 
 
 ^^yM Mont Blanc and the other summits of the glittering snowy 
 
 range, that seems to float in the heavens like the far-oft" ala- 
 
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 ^^C^^^^^f"^ 
 
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 A^^^^^^. 
 
 
 MONT BLANC FROM GENEV.' 
 
 baster walls of Paradise. No language, nor any engraving, 
 can convey the ravisliing magnificence and splendour, the ex- 
 citing 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 hut 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 Avhite -robed armies of heaven with their floating ban- 
 ners, marching and coimtermarching 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 can- 
 not 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 liave perhaps the finest of all the views of Mont Blanc in 
 or aroimd 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 Kiglii. It is surprising to sec how long 
 
 ~
 
 — <^ 
 
 ly 
 
 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 com- 
 panionship with the stars alone, you also are ready to depart, 
 the glory of the scene being over, when suddenly and unac- 
 countably 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 mo- 
 ments 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 ex- 
 tremely beautiful, but I know not how to account for it ; nor 
 was any one of our party wiser than I; nevertheless, our igno- 
 rance 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 thorough- 
 going 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 toj) 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 hero; the air is as bright and sweet there 
 as it is here; you can sec 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 tov/er, a little to the left, across the giovo
 
 wliieh suiTounds 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 feel- 
 ing that its excellent proprietor has here put his money into a 
 bank, where his Lord, at his coming, " will receive his own 
 with usury." 
 
 1% 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CLOUD-LAND AND MOUNTAIN SCENERT FROM THE GRAND SALEVE. 
 
 I MUST not omit to carry you on one excursion from Geneva, 
 which many travellers miss entirely, either because tliey 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 
 thc^Grand Saleve, the base of which is about four miles dis- 
 tant, prepared to spend the day upon the mountains, and you 
 will witness one of the most singular and beautiful scenes to bo 
 enjoyed in Switzerland. 
 
 \-^
 
 -^ ^=^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIllM. 
 
 The day I set out was so misty that I took an umhrclla, 
 for the fog gatliered and foil like rain, and I more than douhted 
 whether I should see the sun at all. In the midst of this mist 
 I climbed the rocky zigzag half hewn out of the face of the 
 mountain, and half natural, and passing the village that is 
 perched among the high rocks, which might be a refuge for 
 the conies, began toiling up the last ascent of the mountain, 
 seeing nothing, feeling nothing, but the thick mist, the vail of 
 which had closed below and behind me over village, path, and 
 precipice, and still continued heavy and dark above me, so that 
 I thought I never should get out of it. Suddenly my head 
 rose above the level of the fog into the clear air, and the hea- 
 veus were shining, and Mont Blanc, with the whole illimitable 
 range of snowy mountain tops around him, was throwing back 
 the sun! An ocean of mist, as smooth as a chalcedony, as 
 soft and white as the down of the eider-duck's breast, lay over 
 the whole lower world; and as I rose above it, and ascended 
 the mountain to its overhanc-ino- vero-e, it seemed an infinite 
 iibyss of vapour, where only the mountain tops were visible, on 
 the Jura range like verdant wooded islands, on the Mont Blanc 
 range as glittering surges and pyramids of ice and snow. No 
 language can describe the extraordinary sublimity and beauty 
 of the view. A level sea of white mist in every direction, as 
 far as the eye could extend, with a continent of mighty ice- 
 bergs on the one side floating in it, and on the other a forest 
 promontory, with a slight undulating swell in the bosom of 
 the sea, like the long smooth undulations of the ocean in a calm. 
 
 Standing on the overhanging crags, I could hear the chime 
 of bells, the hum of busy labour, and the lowing of cattle buried 
 in the mist, and faintly coming up to j'ou from the fields and 
 villages. Now and then a bird darted up out of the mist into 
 the clear sun and air, and sailed in playful circles, and then 
 dived and disappeared again below the surface. By and by 
 the wind began to agitate the cloudy sea, and more and more 
 of the mountains became visible. Sometimes you have a bright 
 sunset athwart this sea of cloud, which then rolls in waves bur- 
 nished and tipped with fire. When you go down into the mist 
 again, and leave behind you the beautiful sky, a clear bracing 

 
 w 
 
 A' 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 W 
 ^ i/ 
 
 atmosphere, tlie briglit sun and the snow-shining mountains, it 
 is like passing from heaven to earth, from the brightness and 
 serenity of the one to the darkness and cares of the other. 
 Tlie whole scene is a leaf in nature's book, which but few turn 
 over, but how rich it is in beauty and glory, and in food for 
 meditation, none can tell but those who have witnessed it. 
 This Is a scene in Ooud-land, whicli hath its mysteries of beauty 
 that defy the skill of the painter and engraver. 
 
 The bird darting from the mist into the sunlight, was a very 
 beautiful incident. " That," said Dr. Malan to me, as I re- 
 counted to him the experience of the day, " is Faith, an em- 
 blem of Faith;" for so as that soaring bird from the earth, 
 when it was dark and raining, flew up and up, and onward, 
 uudiscouragcd, till heaven was shining on her wings, and the 
 clouds were all below her, and then returned, not to forget that 
 sight, but to sing to her companions about it, and to dwell upon 
 it till clear weather; so does our Faith, when all looks dark 
 and discouraging here, when within and around there is nothing 
 but mist and rain, rise and still rise, and soar onwards and 
 upwards, till heaven is visible, and God is shining in the face 
 of Jesus Christ, and then, as it were, comes back with glad 
 tidings, to tell the soul to be of good cheer, for that heaven, is 
 not far off, and to sing, even like the nightingale, in the dark- 
 ness and the rain, for that soon again there shall be day -break 
 and fair weather. And the memory of one such view of the 
 gates of heaven, with the bright Alps of truth glittering around 
 you, is enough to sustain the soul through many a weary day 
 of her pilgrimage. When you see the face of Chi-ist, all the 
 darkness is forgotten, and you wonder what it was you were 
 doubting about, and what it was that could have made you so 
 perplexed and desponding. Because it is mist and rain here 
 below, you arc not therefore to suppose that it is raining on 
 the mountains: it is all clear there. And besides, you know 
 that the mist, the rain, the showers are necessary, and we can- 
 not have them and the sunshine at the same time, though the 
 showers that water the earth arc as requisite to make it luxu- 
 riant as the sun's clear shining after rain. Any time Faith 
 may get upon the mountains and see the Alps, though it is not 
 
 % 
 
 
 v.-^- 
 
 .•-u
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIUM. 
 
 to be done without labour. There must be much prayer and 
 spiritual discipline, before you find that your head is above the 
 mist and heaven is shining around you. 
 
 The poet Wordsworth has given two very vivid descriptions 
 of these mist phenomena, xmdcr different aspects from that in 
 which I witnessed them. The first is contained in his descrip- 
 tive sketches of a pedestrian tour among the Alps. 
 
 " 'Tis morn : with gold the verdant mountain glows, 
 More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose. 
 Far stretched beneath the many-tinted hills 
 A mighty waste of mist the valleys fills, 
 A solemn sea ! whose vales and mountains round 
 Stand motionless, to awful silence bound. 
 A gulf of gloomy blue, that opens wide 
 And bottomless, divides the midway tide. 
 Like leaning masts of stranded ships appear 
 The pines, that near the coast their summits rear. 
 Of cabins, woods, and lawns a pleasant shore 
 Bounds calm and clear the chaos still and hoar. 
 Loud through that midway gulf ascending, sound. 
 Unnumbered streams with liollow roar profound. 
 Mount through the nearer mist the chant of birds. 
 And talking voices and the low of herds, 
 The bark of dogs, the drowsy tinkling bell. 
 And wild-wood mountain lutes of saddest swell." 
 
 But this extract is not to be compared for power to the fol- 
 lowing from the same poem, describing an Alpine sunset after 
 a day of mist and storm upon the mountains: — 
 
 " 'Tis storm, and hid in mist from hour to hour 
 All day the floods a deepening murmur pour. 
 The sky is vailed, and every cheerful sight 
 Dark is the region as with coming night. 
 But what a sudden burst of overpowering light ! 
 Triumphant on the bosom of the storm 
 Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form. 
 Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 
 The wood-crowned cliffs, that o'er the lake recline. 
 Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold, 
 At once to pillars turned, that flame with gold. 
 Behind his sail the peasant tries to shun 
 The west, that burns like one dilated sun, 
 AVhere in a mighty crucible expire 
 The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire !" 
 
 Mr. Coleridge used to adduce this extract, from a poem wiltlcn 
 
 fe^ 
 
 ^
 
 -z^ 
 
 PHENOMENA OF MISTS. 
 
 in the earliest period of Wordsworth's career, as a rich pro- 
 phecy of the fruits that wouhl come from his maturer genius. 
 And indeed superior to hoth these preceding passages is the 
 other sketch of cloud scenery among the mountains, which is 
 to be found in the second book of the Excursion. The scene, 
 however, is not in Switzerland, but in Scotland. 
 
 " A step, 
 A single step, that freed me from the skirts 
 Of the blind vapour, opened to my view 
 Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
 By waking sense, or by the dreaming soul. 
 The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 
 Was of a mighty city, — boldly say 
 A wilderness of building, sinking far, 
 And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, 
 Far sinking into splendour without end ! 
 Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, 
 With alabaster domes, and silver spires, 
 And blazirg terrace upon terrace high 
 Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright, ' 
 In avenues disposed ; there, towers begirt 
 With battlements, that on their restless fronts 
 Bore stars, — illumination of all gems ! 
 
 O ! 'twas an unimaginable sight ! 
 Clouds, mists, streams, watei'v rocks and emerald turf, 
 Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky. 
 Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, 
 Molten together, and composing thus. 
 Each lost in each, that marvellous array 
 Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge 
 Fantastic pomp of structure without name. 
 In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped. 
 
 Right in the midst, where interspace appeared 
 Of open court, an object like a throne 
 Beneath a shining canopy of state 
 Stood fixed ; and fixed resemblances were seen 
 To implements of ordinary use, 
 But vast in size, in substance glorified ; 
 Such as by llebrew prophets were beheld 
 In vision — forms uncouth of mightiest power. 
 For admiration and mysterious awe. 
 Below mc was the earth ; this little vale 
 Lay low beneath my foot ; 'twas visible — 
 I saw not, but I felt that it was there, 
 That which I saw was the revealed abode 
 Of spirits in beatitude." 
 
 If»^- 
 
 f ^
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 JUXCTION OF THE ARTE AKD THE RnONE. 
 
 The junction of tliese two rivers, the Arve and the Rhone, is 
 one of the pleasantest exciu-sions in the neighbourhood oP 
 Geneva. You go out of the gates of the city towards France, 
 and you follow the course of the Rhone from country seat to 
 country seat along its borders. The banks increase in height 
 until they become craggy and precipitous, and from the over- 
 hanging cliffs you gaze down into the deep blue swift water at 
 your feet, and you can at one view almost trace the river's 
 coui'se from where it issues from the city and the lake to the 
 point immediately beneath you, where the brawling, furious, 
 muddy Arve rushes into it. The Rhone is the biggest river, 
 but the Arve is very pertinacious. The Rhone is majestic in 
 its depth and volume, and as swift and graceful as an arrow 
 in its flight; but the Arve is shallow and noisy, and makes a 
 great sand-bank in the effort to come into the Rhone with as 
 great space and pretension as possible. The Rhone is as clear 
 and delicious an azure as the lake itself, almost as deep and 
 brio-ht and transparent a colour as that of the heavens reflect- 
 ed in its bosom; but the Arve is as muddy as Acheron, and as 
 cold as death. The Rhone comes from the crystal sleeping 
 lake, the Arve from the restless grinding glaciers. 
 
 The Arve endeavours to rush into the Rhone almost at right 
 ano-les, and to mingle its muddy, turbulent current with tlie 
 crystal depths of the lake-river; but the Rhone refuses the 
 mixture, and flies on by itself so that the Arve is also com- 
 pelled, though much mortified, to keep on its own side, being 
 able to unite with the Rhone only in little eddies or ringlets, 
 like the tresses of a fair-haired girl beside the curls of an 
 Ethiopian. One hardly knows how the Rhone is able to con- 
 quer, but the two rivers flow on without minghng, so that you 
 have the cold mud on the one side, and the clear crystal on the 
 other. From the commanding height, Mhere you stand above 
 the banks of the Rhone, you see with the utmost clearness the 
 
 V^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 S:=j^A_-.^r<^-^
 
 \l 
 
 THE ARVE AND THE RHONE. 
 
 play, the sport, the coquetry, aversion and conflict of the 
 waters, the hatred of amalgamation and annexation on the one 
 side, and the desire for it on the other. 
 
 But you feel that the Rhone is clearly in the light, while 
 the Arve is an imprudent intruder. The Arve is the child of 
 Night and Frost, while the Rhone is the daughter of the Day 
 and of Sunshine. The Arve roars, discoloured and angry, 
 from its hlack ice-cavern, to the music of the Avalanche; the 
 Rhone shoots, like a river of foaming light, from the quiet 
 bosom of the lake, amid the busy hum of industy, to the song 
 of the mountain breeze. The Arve strides sullenly like a 
 beetle-browed villain; the Rhone dances like a mountain- 
 maiden. Nature has forbid the banns between the two rivers, 
 and all that the Arve can do is in vain, for his offers and his 
 menaces are both rejected, and he has to pass on in cold and 
 single blessedness. 
 
 Now, here is a curious symbol of many things; but I have 
 thought that it shadows forth very fitly the forced union some- 
 times attempted between human philosophy and the word of 
 God. Philosophy is meant to be the handmaiden, and not the 
 partner, and whenever the marriage is attempted, all goes 
 wrong. Human philosophy apart from revelation is almost 
 mere mud. It has its origin in the debris of creation, amidst 
 frozen glaciers, in the uncertainty of death and chaos, and 
 when it would force its muddy guesses into competition and 
 union with the Divine Word, the celestial stream refuses the 
 connection, and flows on in its original purity and indepen- 
 dence. A man may stand on the banks of the water of life, 
 and drink and fill his pitcher only from that side, and then he 
 has the truth pure and fresh from heaven. Or he may go 
 where the philosophy and the truth are coquetting and con- 
 flicting, and he may drink of both together, and fill his pitcher 
 with both together, and then he has generally as much mud as 
 clear water, though he often thinks he has drawn up the truth 
 much clearer than he who drank only of the crystal stream. 
 Or he may go clean on the other side, and drink only of the 
 scientific metaphysic mud, of the cold stream of human guess- 
 ings and rationalism; a melancholy sort of drinking, to which,
 
 -^ \. 
 
 ilig ^^g^ ^.sS^t^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 however, men become so much attached, and get their taste 
 thereby so completely perverted, that the mud seems a sweeter 
 and more wholesome draught to them by far than the clear water. 
 There is another thing which these two streams, the Arve 
 and the Rhone, at their junction, may symbolize, and that is, 
 the streams of Romanism and the Gospel in Geneva and Sar- 
 dinia. The stream of Romish superstitions, born at the foot 
 of frozen glaciers in the caves of pagan antiquity, rolls on, fu- 
 rious and turbulent, striving to be acknowledged as the Gospel, 
 and usurping its place. But the Gospel cannot unite with it, 
 and flows on, undisturbed by it, a pure river of life. The peo- 
 ple who drink of the stream of Romanism, and live on that 
 side, are lean, poor, and ignorant. They love their own stream 
 to desperation, muddy and gravelly as it is, and cannot endure 
 the other; though sometimes a single drink at the other operates 
 to open their eyes and change their whole heart and life, inso- 
 much that the authorities are afraid of it, and pass severe laws 
 against using it, or circulating or selling it. If any of the 
 priests get to tasting it, or become attached to it, and attempt 
 to declaro their preference, it is said that the others, if they 
 can catch them, shut them up and send them to Rome, where 
 they have a way of curing them of their appetite for pure water. 
 Meantime the mud flows on, and the stream just now is evi- 
 dently increasing and getting more turbulent. But the Gospel 
 stream flows on likewise, and will do so for ever. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TRrrn of christ and its defenders in geneva. 
 
 Geneva ought to be the cradle of the finest race of ministers of 
 the Gospel in the world. There is no place in the world Avhere 
 all admirable influences of nature do so conspire to aid the in- 
 fluences of divine grace in building up a noble character, and 
 giving firmness, independence, and an ardent love of truth. 
 But how strikingly does the history of the Genevese church 
 Bhow that all natural and human advantages will prove worth-
 
 ■^ 
 
 CHRISTIANS IN GENEVA. 
 
 less when divine grace is suffered to die out of existence, and 
 the truth ceases to be kept in love. The danger to Geneva at 
 first was from the prevalence of Socinianism, which indeed has 
 had its day, and has been " as the dryrot in the flooring and 
 timbers" of the National Church and Republic. But now the 
 crisis of danger is from the Resurrection of Romanism ; the 
 indifference of the National Church, its want of love for and 
 interest in the truth of the Gospel and the kingdom of the Re- 
 deemer, greatly increases this danger. The dependence of the 
 National Church upon the State makes the crisis more difficult. 
 Socinian error holds its place in Geneva mainly by the secular 
 arm. Were it not that the National Church is salaried by the 
 State, its pulpits would soon be occupied by men preaching the 
 truth as it is in Jesus. And if the National Church were evan- 
 gelical, there would be comparatively little to fear from the pro- 
 gress of Romanism. Romanism increases in Geneva as it does 
 in our own country, by emigration. Fifty years ago there was 
 not a single Roman citizen in Geneva; now not less than two- 
 fifths of the population of the canton are Romanists. At this 
 rate, therefore, between the execution of their own plans and 
 the indifference and carelessness of those who ought to be on 
 their a'uard against them, they may, at no distant period, gain 
 a majority in the city, and so in the councils and government 
 of the Republic; and if this should be once accomplished, fare- 
 well to the freedom of the Genevese, farewell to their long-en- 
 joyed religious privileges. Should this be once accomplished, 
 Rome and the Jesuits may rule here even as they do in Sar- 
 dinia; but such supremacy could not be gained without conflict 
 and bloodshed. 
 
 The possibility of these things, and the gradual approach of 
 them, do fill the minds of good men and lovers of their country 
 with great alarm — and well they may. It would be a fearful 
 day for Geneva, when Romanism should gain the ascendancy 
 in her councils. Meantime there is a knot of precious men, 
 a circle of noble soldiers of Christ, gathering close around the 
 standard of the Cross, and doing all in their power to prepare 
 for that conflict, which seems inevitable. There ai-e no finer 
 minds, nor better spirits, nor more retolutc Christians, than in
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM, 
 
 the circle of D'Aiibigno, Gaussen, Malan, and others, who are 
 ifting up the standard, while the enemy comes in like a flood. 
 The Evangelical Theological Seminary is a strong citadel for 
 Christ, a school of the utmost importance, both in its position 
 and its influence. 
 
 Geneva has seen great involutions, but has had grcpt men to 
 carry her through them. Nearly a thousand years ago the coun- 
 try was held as the entire possession of Ecclesiastical Sove- 
 reigns, temporal and spiritual in one ; next came the reign of 
 ducal despots, then the light of a religious reformation, then a 
 i-epublican and religious freedom, in which the world wondered 
 at, and sometimes imitated the great sight of a Church without 
 a bishop, and a State without a king; then came the fires of 
 the French Hevolution, next the gloom of infidelity and the 
 coldness of a spiritual death; lastly, a simplicity of equal and 
 representative citizenship, and a fi'esh, healthful, spiritual 
 awakening, in the glow of which Geneva is again producing 
 MEN for the world, God is causing the little republic to live 
 not unto itself. Great voices come from it, the voices as of 
 kingly spirits throned among the hills, striking deep responsive 
 chords in the heart of other nations. And now from the bosom 
 of the mountains, on the eve of a great new universal conflict 
 between Rome and the Church of Christ, the watch-word and 
 the battle-cry is given out through Europe, Christ and Spiritual 
 Liberty, Dependence upon Christ and his Truth ! 
 
 It has been remarked, and probably without exaggeration, 
 that no State so small ever filled such a space in the history of 
 the world, or exercised an influence so great over other nations 
 since the age of the Grecian Republics, as Geneva. All things 
 considered, even those Republics give place to the little Swiss 
 Canton; for the light of the Gospel of Clirist has been the hid- 
 ing and revealing of the power of Geneva, Here it pleased 
 God to set a great fountain fed by his own word, at which the 
 nations drank, and from which the water of life was carried 
 far and wide amidst the rage of persecution, llere it pleased 
 God to kindle a fire, at which great and good men of other 
 lauds lighted torches, and carried away the flame to kindle 
 other fires, which arc to burn till the earth itself kindles in the 
 
 k 
 
 IJS^ 
 
 X^..^f?^ 
 
 A.Ji'^^ 
 
 S^ 
 
 ^■SSS-
 
 ■^[ 
 
 «3 
 
 H 
 
 41 
 
 -o 
 
 I 
 
 CHRISTIANS IN GENEVA. 
 
 fires of the Great Judgment. John Knox came to Geneva, 
 and carried this fire into Scotland. The Puritans of England 
 caught it, and made it burn across the ocean, on the rock of 
 Plymouth, over hill and valley, a purer, brighter flame than 
 ever. And in later times, the children of this light have gone 
 back with it to those mountain altars where it was first kindled, 
 but where, meanwhile, it had well-nigh gone out, and there 
 again it is beginning to blaze Avith a more heavenly glory be- 
 cause both the altar and the fire are God's, not Ctesar's. We 
 look with hope and confidence to the time when the whole 
 Church of Geneva shall be no more a National Establishment, 
 but Christ's Free Church. 
 
 The national part of it, the human, the Ca3sar in it, has been 
 evil from the beginning. The Church-and-State Republic has 
 fallen into crimes and inconsistencies of depotism, of which 
 neither Church nor State alone would have been guilty. The 
 connection has produced a brood of evils, a family of serpents 
 inwardly consuming and self-destructive, as sooner or later it 
 always does. A dreadful progeny — 
 
 " For, when they list, into the womb 
 That bred them, they return, and howl and gnaw. 
 
 The history of Geneva is singular as containing within itself 
 a demonstratiouthatunder every form both of Truth and Error, 
 the State and Church united are intolerant. The State op- 
 presses the Church — the Church, in her turn, tempted by the 
 State, oppresses those Avho difter from her, and so the work 
 goes on. At first it was the State and Romanism — the fruit, 
 intolerance; next, it was the State and Unitarianism — the fruit, 
 intolerance; next, it was the State and Calvinism — the fruit, 
 intolerance; in the Canton de Vaud, it is the State and demo- 
 cratic infidelity — the fruit, intolerance. The demonstration is 
 such that no man can resist its power. Inoculate the Church, 
 so to speak, with the State, and the same plague invariably 
 follows; no constitution, not the most heavenly, is proof against 
 the virus. 
 
 John Knox, escaping from the Castle of St. Andrews in 
 Scotland, and compelled to flee the kingdom for his life, found 
 security in Geneva, because there his religion was the religion 
 
 V
 
 J^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILOUIM. 
 
 32 
 
 of the State. If it had not been, he would merely have gone 
 out from one fire for another fire to devour him. Servetus, 
 escaping in like manner from a Roman Catholic prison in 
 France, where he would otherwise have been burned in person, 
 as he was in effigy, fled also to Geneva ; but his religion not 
 being the religion of the State, the evangelical republic burned 
 him. And thus the grand error of the Reformers in the union 
 of Church and State occasioned what perhaps is the darkest 
 crime that stains the annals of the Reformation. The burning 
 of Servetus in Roman Catholic fires would have added but an 
 imperceptible shade to the blackness of darkness in a system 
 which invariably has been one of intolerance and cruelty. But 
 the man was permitted by divine providence to escape, and 
 come to Geneva to be burned alive there, by a State allied to , 
 a system of Faith and Mercy, to show to all the world that 
 even that system cannot be trusted with human power ; that 
 the State, in connection with the Church, though it be the 
 purest Church in the world, will bring forth intolerance and 
 murder. The union is adulterous, the progeny is sinful works, 
 even though the mother be the embodied profession of Justifi- 
 cation by Faith. God's mercy becomes changed into man's 
 cruelty. So in the brightest spot of piety then on the face of 
 the earth, amidst the out-shining glory of the great doctrine of 
 the Gospel, Justification by Faith, God permitted the smoke 
 and the cry of torture by fire to go up to heaven, to teach the 
 nations that even purity of doctrine, if enforced by the State, 
 will produce the bitterest fruits of a corrupt Gospel and an 
 infidel apostacy ; tliat is the lesson read in the smoke of the 
 funeral pyre of Servetus, as it rolls up black against the stars 
 of heaven, that the union of Church and State, even of a pure 
 Chm'ch in a free State, is the destruction of religious hberty. 
 
 It was this pestiferous evil that at one time banished frcm 
 the Genevese State its greatest benefactor, Calvin himself ; the 
 working of the same poison excludes now from the pulpit of the 
 State some of the brightest ornaments of the ministry in mo- 
 dern times — such men as Malan, D'Aubigne, and Gaussen. It 
 is true that it is the corruption of doctrine and hatred of diviuo 
 truth that have produced tliis last step ; but it could not ha^o 
 
 ^ 'A.'^— 
 
 ?
 
 iiw 
 
 CHRISTIANS IX GENEVA. 
 
 been taken liaLl the Churcli of Christ in Geneva been, as she 
 should be, independent of the State. Such measures as these 
 are, however, compelling the Church of Christ to assume an 
 independent attitude, which, under the influence of past habit 
 and example, she would not yet have taken. Thus it is that 
 God brings light out of darkness and good out of evil. 
 
 These are the views of great men in Switzerland, Viuet and 
 Burnier, D'Aubigne and Gaussen ; and in this movement it 
 may be hoped that the evangelical church in Geneva will yet 
 take the foremost place in all Europe. But as yet, says Merle 
 D'Aubigne, " we are small and weak. Placed by the hand of 
 God in the centre of Europe, surrounded with Popish darkness, 
 we have much to do, and we are weak. We have worked in 
 Geneva ; and we maintain there the Evangelical Truth on one 
 side against Unitarian Rationalism, and on the other side 
 against Papistical Despotism. The importance of the Chris- 
 tian doctrine is beginning to be again felt in Geneva. Our 
 Canton is become a mixed one, and we are assailed by many 
 Roman Catholics coming to our country to establish themselves 
 there." Nevertheless, our hope is strong in the interposition 
 of God by his good Spirit, which will yet take the elements ot 
 evil and change their very nature into good. 
 
 The Evangelical Society of Geneva, founded just fifteen 
 years ago, was crushed out of the wine-press of State and 
 Church despotism, and is one of the best proofs and fruits of 
 God's awakening breath in that Republic. Let any man per- 
 use the successive Reports of that Society from year to year, 
 and he will sec an electric path of truth and life running- 
 through them, indicating the presence and the steps of Christ. 
 Here are the first fruits of Christian liberty, for the Society is 
 as purely a voluntary offering to God as any of the benevolent 
 and missionary societies in our own country. The Theologi- 
 cal school under its care is one of the best in the world, con- 
 sidering its 3'outh and limited means, and in all probability is 
 destined to become a bulwark of Christ's Free Church in 
 Europe. Its establishment amidst enemies and dangers was a 
 conspiracy for the spiritual deliverance of Switzerland more 
 glorious than that of the three patriots at midnight on the field 
 12 C 
 
 r
 
 Wanderings of a pilghim. 
 
 of Grutli. The Christian stranger who happens to be present 
 in Geneva, at the period when the prayerful opening of the 
 session of the School takes place, may look in and see Christ 
 dropping into ground prepared by his Spirit the germs of trees 
 whose fruit shall shake like Lebanon. The grandeur of the 
 enterprise, the apostoHcal simplicity of the meeting, the de- 
 portment of the professors as aflectionate shepherds and parents 
 of their flock, the students as children and brethren, the dis- 
 com-se of the President, the word of instruction and exhorta- 
 tion by the teachm-s and patrons in turn, and the closing pray- 
 ers by the students themselves, make it a scene of the deepest 
 interest. It is there that D 'Aubigne first utters some of those 
 voices of truth and freedom — those declarations of independ- 
 ence which afterwards go echoing through the Avorld. 
 
 This is God's way, when he intends to save a people from 
 their sins ; he puts in the leaven of the Gospel, and lets it work 
 till the Avhole be leavened; he saves men and States by icork- 
 ing in them to icill and to do. God works by the voluntary sys- 
 tem ; man is always disposed to compulsion. God is long- 
 suffering ; man is impatient, intolerant. God speaks in a still 
 small voice ; man roars like a beast, and thinks it is God's 
 thunder. God takes an erring man and renews his heart ; 
 man takes him and burns him at the stake, or cuts off" his head. 
 We greatly prefer God's way to man's way. Who would not 
 much rather have his heart made better, at whatever cost, by 
 God's forbearance, than lose both head and heart together by 
 man's impatience ? 
 
 The world has been a world of extremes, oscillating like a 
 great pendulum, swinging now in one direction and now in 
 another, beyond the possibility of regulation. It has had some 
 periods of stillness, but a regular and regulating activity in har- 
 mony is what is needed. This can never be found, never esta- 
 tablished, so long as the main-spring of society is constrained 
 and tampered with. That main-spring is religion, religious 
 conviction, religious opinion. It must be left to itself under 
 the word and Spirit of the living God. If Government tamper 
 with it, it will for ever be out of order ; if the State undertake ^j 
 to regulate it, there will be commotion, violence, internal con
 
 ^ulv 
 
 flict, coustraiut, aud disorder, instead of free growth, quiet- 
 ness, and happiness. It is as if you should tie the main-spring 
 of a city clock to a great steam-engine. It is as if you should 
 plow with an ox and an ass together. Let Ccesar take care 
 of the things which are Cajsar's, hut let him not meddle with 
 the things that are God's. 
 
 ^W 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DR. MALAN, DR. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, AND DR. GAUSSKN. 
 
 " Two voices are there ; one is of the Sea, 
 One of the Mountains : each a mighty voice," 
 
 WiiEN AVordsworth penned this twelfth of his Sonnets to 
 Liberty, he thought the voice of Switzerland had perished. 
 But how wonderfully God works ! Which voice is now the 
 mightiest, that of the Mountains or of the Sea, Switzerland or 
 England? The voice of the Mountains surely! the voice of 
 Switzerland is the noblest, in Geneva at least, and therefore 
 the mightiest. 
 
 " In this from age to age men shall rejoice, 
 It is thy chosen music, Liberty !" 
 
 Wherever you catch the tone of stern religious principle 
 against oppression in any people, you feel that they are strong, 
 their voice is mighty. The voice of a nation is the voice of its 
 great men ; and the voice of the great men of England just 
 now is the hoarse, melancholy cry of expediency, in the sacri- 
 fice of princij^le ; while that of the great men of Switzerland 
 is the clear, ringing, thrilling shout of Spiritual Liberty ! May 
 it ring and never cease as long as the eagle screams in the 
 mountain pines, as long as the tempest roars, as long as the 
 avalanche thunders. 
 
 " Great men have been among us," England sings, " hands 
 that penned, and tongues that uttered wisdom, better none." 
 Great men are noio among us, Switzerland may say, and free 
 spirits, that by their deeds aud thoughts are planting the germs
 
 of goodness and greatness in many hearts. There is a circle 
 of such spu-its, not alone in Geneva ; but I shall he constrained 
 to limit my personal notes of thera to the memoirs of the three 
 with -whom I have been most acquainted. Thinking of these 
 men, and of others -whom I have met in Switzerland, and of 
 the simplicity and freedom still living among tliose proud 
 mountains, I cannot help warning my readers against the 
 sneers of some English men and hooks — Murray's Hand-book, 
 for example — in regard to the moral and political condition of 
 the country. In some parts it is bad enough, we all know ; 
 but I have thought that sometimes the English really seemed 
 vexed and envious at the existence of so much freedom, happi- 
 ness, and greatness, in a little, unaristocratical, republican 
 canton like Geneva. May I be forgiven if I judge them harshly; 
 but such envious hatred is a hateful thing. I am sure the 
 great body of Englishmen would not feci it ; but Toryism and 
 Puseyism together do make queer mixture of despotism and 
 prejudice. Through such glasses the mind sees nothing good, 
 or wiU acknowledge nothing; green-eyed jealousy squints and 
 looks askant, both at civil and religious liberty ; a titled nobi- 
 lity and a mitred priesthood do sometimes rail away against a 
 Church without a bishop and a State without a king, in a 
 manner so unmercifid that I am apt to think it is because they 
 feel inwardly self-condemned in the presence of such great forms 
 of truth and freedom. Those forms stand to them in the shape 
 of accusers, and very glad they are to have some such shadow 
 of excuse for their own bitterness, in the case of our own coun- 
 try for example, as is afforded them in Mississippi, repudiation, 
 Irish riots, and negro slavery. But they have none of these 
 things in Geneva. 
 
 Dr. Malan was honoured by divine providence to be among 
 the foremost instruments in the spiritual awakening with 
 which it has pleased God to bless Geneva. He was a preacher 
 of Socinianism in the national church in 1814, and was also 
 one of the Regents of the College. He was much admired for 
 his eloquence, and continued to preach and to teach for some 
 time in utter ignorance of the truth as it is in Christ crucified. 
 At length it pleased God to visit him, and give him light ; as 
 
 r ^^ - ^"^
 
 
 y 
 
 DR. MALAN OF GEXEVA. 
 
 early as 1816 the darkness was removed from liis mind, and 
 Christ the Saviour was made known to him in so blessed a 
 manner, with so much assurance and joy, that he felt as if the 
 delight which filled his own soul, by the view of the grace of 
 God in Jesus, must certainly he experienced likewise by all who 
 heard him. But he was greatly mistaken. His views were 
 deemed new, strange, and erroneous ; he was ordered not to 
 repeat them ; then the churches interdicted him, and at length, 
 on preaching in the cathedral a discourse in proof of the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith, he was finally deprived of the 
 use of the pulpits. 
 
 This was in 1817. The severity with which he was treated, 
 being expelled from all employments in the College and the 
 Church, together with the boldness and firmness of his bearing, ' 
 the fervour of his feelings, and the power of his discourses, - 
 drew crowds after him; men were converted by the grace of 
 God; and in 1818 an independent church was formed, and a 
 chapel built in a lovely spot, a short walk outside the city, of 
 which he continues the pastor to this day. He has been often 
 in England, and the friendship and prayers of warm-hearted 
 English Christians have greatly sustained and animated him; 
 they in their turn have also found in Geneva the conversation 
 and holy example of the man, together with the exercises of 
 divine worship in his chapel, as a fountain of home religious 
 life in a foreign country. He and his family have become im- 
 bued with the language, the literature, and the friendships of 
 England, without losing their Swiss republican simplicity and 
 frankness. 
 
 All his life he has been indefatigable and remarkably suc- 
 cessful in the use of the press as well as the pulpit. His 
 writin"-s in the shape of tracts and books have been numerous 
 and useful, especially in revealing the Saviour to men in the 
 errors of Romanism. Some of his tracts are like the Dairy- 
 man's Daughter of Leigh Richmond, for simple truth and 
 beauty. They present the living realities of the Gospel in a 
 manner most impressive and affecting to the mind, in nan-a- 
 tives, in dialogues, in familiar parables and illustrations. He 
 loves to dwell upon the bright persuasive side of Truth Divine,
 
 ^^1 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 and leads lils flock In green pastures beside still waters; tbougli 
 some of his peculiar speculative views and shades of belief may 
 Sometimes not be received even by the very hearts he is so suc- 
 cessful in winning and comforting. 
 
 His extensive missionary tours have been attended with a 
 great blessing. Indeed, of all men I ever met with, he seems 
 most peculiarly fitted for familiar conversational effort to win 
 men to Christ. With a deep fountain of love in his heart, an 
 active mind, full of vivacity and impulse, an extraordinary 
 fertility of illustration, a strength of faith which makes upon 
 the minds of his hearers the most successful impression of ar- 
 gument and conviction, and with great sweetness and happi- 
 ness in his own Christian experience, he goes about among the 
 mountains, pouring forth the stores of thought and feeling for 
 the guidance and the good of others, comforting the tempted 
 soul, and pointing the distressed one to the Saviour. In his 
 encounters with the Romanists, nothing can withstand his pa- 
 tience, his gentleness, his playfulness, his fulness of Christ. 
 
 The Romanists well know him, and the clergy fear him, on 
 account of the manner in which he wins his way among them, 
 fearlessly opposing them, appealing to the Bible, and winning 
 them by argument and love. When I Avas among the Wal- 
 densian Christians of Piedmont, I asked them if it would not 
 be exceedingly pleasant and profitable for Dr. Malan to make 
 one of his Missionary visits among them ? Ah, said they, 
 the Romanists know him too well to suffer that. Probably 
 they would not let him pass the frontier; certainly they would 
 not suffer him to preach or to teach in the name of Jesus; and 
 if he attempted to do it, the least they would do would be to 
 put him under the care of gens d'armcs, and send him back to 
 the Canton of Geneva. 
 
 Pr. Malan traces his own ancestry to the Waldenses, says 
 he is one of them, and pleasantly remarks, " We are not of 
 the Reformed Christians; we have always been evangelical; a 
 true Church of Christ before the Reformation. He frequently 
 expressed a desire to visit the Waldenses, but told me an 
 anecdote of his personal experience of the tender mercies of 
 Sardinia, which I have seen in Dr. Hough's excellent book on 
 
 4 
 
 y\ 
 
 ^itlgfe; 
 
 ^^r^
 
 religion in Geneva. If I remember correctly, ho was on a visit 
 at Cliamouny, and had given a Bible to some of the peasantry; 
 certainly be bad talked witb tbem of the Saviour and Divine 
 Truth; be would not be anywhere without doing this. He 
 was, however, accused of distributing tracts pernicious to the 
 Roman Catholic faith, and under this charge was arrested, put 
 in the custody of two gens d^armes, and sent to prison. It was 
 a bold step; but, not being able to prove their accusation, they 
 were compelled to let him go; not, however, till they had un- 
 wittingly afforded him an opportunity, of which he gladly 
 availed himself, to preach the Gospel to the soldiers who at- 
 tended and guarded him. Probably they never before listened 
 to such truth; and Dr. Ileugh remarks that "there is good 
 reason for believing that one of these soldiers, employed to in- 
 carcerate the ambassador of Christ, was himself brought to the 
 Saviour, and introduced into the glorious liberty of the sons of 
 God." Very many have been the incidents of this nature in 
 the experience of Dr. Malan, and sometimes among the Roman- 
 ists he has had very narrow escapes. 
 
 The dealings of God with him have been abundant in mercy, 
 though at first he had to pass through a great fight of afilic- 
 tion, and liis own peculiarities in the Christian faith, or rather 
 in the manner of presenting it, may be traced probably to the 
 discipline of the divine Spirit with his own heart, and the man- 
 ner in Avhich the Saviour was first revealed to him. lie has 
 said most beautifully that his conversion to the Lord Jesus 
 might be compared to what a child experiences Avhen his mo- 
 ther awakes him with a kiss. A babe awakened by a mother's 
 kiss ! What a sweet process of conversion ! Now if all the 
 subsequent teachings and dealings of the Spirit of God with 
 his soul have been like this, who can wonder at the earnestness 
 and strength with which he presses the duty of the assurance 
 of faith and love upon other Christians, or at the large measure 
 of the Spirit of Adoption with which his own soul seems to 
 have been gifted. 
 
 His conversational powers are very great, in his own way, 
 and he leads the railed of the circle around hini with such per- 
 fect simplicity and ease, like that of childhood, to the sacred 
 
 T 
 
 'iiSi|j^»
 
 
 WAXDERIXGS OF A PILGRIil. 
 
 themes Avhicli his heart loves, that every man is pleased, uo 0U9 
 qan possibly be ofFentletl. What in him is a habit of life, jjro- 
 cceds ^vith so much freedom and artlessness, that a personal 
 address from him on the subject of religion, in circumstances 
 ■where from any other man it might be intolerably awkward 
 and offensive, becomes appropriate and pleasing. Great and 
 precious is this power, and great is doubtless the amount of 
 unrevealed good which Dr. Malan has thus accomplished in 
 the course of his life. The stream of his conversation through 
 the world has been like the streams from his native mountains 
 running through the vales, and then being the fullest and tho 
 sweetest, when all common rivers are the lowest. Before I saw 
 Dr. Malan, I had heard him described by Christian friends, 
 who had met him in England. An account was given me of 
 an evening spent in his presence in Edinburgh, which miglit 
 bring to mind the familiar lines of Cowper. 
 
 " When one that holds communion with the skies. 
 Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise. 
 And onco more mingles -with us meaner things, 
 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings. 
 Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, 
 That tells us whence his treasures are supplied. 
 So when a ship well freighted with the stores 
 The sun matures on India's spicy shores 
 Uas dropped her anchor, and her canvass furled, 
 In some safe haven of our western world, 
 'Twere vain enquiry to what port she went, 
 Tho gale informs us, laden with the scent." 
 
 On this occasion a most interesting instance of conversion 
 was said to have occurred through the instrumentality of Dr. 
 Malan. A licentiate of the Church of Scotland was present, 
 of whom Dr. Malan had enquired personall}', if he possessed 
 the love of Christ. The yoking gentleman opposed the Doctor's 
 views with great heat and artjumcnt, and at lenc'th beo-fred of 
 him to go into a private room, that they might converse to- 
 gether with more freedom. When they had shut the door, the 
 licentiate proposed prayer. " No," said Dr. Malan, " I will 
 not pray u-itJi you, for I am convinced that you know not the 
 Iqvc of Christ; but I will pr.iy/or you;" and they knelt in
 
 PERSONAL APrEARANCE. 
 
 prayer. The argument was then continued for a great length, 
 but such was the effect of Dr. Malan's address, that when they 
 returned to the company the hcentiate was in groat agitation, 
 and did not conceal his excitement. When he went to his 
 lodgings, instead of retiring to bed, he sat down to write a re- 
 futation of Dr. Malan's views, with a clearness and power of 
 argument, as he thought, such as he could not command in 
 conversation, and he continued writing till four o'clock in the 
 morning. Then, when he rose and looked at his manuscripts, 
 and ran over his train of reasoning, a sudden flash of convic- 
 tion, a light like that which shone on the mind of Paul in his 
 ■way to Damascus, poured upon him, that he had been fighting 
 against God, and was indeed a guilty, wretched, perishing 
 sinner. He threw himself upon his knees, implored forgiveness 
 through the blood of Christ, and that very hour obtained peace 
 in his Redeemer. When he arose, and looked at his watch, he 
 found that it wanted but little of the time when Dr. Malan was 
 to take his departure in the morning's coach. He hurried away, 
 and finding him at the door of his house, just ready to set out, 
 embraced him as his spiritual father, declaring that he had 
 never known Christ till that morning. That same individual 
 I was told is now a devoted minister of the Lord Jesus in the 
 city of Glasgow. 
 
 From all that I knew of Dr. Malan during my delightful re- 
 sidence in Geneva, I could easily credit this narration. In the 
 bosom of his own family, he shines the man of God ; delightful 
 is that communion. I shall never forget the sweet Sabbath 
 evenings passed there. A charm rested upon the conversation, 
 an atmosphere as sacred as the Sabbath day's twilight. At tea 
 a text of Scripture had been always written for each member 
 of the family, as well as for the Christian friends who might 
 bo present, and was placed beneath the plate, to be read by 
 each in his turn, eliciting some appropriate remark from the 
 venerable pastor and father. The evening worship was per- 
 formed with hymns which Dr. Malan had written, to melodies 
 which he had himself composed, sung by the voices of his 
 daughters, with the accompaniment of instrumental music. 
 It would have been difficult anywhere to have witnessed a 
 
 hi£S- 
 
 |f»-
 
 lovelier picture of a Christian family. In his personal con- 
 versation, in his remarks upon the Scriptures, and in the 
 nearness and tender breathing of his intercourse with God, as 
 he led us to the throne of grace, he matle us feel as if the at- 
 mosphere of a brigliter world had descended around us. 
 
 Were you introduced to Dr. Malan, you might think at 
 once of John Bunyan, if you chanced to have got your impres- 
 sion of the Dreamer, as I did, from an old picture of a coun- 
 tenance full of grace, with silvery locks flowing down upon 
 the shoulders. This peculiarity makes Dr. Malan's appearance 
 most venerable and delightful. His eye is remarkably quick 
 and piercing, his countenance expressive and changeful with 
 emotion. 
 
 " Like light and shade upon a wavinj; field, 
 Coursing each other, while the flying clouds 
 Now hide, and now reveal the sun." 
 
 None who have been much with him can forget his cheerful 
 laugh, or the sudden animating bright smile and playful re- 
 mark, bespeaking a deep and sparkling fountain of peace and 
 love within. 
 
 I ho2>e you will not object to my being thus minute in my 
 descrijition of personages yet living; for I do not know that 
 there is anything out of the way in endeavouring familiarly to 
 recall the image of an eminent beloved Christian, now in the 
 decline of life, who, however men may chooso to differ from his 
 pecidiarities, has been permitted to accomplish so much for the 
 advancing kingdom of his Redeemer, has been the chosen in- 
 strument of good to so many souls, and is endeared in the 
 depths of so many hearts, both in this country and in England. 
 Dr. Malan's character and household seemed to me like some 
 of the jicaceful shining vales among his native mountains, 
 where one might sit upon the hill-side he is climbing, and gaze 
 down uj)on the green grass and the running murmuring stream, 
 and say within himself, If there were happiness undisturbed in 
 the wide world, it might be here. But who knows ? Tliere 
 is no place undisturbed where there is sin. A perfect charac- 
 ter and a perfect home shall be found alone in Heaven.
 
 MERLE B AUBIGNE, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DR. MERLE D AmsiGNE. 
 
 Dr. Merle D'Aubigne was a youtliful student in Socinian 
 theology in the College of Geneva; when, in the year 1816, 
 it pleased God to send Mr. Rohert Haldane, a remarkable 
 Scottish Christian, on a visit to that city. This man soon 
 became acquainted with a number of the students, and con- 
 versed with them familiarly and profoundly concerning the 
 Gospel. He found them in great darkness. " Had they been 
 trained," says he, "in the schools of Socrates or Plato, and 
 enjoyed no other means of instruction, they could scarcely 
 have been more ignorant of the doctrines of the Gospel. To 
 the Bible and its contents their stu,dies had never been direct- 
 ed. After some conversation, they became convinced of their 
 ignorance of the Scriptures, and of the way of salvation, and 
 exceedingly desirous of information." 
 
 The two students with whom Mr. Haldane at first conversed 
 brought six others in the same state of mind with themselves; 
 and with them he had many and long conversations. Their 
 visits became so frequent, and at such different hours, that at 
 length he proposed they should all come together; and it was 
 arrano-ed that they should do so three times a week, from six 
 to eigTit o'clock in the evening. This gave him time to con- 
 verse with others, who, from the report of the students began 
 to visit him, as well as leisure to prepare what might be pro- 
 fitable for their instruction. He took the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans as his subject; and, during the whole of the winter of 
 1817, until the termination of their studies in the summer, al- 
 most all the students in theology regularly attended. 
 
 This was a most remarkable movement of Divine Providence, 
 one of the most remarkable to be found on record. What 
 renders it more astonishing is the fact that Mr. Haldane at 
 first was obliged to converse with these students through an 
 interpreter, in part at least, so that he could not then have 
 conveyed to them the full fervour of his feelings, nor the fire 
 
 ' 1^ 
 
 "SsV
 
 =^^ 
 
 44 
 
 WANDEniNGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 of the trutli as It was bui-ning in his own soul. Nevertheless, ' 
 these singular labours, under circumstances so unpromising, 
 were so blessed by the Divine Sjiirit, that sixteen out of eighteen 
 j-ouug men, who had enjoyed Mr. Ilaldane's instructions, are 
 said by Dr. Ileugh to have become subjects of Divine grace. 
 And among the students thus brought beneath the power of 
 the word of God was the future historian of the Reformation, 
 young Merle D'Aubigne. 
 
 D'Aubigne himself has described this remarkable movement. 
 Rev. Adolph Monod, of Paris, was a feUow-student at this 
 time with D Aubigne, and dates his own conversion also to the 
 efforts of Mr. Haldane. The professor of Divinity in the Uni- 
 versity of Geneva at that time, instead of teaching the students 
 flic peculiar doctrines of Christianity, confined himself to lec- 
 turing on the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, 
 and similar topics. Instead of the Bible, he gave them quo- 
 tations from the writings of Seneca and Plato. These were 
 the two saints, whom he delighted to hold up to the admira- 
 tion of his students. A work on the Divinity of Christ having 
 been published by an Evangelical clergyman, to such an extent 
 did the opposition against the truth prevail, that young D'Au- 
 bignS and the rest of the students were induced to meet to- 
 gether, and issue a declaration against the work and its pious 
 author. 
 
 At this juncture it was that D'Aubigne heard of the visit of 
 Mr. Ilaldane. He heard of him as the English or Scotch gen- 
 tleman who spoke so much about the Bible, a thing which 
 seemed very strange to him and the other students, to whom 
 the Bible was a shut book. He afterwards met Mr. Haldane 
 at a private house, along with some other friends, and heard 
 him read, from an English Bible, a chapter from the Epistle 
 to the Romans, concerning the natural corruption of man, a 
 doctrine in regard to which he had never before received any 
 instruction. He was astonished to hear of men being corrupt 
 by nature; but clearly convinced by the prayers read to him, he 
 said to Mr. Haldane. " Now I do indeed see this doctrine in the 
 Bible." "Yes," replied the good man, "but do you sec it in 3'our 
 heart?" It was but a simple question; but it came home to 
 
 ^hiS^-
 
 w 
 
 his conscience; it was tlic sword of tlie Spirit, and from that 
 time he saAv and felt that his heart was indeed corrupted, and 
 knew from the word of God that he could be saved by grace 
 alone in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Fehx NeflF, that Alpine Missionary of Apostolic zeal and 
 fervour, was another of these young converts. Never was the 
 seed of the Gospel sown to better effect than in these hearts. 
 Such an incursion of divine grace within the very citadel of 
 error was anything but acceptable to its guardians; but, how 
 could they resist it? Who knows how to shut the heart, when 
 God opens it? What " Venerable Company of Pastors" can 
 stand before the door, and keep out the Divine Spirit, when he 
 chooses to enter? The strong man armed must give up his 
 house when a greater than he comes upon him. Nevertheless, 
 an attempt was made on the part of the " Venerable Company" 
 to have Mr. Haldane banished from the country, and it was 
 proposed that he should be cited to answer for the doctrines he 
 was teaching to the students. They would more justly have 
 cited Paul in the Epistle to the Romans; all was of no avail; 
 the light of the Gospel was diffused to a remarkable degree, 
 and the religious excitement and knowledge in Geneva went on 
 steadily increasing. The movement among the students had 
 doubtless been greatly helped and forwarded by the remarkable 
 and almost simultaneous conversion and efforts of Dr. Malan 
 among the ministers and teachers. It was of God that Mr. 
 Haldane should visit Geneva at that time. 
 
 Dr. Merle D 'Aubigne finished his university studies and re- 
 paired to Berhn in Germany. Thence he was invited to Ham- 
 burg to become Pastor of a French Protestant church in that 
 city. After five years spent in that station, he was called by 
 the King of Holland to Brussels, where he became Pastor of 
 an Evangelical church and Chaplain to the King. At the 
 time of the Revolution in Belgium in 1830, when D 'Aubigne 
 was four days and four nights amidst cannon balls and con- 
 fla "-rations in the city, he escaped with no small risk of his life 
 into Holland, and thence returned to his native city. Lumedi- 
 ately after this step, the New School of Theology was founded 
 and established, and DAubigne accepted in it the office of 
 Professor of Ecclesiastical llistoiy and Homiletics. 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^Y
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGKIM. 
 
 While on his way to Berlin, the mind of D'Auhigne encoun- 
 tered the extraordinary impulse which was the germ of his great 
 work on the History of the Reformation. He had passed 
 through the little town of Eisenach, which was the hirth-place 
 of Luther, and was visiting the Castle of the Wartburg, where 
 the great Reformer had been, at such a critical era, safely 
 imprisoned from his enemies. He gazed upon the walls of 
 the cell that Luther occupied. How many men of piety, of 
 learning, of genius, have stood and gazed in like manner ! 
 But in the mind of D'Auhigne a great thought was rising; the 
 drama of the lives of Reformers passed in vision before him; 
 what if he should write the History of the Reformation? The 
 impulse was strengthened by reflection, he devoted himself to 
 Ecclesiastical researches, and so the providence of God led him 
 to the commencement, as we trust it will preserve him for the 
 completion, of that great work. It is a work which will one 
 day cluster around its own history a series of associations and 
 reminiscences, like those that crowd the cell of Luther in 
 the Wartburg. And we should hke to see a picture of 
 D'Auhigne standing in that cell, gazing on those walls, and 
 listening to the inward voice which was saying to him. Thou art 
 to write the History of this great Reformation. The visit was 
 of God, as much as Robert Haldane's visit to Geneva, but it is 
 not often that thehnks of Divine Providence can be so distinct- 
 ly traced, especially Avhen they pass from outward events into 
 Inward purposes. 
 
 D'Auhigne was prepared for that work by many quahties 
 and studies, but by none more than that earnest simplicity of 
 character which makes him understand and sympathize per- 
 fectly with the simplicity and earnestness of the Reformers, 
 and that deep piety which leads him to see and to trace God 
 rather than man in the Reformation. To make his history, 
 he went to the Reformers themselves, and not to what men 
 have said about them; and both the Reformers and their work 
 he has judged b}' the word of God. By his dramatic and de- 
 scriptive power, he sets the Reformers acting and speaking in his 
 pages; the work is a great Historical Epic. 
 
 But the streatest charm and value of his historv is the hea-
 
 _i£} 
 
 A^j^^^^^ 
 
 y 
 
 i^ 
 
 IP 
 
 I>K. MERLE D AUBIGNE. 4/ 
 
 venly impression it leaves upon the soul — the atmosphere of 
 love to Christ, and of fervent, spiritual feeling pervading it, 
 which makes it, indeed, a true book of devotion. It is precious 
 for the clearness and power with which it presents the Avork of 
 the Spirit of God, especially in tracing the deep conflict and 
 experience of Luther, Zwinglius, and others, the great process 
 of inward and external trial, through which God carried them, 
 to fit them for the part he would lead them to perform. D'Au- 
 bigne's views of Christian Doctrine, and of the institutions and 
 ordinances of the Church of Christ, his views, also, on the na- 
 ture of the liberty with which Christ makes his people free, 
 eminently fitted him, in an age when the fetters of a great 
 Spiritual Despotism are again sought to be clasped upon man- 
 kind, to show to the world the Church of Christ in her simpli- 
 city, her freedom, her true unity and beauty. 
 
 By this great v/ork he has gained the reputation of the 
 greatest of modern historians; a work translated, it is said, 
 into the tongue of every Protestant people, and of which already 
 there are no fewer than five translations in the English lan- 
 guage. The truth is, there never was a work more remark- 
 ably adapted to the wants of the age, and the nature of the 
 trial, through which the Church of Christ is still passing. 
 The same may bte said of the character and experience of 
 D'Aubigne himself, with his coadjutors in Geneva, in the work 
 and way in which God is there leading them. 
 
 I shall not soon forget an evening's walk and conversation 
 of great interest, which it was my privilege to enjoy with 
 D'Aubigne, just before I left Geneva. We passed along the 
 magnificent face of Mont Blanc in the sunset, and returned over 
 the hill by the borders of the lake beneath the glow of twilight, 
 in the deepening shadows of the evening-. He ispoke to me 
 with the kindest openness and freedom of his History of the 
 Reformation, especially the part he was then engaged upon, 
 the length of time before he should be able to issue another 
 volume, and the impossibility of pleasing the opposing parties in 
 his account of the Reformation in England. Ho told mo that 
 he was quite beset with the multitude of letters which were 
 sent to him, urging him to set this, and that, and the other 
 
 i 
 
 ■^^iS"
 
 SS8 
 
 -^-^J, 
 
 43 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLaniM, 
 
 points iQ siicli and such a light, beseeching him to tlo justice 
 to tlie English Church, each man wishing to colour his history 
 through the racilium of his own opinions and prejudices. 
 
 It is not difficult to see to which side the sympathies of the 
 author belong; but the tenor of the history thus far assures 
 us that it will still be strictly impartial and faithful to the truth. 
 A great work is before him in the history of the Reformation 
 in Geneva; another in France; another in England, llow 
 vast the field! how varied the incidents! how full of life and 
 thrilling interest! 
 
 D'Aubiguc spoke this evening with much anxiety of the 
 future prospects of his own country, in consequence of the in- 
 crease of Romanism, and the incapacity of the Church, in her 
 humiliating dependence on the State, to prevent the evils that 
 threaten the Republic. He seemed to feel that the single mea- 
 sure of separating the Church from the State, and rendering it 
 independent, Avould save his country; and, under God, it would: 
 it would put religious liberty in Geneva beyond reach from any 
 invasion of Rome. His conversation on this point was like 
 what he has written in his " Question of the Church." " We 
 are distressed," said he, " and know not whither to turn. All 
 around us Rome is advancing. She builds altar after altar 
 upon the banks of our lake. The progress is such among us, 
 from the facility which strangers have in acquiring the rights 
 of citizenship, that quicldy (every one acknowledges it) the 
 Romish population will exceed the Protestant population of 
 Geneva. Let Rome triumph at Rome; it is natural. Let 
 Rome, as she assures herself, triimiph at Oxford; the conquest 
 will be great. But let Rome triumph at Geneva; then she will 
 raise a cry that will echo to the extremity of the universe. 
 Genevese! that cry will announce to the world the death of 
 your country." 
 
 " The faith of our fathers made Rome tremble at the name 
 of Geneva; now, alas! Geneva trembles at the name of Rome. 
 Are we sure that Popery, trium2)hant, and perched upon our 
 high towers, w^ill not one day, and quickly, mock Avith bitter de- 
 rision the blindness of our citizens? The air is heavy, the at- 
 mosphere is choking; the night, perhaps the tempest approaches. 
 
 v^ 
 
 u^
 
 iw 
 
 MERLE D AUEIGXE. 
 
 Let US enter, then, into our bosoms — let us reflect in that inner 
 temple, and raising our cry to heaven, let us say, God, save 
 the country, for men come to destroy it." 
 
 Such 'n-as the tenor of D'Aubigne's conversation this evening; 
 it was painful to see what a deep gloom was before his mind. 
 His trust is in God, though he seemed as one at sea, in a frail 
 bark, who beholds, in a dark, tempestuous night, the dim sha- 
 dow of a great ship driving fast upon him. He has himself 
 referred, in one of his works, to his oppressed feelings, saying 
 that he had unavailingly played the part of Cassandra to his 
 blinded countrymen. 
 
 D'Aubigne's style in writing is often strengthened by pow- 
 erful antithesis, the compelled, condensed result of profound 
 though strict logic. Where the two come together in a focus, 
 so to speak, upon great principles, it is like the galvanic action 
 in a compound battery, illustrating and burning with intense 
 power and beauty. Some of the best examples of this great 
 excellence are to be found in what, though brief, is one of 
 D'Aubigne's greatest productions, — the concise discourse upon 
 the heresy of Puseyism. It is full of pregnant suggestions 
 and veins of thought, which, pursued and elaborated, would 
 lead to a great mine, if a man were able to work it. He de- 
 fines the nature of religious liberty, which, in truth, is the great 
 stake in this conflict — true religious liberty, without which all 
 other liberty is but a dangerous plaything. Take the aphorism, 
 ye Maynooth Statesmen, and worshippers at the shrine of 
 Expediency, and dwell upon its meaning. Without true religious 
 liberty^ every other liberty is but a useless and dangerous plaything. 
 But what characterizes this work of D'Aubigne especially 
 is the announcement of its three oxlys. We thank D ' Aubigue 
 for TUB THREE ONLYS. They are the Christian army, the army 
 of Christian doctrine, in the form of battle; a triangular pha- 
 lanx, every point, each wedge of which pierces the opposing mass 
 of error, and makes a breach, through which in rushes the whole 
 Gospel, and sweeps the field. Tbese are the three onlys : 
 
 The Word of God only; 
 
 Tlie Grace of Christ only; 
 
 The Work of the Spirit only. 
 12 I> 
 
 \^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ¥^
 
 ^\-ASDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 *^ m The formal principle, the material principle, and the persona^ 
 W principle, of Christianity, are here enunciated; and D'Aubigne 
 has set them in such direct and powerful array against the cor- 
 responding counteracting enormous errors of Kome and of the 
 Oxford Theologians, that the moment you look upon the battle 
 array, you see the victory; the masterly disposition of the 
 forces tells you beforehand tbe history of the combat. Singling 
 out each of the columns of error that make Oxford one with 
 Rome, he drives each of these great principles of Christianity 
 against them with such stedfast tread and condensation, that 
 nothing can withstand the shock. Such a description of so 
 brief an essay might almost seem hyperbolical; but the little 
 essay condenses thought for whole volumes, and I beg you, if 
 you find fault with me, to read it, and test its power for your- 
 self. See if it does not make upon your own mind the im- 
 pression of victory, of greatness. 
 
 The manners of D'Aubigne are marked by a plain, manly, 
 unassuming simplicity, no shade of ostentation, no mark of the 
 world's applause upon him — a thing which often leaves a cloud 
 of vain self-consciousness over the character of a great man, 
 worse by far than any shade produced by the world's frowns. 
 His conversation is fuil of good sense, just thought, and pious 
 feeling, disclosing a ripe judgment and a quiet well-balanced 
 mind. You would not, perhaps, suspect him of a vivid imagi- 
 nation, and yet his writings do often show a high degree of 
 that quality. A child-like simplicity is the most marked cha- 
 racteristic to a stranger, who is often surprised to see so illus- 
 trious a man so plain and affable. He is about fifty years of age. 
 You would see in him a tall commanding form, much above 
 the stature of his countrymen, a broad, intelligent forehead, a 
 thoughtful, unsuspicious countenance, a cheerful, pleasant eye, 
 over which are set a pair of dark, shaggy eyebrows, like those 
 of Webster. His person is robust, his frame large and power- 
 ful, and apparently capable of great endurance; yet his health 
 is infirm. Altogether, in face and form his appearance might 
 be described in three Avords — noble, grave, and simple. Tbe 
 habit of wearing spectacles has given him an upward look, in 
 order to command the centre of the glass, which adds to the 
 
 .^1 
 
 
 i 
 
 Is 
 
 m 
 
 v'r! 

 
 peculiar opeuness and manliness of Lis mieu. He has great 
 earnestness and empliasis of manner in liis discourses to liis 
 students. 
 
 The residence of D'Auhigne, embowered in foliage on the 
 banks of the lake opposite the Jura mountains, commands the 
 loveliest sunset view of that mighty forest-covered range, re- 
 flected, with the glowing purple clouds and evening sky, in the 
 bosom of the quiet waters. "How completely," said Dr. 
 Arnold, speaking from the fulness of his rich, classical associ- 
 ations, " is the Jura like Cithaeron, with its va*a; and Xiif/.avis, 
 and all that scenery Avhich Euripides has given to the life in 
 the Bacchce." Are not all mountains more glorious in the 
 sunset ? They certainly seem more intelligent at that hour 
 than at any other. They seem like a vast, silent, meditative 
 consciousness. What shall I say of the flush of rich deep 
 colour and the atmosphere of glory in which the Jura range, 
 " with its pines and oaks, its deep glens, and its thousand 
 flowers," lies sleeping? Meantime the lake ripples at your 
 feet, and whispers its low, stilly, hushing music, so soft, so 
 quiet, as if almost it were the expression of an ecstatic, in- 
 dwelling soul, communing with the parting light, that, as it 
 dies away, fills the face of the lake with such indescribable and 
 pensive beauty. Sometimes it seems, as you stand beneath the 
 trees and look across the lake, and up to where the Jura out- 
 line cuts the sky, as if all heaven were opening before you ; 
 but speedily; as the shadows deepen, comes that sober colouring 
 to the eye that hath hcpt watch o'er mail's mortality, and the 
 earth, the air, the water, though so pure, so bright, do breathe 
 irresistibly upon your mind a sacred melancholy. 
 
 But Avhy should this melancholy be connected with the twi- 
 light and the stars, and all at evening-fall that is so beautiful ? 
 Perhaps it is because "in the cool of the day" God came 
 down to talk with Adam concerning his sin, and the stars saw 
 him, and the shades of evening were around him, when he fled 
 to hide himself beneath the trees in the garden. Ah! how this 
 green light that lingers in the west looked to him then, wJien 
 the bliss of innocence had gone from his soul, and lie began 
 to be afraid of God ! 
 
 v\%^
 
 k^^^^^A^. 
 
 >^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 '•It is almost awful," said tlie excellent Dr. Aruokl, sitting 
 above the delicious lake of Como (and I quote the passage 
 here because it is the expression of thoughts and feelings that 
 such a Christian as D ' Aubigne must often have experienced in 
 the presence of the loveliness of nature before his own door) ; 
 "it is almost awful to look at the overwhelming beauty around 
 me, and then think of moral evil. It seems as if heaven and 
 hell, instead of being separated by a great gulf from one ano- 
 ther, were absolutely on each other's confines, and indeed not 
 far from every one of us. Might the sense of moral evil be 
 as strong in me as my delight in external beauty, for in a deep 
 sense of moral evil, more perhaps than in anything else, abides 
 a saving knowledge of God ! It is not so mucb to admire 
 moral good ; that >ve may do, and yet not be ourselves con- 
 formed to it ; but if we really do abhor that which is evil, not 
 the persons in whom evil resides, but the evil which dwelleth 
 in them, and much more manifestly and certainly to our own 
 knowledge in our own hearts — this is to have the feeling of 
 God and of Christ, and to have our spirit in sympathy with 
 the Spirit of God." 
 
 
 ■Es^ 
 
 ^[ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DR. GAUSSEN — THE CHILDREN OF THE ORATOIRE RELIGIOUS vllA 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 Dr. Gaussen, the able coadjutor of D'Aubigne, and author of 
 the admirable work on Inspiration entitled Theopneustia, was 
 pastor of the parish of Santigny, in the canton of Geneva, in 
 the year 1815. It was about this time that he likewise became 
 a Christian, and preached the way of salvation through faith 
 in Christ crucified. In his teachings among his flock, Dr. 
 Gaussen, becoming dissatisfied Avith the Catechism imposed for 
 instruction by the National Church, principally because it had 
 no acknowledgment of the great fundamental truths of the 
 Gospel, laid it aside, and proceeded to teach the children and 
 candidates for communion in his own way. For this he was 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 -^f^-^^
 
 
 y 
 
 GAUSSEN OF GENEVA. 
 
 brought before the " Venerable Company of Pastors," and 
 finally was by them censured, and suspended for a year from 
 his right to sit in the Company. 
 
 But Dr. Gausson and his friends, D'Aubigne and others, 
 nothing terrified by their adversaries, proceeded still farther. 
 They framed the Evangelical Society of Geneva, took mea- 
 sures for the preaching of the Gospel in the city, and esta- 
 blished, though in -weakness and fear and in much trembling, 
 yet in reliance upon God, the Evangelical Theological Semi- 
 nary. Finding that all efforts and threatenings to prevent or 
 stay their career were in vain, the Venerable Company pro- 
 ceeded, in 1831, to reject Mr. Gaussen from the functions of 
 pastor of Santigny, and to interdict Messrs. Gaussen, GaUand, 
 and Merle, from all the functions of the pulpit in the churches 
 and chapels of the Canton. What a spectacle was this ! It 
 recalls to mind the action of the Genevese Republic three hun- 
 dred years before, in the banishment of Calvin and Farel from 
 the city. The result has been happy in the highest degree 
 Forced out of the National Church, these men have been made 
 to feel what at first it is so difficult to be convinced of, that 
 the church of Christ belongs to Christ, and not to any nation. 
 They see that there is a new transfiguration, a new approxi- 
 mating step of glory for the Reformed Church in Europe, in 
 which she shall become free in Christ — shall assume her true 
 catholicity, her supremacy, her independence — ^becoming for 
 ever and everywhere a church in the spirit, the truth, and the 
 liberty of Christ. 
 
 In Geneva the Church is in subjection. The people cannot 
 choose their pastors — the pastors are compelled to receive every 
 man to Christian communion as an indiscriminate right of citi- 
 zenship. At a certain age, every young man comes into the 
 Church by law, no matter how depraved, and declares in the 
 most solemn manner that he beheves, from the bottom of his 
 heart, the dogmas in which his pastor has instructed him; that 
 he will still hold to them, and renounce the world and its pomps. 
 For entering the army, for becoming an apprentice, for obtain- 
 ing any employ, the young man must take the communicant's 
 oath. Have you been to the communion ? is the test question 

 
 — first and implacable. Hence, if a pastor should refuse tlie 
 communion to a young libertine, the candidate and the whole 
 family -would regard it as the highest insult and injustice, de- 
 barring the young man from rights sacred to him as a citizen, 
 shutting, indeed, the door of all civil advancement against 
 him. To say nothing of piety, how can even morality itself be 
 preserved in a Church in such degrading subjection to the' civil 
 power ? 
 
 Dr. Gausscn was appointed to the office of Professor of Sj's- 
 tematic Theology in the New Evangelical School, and he also 
 officiates as one of the pastors of the Church of the Oratoire, 
 of which M. Pilet is the regular preacher. M. Pilet is distin- 
 guished for his gifts of eloquence and piety, and holds the office 
 of Professor of Exegetical Theology, along with Professor La 
 Harpe, the latter taking the department of the Old Testament, 
 the former of the New, Every Lord's day, at eleven o'clock 
 in the morning, after the sermon, there is in the Church of the 
 Oratoire an exercise for the young, of which Dr. Gausscn has 
 the special charge. It is a catechetical exercise in which the 
 children are instructed from the Scriptures, making the Bible 
 their text-book and book of study. It was for the crime of 
 substituting the Bible instead of the old catechism of the Com- 
 pany of Pasters, in his instruction of the children of his flock 
 at Santigny, that Dr. Gaussen was first censured and finally 
 deposed from that parochial charge. lie has great power over 
 the children, possessing the rare faculty of awakening and 
 interesting the youthful mind, while at the same time his ques- 
 tions and illustrations are full of the richest instruction to 
 those who are more advanced and learned in the things of 
 Christ. Hence this exercise is attended by parents as well as 
 children, and by strangers, who look on and listen with dehght 
 and profit at the understanding and answers of the little ones. 
 It is a most interesting spectacle to see these youthful minds 
 brought so actively into play, and enriched and disciplined by 
 the acuteness, knowledge, and lively eloquence of the teacher. 
 
 Dr. Gaussen seems a somewhat younger man than D'Ah- 
 bigne, shorter of statiu-e, with a quick and active eye and 
 movement. His countenance is full of life, frankness, and
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 w 
 
 i 
 
 y 
 
 
 GAUSSEN OF GENEVA. 
 
 intelligence. There is a pleasing combination of energy and 
 suavity in his manners, indicating perhaps the characteristics 
 of his mind ; for he is a man of learning in action, and of solid 
 accomplishments gracefully employed. His style is admirable 
 for its united richness and vivacity. There is the same inte- 
 rest and life in his conversation as in his writings, with the 
 great charm of a simplicity and friendliness of character as 
 open as the sun, and a most attractive warmth and enthusiasm 
 of Christian thought and feeling. His mind kindles and glows, 
 especiiilly on the preciousness of the word of God, the advan- 
 cing kindness of the Redeemer, and the nature of the enmity 
 which the Church of Christ in Europe must now encounter. 
 He speaks Avith the same deep earnestness as D'Aubigne of 
 the great crisis Avhich is so evidently hastening in Europe — the 
 rapidly advancing battle and final trial between Rome and the 
 Gospel. No one can tell what scenes are soon to arise; what 
 events — it may be, alarming ones — are to be developed. 
 
 Dr. Gaussen's residence is in a beautiful rural spot, not far 
 outside the gates of the city, towards France, commanding a 
 noble view of the Alps. During conversation in a walk thi- 
 ther, he spoke to me of his views of inspiration, as exhibited in 
 his work on that subject. The professors seek to build up 
 their pupils on the word of God, and to make them strong in 
 that as their impregnable citadel, having no half-way in its 
 divine authority. Next they would have them rooted and 
 grounded in the doctrine of justification by faith. Dr. Gaus- 
 scn told me that his high views of the word of God were power- 
 fully sustained in his own mind by the manner in which our 
 blessed Lord himself quotes and refers to the Old Testament, 
 It is the M'ord of God and not man ; it is God's own words 
 speaking to the soul ; by which, by every word, man shall 
 live, and not a word shall be broken. They have an authori- 
 tative power and life, not weakened by any mixture of human 
 authority or human opinion and doubt ; and they are appealed 
 to in such a manner as could not consist with any thing less 
 than the highest, fullest, direct, divine inspiration. 
 
 He spoke of the necessity of a separation of the Church 
 from the State, in order to the freedom and purity of the Church 
 
 ^
 
 w 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 of Geneva, and remarked that bis own views ou this subject 
 accorded with those of D ' Aubigiie. He mentioned what to me 
 was a startling fact, tbat out of forty pastors in the National 
 Cbuix'b, only three were regarded as evangelical ; bence the 
 deep anxiety which men of God entertain in regard to the fu- 
 ture welfare of the city r.nd canton, when they see how fast in 
 numbers Rome steals upon them, while there are few to resist 
 ber encroachments, and while the Church is so allied with and 
 dependent on the State, that a majority of political voters 
 would carry the whole establishment, without any reserve or 
 tolerance, over to the Pope. There is no antidote to the evil 
 but in making the Church independent. The great Reforma- 
 tion of the nineteenth century, in his own opinion, as weU as 
 D'Aubigne's, will be tbe mutual independence of the State and 
 the Church. Then, if not before, will the great voice be beard, 
 Babylon is fallen ! But before this. Dr. Gaussen inclines to 
 the opinion that God will yet once more scourge with the rod, 
 in the resurrection of Romanism, those kingdoms that, ungrate- 
 ful for the mercies of tbe Gospel, and spurning tbe priceless 
 gift of religious liberty, have of late despised the Reformation, 
 and begun to render something of their old homage to the 
 Man of Sin, falling on the neck of the grim old tyrant even 
 with tears and kisses. What a disgraceful spectacle ! 
 
 " Jlilton I thou shoultlst be living at this liour : 
 England hath need of thee : slie is a fon 
 Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of luiU and bower, 
 nave forfeited their ancient English dower 
 Of inward happiness. "We are seLfish men. 
 Oh ! raise us up, return to us again, 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea. 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 So didst thou tr.w 1 on life's common way, 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay." 
 
 The constitution of Geneva is sucb, tbat by its provisions 
 there is no liberty of instruction or congregation but only by 
 authority of tbe Council of State. The ninth and tenth arti- 
 
 -^ 
 
 ]\
 
 cles proviile that liberty of instruction shall he guaranteed to all 
 Genevese, only under the reserve of dispositions prescrihed by 
 the laws for the interest of public order and good manners; and 
 also that no corporation or congregation can be established 
 without the authority of the Council of State. It is easy to 
 see that with such a constitution of Church and State, the Ro- 
 manists have everything made easy to their hand in Geneva, 
 and only need a civil majority, when, by appointing their own 
 Council of State, they can put every heretical congi-egation to 
 the torture, and forbid, by law, any school or assembly of in- 
 struction or worship other than pleases them, under whatever 
 severity of penalty they may choose to impose. No wonder 
 that the cry of every Christian patriot in Geneva should be, 
 Separate Church and State, separate Church and State! May 
 God help them in their struggle after liberty. 
 
 "Advance — come forth from thy celestial ground, 
 Dear Liberty! — stern nymph of soul untamed, 
 Sweet nymph, Oh rightly of the mountains named ! 
 Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound. 
 And o'er the eternal snows like Echo, bound. 
 Like Echo, when the hunter-train at dawn 
 Have roused her from her sleep: and forest-lawn, 
 Cliff:^, woods, and caves, her viewless steps resound, 
 And babble of her pastime I — On, dread Power, 
 With such invisible motion speed thy flight. 
 Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height, 
 Through the green vales and through the herdsman's bower, 
 Tliat all the Alps may gladden in thy might, 
 Here, there, and in all places at one hour." 
 
 Liberty must come soon, or to all human appearance the 
 case will be desperate; the time may come when men like Ma- 
 Jan, Gaussen, D'Aubigue can no more speak out as they are 
 doing now, from the mountain citadel which they hold for 
 Christ, but will either be silenced or banished. The progress 
 of the danger is rapid. " By the annexation of the new terri- 
 tory," remarks Dr. Heugh, "and also by a perpetual immi- 
 gration of poor Savoyards in quest of the comforts of Geneva 
 (like Hibernian immigration into Britain), the Roman Catholics 
 have now upwards of twenty-seven thousand out of a popula- 
 tion rather under sixty thousand; and during the last five years, 
 
 ^1.^
 
 WANDERINGS OF A I'lLGRIM. 
 
 the Catholic population increased by three thousand, while that 
 of the Protestants diminished by two hundred, the former by 
 immigration into the territory, the latter by emigration from 
 it. That advancing minority will become and probably will 
 soon become a majority; and then, suffrage being universal, 
 Geneva may, by the vote of a majority of her citizens, lose 
 her rank among Protestant States, renounce by open profession 
 the Protestantism which in fact her ministers and her people 
 have already betrayed, and re-annex herself to Rome." It 
 should be added to this, that the calculation above made is with 
 reference to the Canton and not the city of Geneva. The city 
 contains about 30,000 inhabitants, of whom but a very small 
 portion are Romanists. Of the whole twenty-two Cantons in the 
 Swiss Confederation, there are only nine Popish; in six Cantons 
 both Romanism and Protestantism are legalized together. 
 
 The only safety against these dangers is in the interposition 
 of God, by means of the three onlys; let me repeat them; 
 
 The Word of God only. 
 The Grace of Christ only. 
 The Work of the Spirit only. 
 
 These things can keep the Roman Catholic population in a safe 
 minority, or indeed can make them all Protestants, or, should 
 there be a majority, can in a moment change it from falsehood 
 into truth. Sq, by these three onhjs Geneva will still be safe. 
 
 These three onhjs will be the perfect independence of the 
 Church of Christ. These three onhjs will make the Church of 
 Christ, in that independence, triumphant through the world. 
 
 In the Canton de Vaud, a Churchand-State Canton, the peo- 
 ple have been so greatly enraged against the assemblies of 
 Christians, who chose to worship by themselves, apart from the 
 National Church, that they have broken up those assemblies 
 with violence and almost with murder. When, in consequence 
 of these acts the Christian assemblies demanded protection from 
 the State, they were coolly told that they themselves were the 
 authors of the disturbance, and that they must ceasa from those 
 meetings which gave occasion for it ? Such is tlie definition 
 of religious liberty in a Church- and- State republic!
 
 How difficult it is to -work out a great truth, to work it clear. 
 There is a muddy fermentation, and if it be di-ank while that 
 is going on, it produces great disturbance in the system. This 
 is the case with religious hberty. It has never been fully un- 
 derstood, it is just working itself clear. But it makes a great 
 disturbance in doing so, or rather, the ingredients, foreign and 
 pernicious, with which it has been compelled to mingle, have 
 made disturbance, and do so still. There never will he quiet 
 in Europe till there is perfect religious liberty. The doctrine 
 is in the laboratory of trial, tossed from crucible to crucible, 
 and is going through processes for its purification, enough, m 
 Mr. Dana's language, to make the most knowing chemists 
 stare. God is purifying it for use in the kingdom which he is 
 to set up on earth. The nations have never yet been ready for 
 it! the old bottles would not hold this wine of the new dispen- 
 sation; but God is preparing the world for it, and the throes in 
 regard to its reception are perhaps a sign that the kingdom of 
 peace and love is near at hand. But after all, the doctrine of 
 a perfect religious liberty can there only be understood, and 
 there only be practicable, where the truth prevails in love. 
 The truth produces love, and love produces liberty, and thus 
 men, made free themselves, rejoice in the freedom of others. 
 If not, they are not free; " their passions forge their fetters." 
 
 It is with the great error Church and State as with minuter 
 practical errors, that have long prevailed; they must be under- 
 mined gradually, and the occupants above warned off the ground. 
 If not, both the assailants and the besieged will fight, and get 
 blown up, or otherwise injured. "Truth," said Coleridge very 
 pithily, "is a good dog; but beware of barking too close to the 
 heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHAMOUNY AND TilE MER DE GLACE. 
 
 OnAMOUXY is in some respects the central and concentrating 
 Eccne of the grandeur and glory of Switzerland. It is among 
 
 ^^^^^T 
 
 ^ 
 
 4
 
 60 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 the Alps what Raphael's painting of the Transfiguration is 
 among the European galleries of pictures. It is a finished and 
 perfect world of suhlimity, within a world of heauty. Four or 
 five several times I have visited it, and each time with new dis- 
 coveries of its glory, new impressions and lessons, new wonder 
 and delight. 
 
 From Chamouny you may make the Tour of Mont Blanc, 
 which also is itself a separate and perfect gem of travel. My 
 first visit to Chamouny was made some years ago, in company 
 with an American gentleman, in the bright month of Octobei-, 
 on foot. A man should always ti-avel in Switzerland as a pe- 
 destrian, if possible. There is no telling how much more per- 
 fectly he thus communes with nature, how much more deeply 
 and without effort he chunks in the spirit of the meadows, the 
 woods, the running streams, and the mountains, going by them 
 and among them, as a friend Avith a friend. He seems to hear 
 the very breath of Nature in her stillness, and sometimes when 
 the whole world is hushed, there are murmurs come to him on 
 the air, ahnost like the distant evening song of angels. Indeed 
 the world of Nature is filled with quiet soul-like sounds, M'hich, 
 when one's attention is gained to them, make a man feel as if 
 he must take his shoes from his feet and walk barefooted, in 
 order not to disturb them. There is a language in Nature, 
 that requires not so much a fine ear, as a listening spirit; just 
 as there is a mystery and a song in religion, that requires not 
 so much a clear understanding, as a believing spirit. To such 
 a listener and believer, there comes 
 
 
 ^N 
 
 
 w 
 
 X 
 
 At'-) 
 
 " A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, 
 Rvthm in all thought, and joyancc even-where — 
 Methinks it should have been impossible 
 Not to love all things in a world so filled. 
 Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air 
 Is music slumbering on her instniment." 
 
 The music of the brooks and waterfalls, and of the wind 
 among the leaves, and of the birds in the air, and of the children 
 at play, and of the distant villages, and of the tinkling pleasant 
 bells of flocks ujion the mountain sides, is all lost to the tra- 
 veller in a carriage, or rumbling vehicle of any kind; whereas
 
 -;5S^ 
 
 « 
 
 v^ 
 
 f)V 
 
 
 CHAMOUXY. 
 
 a pedestrian enjoys it, and enjoys it much more perfectly than 
 a man upon a mule. Moreover, the pedestrian at every step 
 is gaining health of body and elasticity of spirits. If he be 
 troubled with weak lungs, let him carry his own knapsack, 
 well strapped upon his shoulders; it opens and throws back the 
 chest, and strengthens the weakest parts of the bodily system. 
 Besides this, the air braces him better than any tonic. By day 
 and by night, it is an exhilarating cordial to him, a nepenthe to 
 his frame. 
 
 The pedestrian is a labouring man, and his sleep is sweet. 
 He rises with the sun, or earlier, with the morning stars, so as 
 to watch the breaking of the dawn. He lives upon simple food, 
 with an unsuspicious appetite. He hums his favourite tunes, 
 peoples the air with cdstles, cons a passage in the Gospels, 
 thinks of the dear ones at home, cuts a cane, wanders in By- 
 path Meadow, where there is no Giant Despair, sits down and 
 jots in his note book, thinks of what he will do, or whistles as 
 he goes for want of thought. All day long, almost every fa- 
 culty of mind and body may be called into healthful, cheerful 
 exercise. He can make out-of-the-way excursions, go into the 
 cottages, chat with the people, sketch pictures at leisure. He 
 can pray and praise God, when and where he pleases, whether 
 he comes to a cross and a sepulchre, or a church, or a cathe- 
 dral, or a green knoll under a clump of trees without cross, or 
 saint, or angel; and if he have a Christian companion, they 
 two may go together as pleasantly and profitably as Christian 
 and Hopeful in the Pilgrim's Progress. He ought to be a 
 draughtsman, ought to know how to sketch from nature. I 
 must confess that I did not, and so I warn others from my 
 own experience; if they are going to walk in Switzerland, let 
 them learn to draw. The only original sketch I brought home 
 in my note book, which otherwise might have been filled with 
 rude gems, was a sketch of the battle-field of Morgarten, pen- 
 cilled amidst my own word-sketches, by an English clergyman, 
 my companion. After all, however, my friend was almost al- 
 ways more vexed for want of time to finish his sketches than 
 he was gratified witli collecting them. If one could take a lit- 
 tle daguerreotype with him, it would be a nice thing among 
 the mountains, to let nature do her own sketching.
 
 62 
 
 "n-AXDEUIXGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 Ouc of the most interesting scenes in Cliamouny apart from 
 the mountains, is the assembly of guides, either waiting to be 
 hired, or gathered previous to an ascent of Mont J31anc. The 
 guides of Chamouny are the best in all Switzerland, They are 
 a hardy, robust, energetic, sagacious set of men, most of them 
 cheerful and good humoured, devoted to their profession, and 
 enthusiastic in it. Some of them know every nook and cranny 
 of the mountains, every aspect of the weather, every prophecy 
 of storms, the paths of the avalanche, the most invisible signs 
 of the seasons, the voices of the winds, what it means when the 
 south breeze makes the glaciers sing, what stories the rivers 
 tell of the goings on in the high Alpine sohtudes. They are 
 the seamen of the Alps, the old salts of the mountains. They 
 are under a regimen of law, a strict system by the government 
 of Sardinia, which determines their time of apprenticeship, 
 their tariff of prices, whether for special excursions or by the 
 day. The prices are not high ; six francs by the day is very 
 little, when it is remembered that the guide finds himself, and 
 carries the knapsack of his master, if he be going on foot, be. 
 sides a thousand free and good natured civilities, which make 
 liira a sort of travelling servant. He will carry on his back a 
 load of thirty or forty pounds, during a day's walk of thirty 
 miles, but you must concede to him the liberty of complaining 
 at the close, especially if he be unaccustomed to it, and of hop- 
 ing for your own kindness. 
 
 The guides are under the direction of a chief or syndic, to 
 whom application must be made when you wish to take one, 
 and to whom all disputes are to be referred. He has a list of 
 some forty men or more, whose services are called upon in turn, 
 so that they have their days of guide work with the utmost re- 
 gularity. If you hire a guide for a day in Avhich it does not 
 come his turn, you must pay three francs in addition. The 
 mules also are six francs each. There are certain excursions, 
 each of which is considered a day's work; such as the excur- 
 sion to the Mer de Glace, the Flegere, the Brc^ven, and in ge- 
 neral up any of the mountains in the valley. It is sometimes 
 possible to make two of these excursions in one day, in which 
 case you pay ten francs to your guide. Of course, if you liave 
 
 P^ 
 
 ^^^^^
 
 CIIASrOUNY. 
 
 C3 
 
 tsvo or three or more friends in your p<artj, tiie expence is mere 
 nothing since one guide is enough for the whole party, if you 
 are on foot, but if you choose to ride, for every mule there must 
 be a separate guide. If you have ladies (and I leave it to your 
 own experience to determine whether you particularly desire it 
 in climbing the mountains) each lady may need a guide, or had 
 best have one. 
 
 If you take a guide to so great a distance from his home 
 that he cannot get back again the same day, he is entitled to 
 what is called back-fare, which nearly or quite doubles the ori- 
 ginal amount; so that a single pedestrian on a long course, if 
 he take a guide, makes it somewhat expensive. But this is 
 better than falling into a snow-drift so deep, or over a precipice 
 so terrible, that only the dogs of the Grand St. Bernard can 
 find you; better than getting lost alone or even with a friend, 
 and better, likewise, than going in uncongenial company. Be- 
 sides you may gain a great deal of information from your guide, 
 and, if you please, may possibly do him some good apart from 
 your money. You should let him see that you have a well 
 stored and busy heart, as well as a full purse. Your kind, in- 
 structive words will sometimes win upon him better than a so- 
 vereign. The stream of travel through Switzerland would not 
 be so corrupting as is complained of, so tending to make the 
 people venal, if travellers would exhibit and dispose of some 
 other good qualities and examples besides gold. 
 
 How can we expect otherwise than to make the common 
 people venal, if we do nothing but make trade of them, if we 
 show to them nothing but what is venal in ourselves. Alas! 
 how often do the rich pass among the poor, through a kingdom 
 of the poor, doing nothing in the world but just to hii-e them, 
 swear at them, and pay them. Sure I am that it would be 
 very wonderful if a peoj^le were not corrupted by intercourse 
 with foreigners, who leave such an impression from the con- 
 tact that the chief thing visible is an oath. Thanks be to God, 
 swearing travellers arc a much less ordinary nuisance than tbey 
 used to be. 
 
 The present Chief of the guides in Chamouny is quite a 
 study. He is himself an ancient guide, of great experience 
 
 l^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 '^^^^^^^ 
 
 -•<^-
 
 ^^2^^ 
 
 WANDERIMG3 OF A PILGRIM, 
 
 and excellence of character. His face is one of tlie most per* 
 feet expressions of benevolence and honesty, combined with in- 
 telligence and thoughtfulness, that you will ever meet with. 
 He inspires you with confidence, and almost an aft'ectionate in- 
 terest, the moment you see him. It is pleasant to look on such 
 faces, for nature seldom deceives you when she casts such an 
 outward mould, but there is always something within answer- 
 to it, and proving its Avorth and truth. 
 
 The guides are quite honest in regard to the weather. They 
 do not, in order to provoke you to hire them, promise you a 
 fair day when it will be rainy, but leave 3'ou to determine for 
 yourself whether you will make the excursion. They do not 
 love to ascend Mont Blanc. It is a perilous enterprise, and, 
 though much better paid than the ordinary courses, docs not 
 recompense the guide for his hazard and fatigue. About forty 
 were assembled during one day of my visit at Chamouny, for 
 the ascent of Mont Blanc, with a company of French scientific 
 gentlemen, sent out by the government. Each of the attend- 
 ants received his supply of water and provisions for the journey, 
 having, moreover, the instruments and apparatus of the savans 
 to carry, together with materials for a tent, Avhich they pro- 
 mised to pitch upon the very summit of the mountain. Napoleon, 
 it is said, once had a huge cross erected there, but Mont Blanc 
 proved a genuine, intractable Iconoclast ; he was not enough 
 of a Romanist to respect it, and away it went in a Puritanical 
 storm of Alpine freedom. The French gentlemen had resolved 
 to stay three days upon the mountain, scorning all dangers, 
 and they were to shoot oiT a display of Parisian fireworks, 
 which perhaps they intended should be seen in Geneva, if vi- 
 sion could reach so far, and certainly celebrated all over Europe; 
 but the mountain was not in a mood for such antics, and they 
 did not succeed even in getting to the summit till after several 
 distinct experiments, returning half-dead with fatigue and dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 The first and principal excursion from Chamouny is gene- 
 rally that to the Mer de Glace. It is not at all difiScult, but 
 if you have fine weather, it gives you some of the most sublime 
 experiences of mountain scenery you can meet with in all the
 
 f 
 
 \l 
 
 -*3 
 
 it 
 
 I 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 regions of tie Alps. You cross the meadows in tlae vale of 
 Chamouny, stejj over the neAr-born furious Arve, and climb the 
 moimtain precipices to the height of 2000 feet, by a rough> 
 craggy path, sometimes winding amidst a wood of firs, and 
 sometimes wandering over green grasses. At Montanvert you 
 find yourself on the extremity of a jjlatcau, so situated, that on 
 one side you may look down into the dread frozen sea, and on 
 the other, by a few steps, into the lovely green vale of Cha- 
 moimy! What astonishing variety and contrast in the spec- 
 tacle! Far beneath, a smiling and verdant valley, watered by 
 the Arve, with hamlets, fields, and gardens, the abode of life, 
 sweet children and flowers; — far above, savage and inaccessible, 
 crags of ice and granite, and a cataract of stiffened billows, 
 stretching away beyond sight — the throne of Death and Winter. 
 From the bosom of the tumbling sea of ice, enormous gra- 
 nite needles shoot into the sky, objects of singular sublimity, 
 one of them rising to the great height of 13,000 feet, seven 
 thousand above the point where you are standing. This is 
 more than double the height of Mount Washington in our 
 country, and this amazing pinnacle of rock looks like the spire 
 of an interminable colossal cathedral, with other pinnacles 
 around it. No snow can cling to the summits of these jagged 
 spires; the lightning docs not splinter them ; the tempests rave 
 round them; and at their base, those eternal drifting ranges 
 of snow are formed that sweep down into the frozen sea, and 
 feed the perpetual, immeasurable masses of the glacier. Mean- 
 while, the laughing verdure, sprinkled with flowers, plays xipon 
 the edges of the enormous masses of ice — so near that you 
 may almost touch the ice with one hand and with the other 
 pluck the violet. So, oftentimes, the ice and the verdure are 
 mingled in our earthly pilgrimage; — so, sometimes, in one and 
 the same family you may see the exquisite refinements and the 
 crabbed repugnancies of human nature. So, in the same house 
 of God, on the same bench, may sit an angol and a murderer; 
 a villain, like a glacier, and a man with a heart like a sweet 
 running brook in the sunshine. 
 
 The impetuous arrested cataract seems as if it were plough- 
 ing the rocky gorge with its turbulent surges. Indeed the 
 12 E 
 
 i^ 
 
 .[>,
 
 s« 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGllIM. 
 
 ridges of rocky fragments along the edges of the glacier, called 
 moraines, do look precisely as if a colossal iron plough had torn 
 them from the mountain, and laid them along in one continu- 
 ous furrow on the frozen verge. It is a scene of stupendous 
 sublimity. These mighty granite peaks, hewn and pinnacled 
 into Gothic towers, and these rugged mountain walls and hut- 
 tresses, — what a cathedral ! with this cloudless sky, by star- 
 light, for its fretted roof — the chaunting wail of the tempest, 
 and the rushing of the avalanche for its organ. How grand 
 the thundering sound of the vast masses of ice tumbling from 
 the roof of the Arve-cavern at the foot of the glacier ! Does 
 it not seem, as it sullenly and heavily echoes, and rolls up from 
 so immense a distance below, even more sublime than the thun- 
 der of the avalanche above us? We could tell better if we could 
 have a genuine upper avalanche to compare with it. But what 
 a stupendous scene! " I begin noAV," said my companion, " to 
 understand the origin of the Gothic Architecture." This was 
 a very natural feeling; but after all, it could not have been such 
 a scene that gave birth to the great idea of that "frozen 
 poetry" of the ]\Iiddlc Ages. Far more likely it was the sound- 
 ing aisles of the dim woods, with their checkered green light, 
 and festooned, pointing arches. 
 
 The colossal furrow of rocks and gravel along the edges of 
 the ice at the shores of the sea are produced by the action of 
 the frost and the avalanches, with the march of the glacier 
 against the sides of the mountains. Nothing can be more 
 singular than these ridges of mountain debris, apparently 
 ploughed up and worked off by the moving of the whole bed of 
 ice down the valley. Near the shore, the sea is turbid with 
 these rocks and gravel; but as you go out into the channel, the 
 ice becomes clearer and more glittering, the crevices and fis- 
 sures deeper and more dangerous, and all the phenomena more 
 astonishing. Deep, blue, pellucid founts of ice-cold water lie 
 in the opening gulfs, and sometimes, putting your ear to the 
 yawning fissures, you may hear the rijjpling of the rills below, 
 that from the bosom of the glacier are hurrying down to con- 
 stitute the Arve, bursting furiously forth from the great ice- 
 cavern in the Vallev. 
 
 fl
 
 d4^^^^..J^ 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 MYSTERIES OF THE GLACIERS. 
 
 This Mer dc Glace is an easy and excelleut residence for the 
 scientific study of the glaciers, a subject of very great interest, 
 formerly filled v/ith mysteries, which the hold and persevering 
 investigations and theories of some modern naturalists have 
 quite cleared up. The strange movements of the glaciers, their 
 apparent wilful rejection of extraneous bodies and substances 
 to the surface and the margin, their increase and decrease, long 
 remained invested with something of the supernatural ; they 
 seemed to have a soul and a life of their own. They look mo- 
 tionless and silent, yet they are always moving and sounding 
 on, and they have great voices that give prophetic warning of 
 the weather to the shepherds of the Alps. Scientific men have 
 set up huts upon the sea, and landmarks on the mountains op- 
 posite, to test the progress of the icy masses, and in this way 
 it was found that a cabin constructed by Professor Hugi on 
 the glacier of the Aar, had travelled, between the years 1827 
 and 1810, a distance of 4C00 feet. It is supposed that the 
 Mer de Glace moves down between four and five hundred feet 
 annually. 
 
 It is impossible to form a grander image of the rigidity and 
 barrenness, the coldness and death of winter, than when you 
 stand among the billows of one of these frozen seas; and yet 
 it is here that Nature locks up in her careful bosom the trea- 
 sures of the Alpine valleys, the sources of rich summer verdure 
 and vegetable hfe. They are hoarded up in winter, to be poured 
 forth beneath the sun, and with the sun in summer. Some 
 of the largest rivers inEurope take their rise from the glaciers, 
 and give to the Swiss valleys their most abimdant supply of 
 Avatcr, in the season when ordinary streams are dried up. This 
 is a most interesting provision in the economy of nature, for if 
 the glaciers did not exist, those verdant valleys into which the 
 summer sun pours with such fervour would be parched with 
 drought. So the mountains are parents of perpetual streams, 
 and tlie glaciers are reservoirs of plenty. 
 
 The derivation of the German name for glacier, (jletscher, is 
 suggested as coming not from their icy material, but their per- 
 petual motion, from rjUtschen to glide; more probably, however, 
 from the idea of gliding upon their surface. Tlicse glaciers 
 
 1^ 
 
 i^.^
 
 •ooiuc down from the air. dov/n out of heaven, a perpetual frozen 
 motion ever chauging and gliding, from the first fall of snow 
 in the atmosphere, through the state of consolidated grinding 
 hloclvs of ice, and then into musical streams that water the 
 valleys. First it is a powdery, feathery snow, then granidated 
 like hail, and denominated y?/-n, forming vast beds and sheets 
 around the highest mountain summits, then frozen into masses, 
 by which time it has travelled down to within seven thousand 
 feet above the level of the sea, where commences the great ice- 
 oeeau that fills the uninhabitable Alpine valleys, unceasingly 
 freezing, melting, and moving down. It has been estimated 
 by Saussure and others that these seas of ice, at their greatest 
 thickness, are six or eight hundred feet deep. They are tra- 
 versed by deep fissures, and as they approach the great preci- 
 pices, over which they plunge like a cataract into the vales, 
 they are split in all directions, and heaved up into the waves, 
 reefs, peaks, pinnacles and minarets. Underneath they are 
 traversed by as many galleries and caverns, through which run 
 the rills and torrents constantly gathering from the melting 
 masses above. These innumerable streams, gathering in one 
 as they approach the termination of the glacier, rush out from 
 beneath it, under a great vault of ice, and thus are born into 
 the breathing world, full-grown roaring rivers, from night, 
 frost, and chaos. 
 
 A peasant has been knoAvn to have fallen into an Ice-gulf in 
 one of these seas, near one of the flowing sub-glacial torrents, 
 and following the course of the stream to the foot of the glacier, 
 lie came out alive! The German naturalist, Hugi, set out to 
 explore the recesses of one of the glaciers through the bed of a 
 former torrent, and wandered on In Its ice caverns the distance 
 of a mile. " The Ice was everywhere eaten away into dome- 
 shaped hollows, varying from two to twelve feet in height, so 
 that the whole mass of the glacier rested at Intervals on pillars, 
 or feet of Ice, Irregular in size and shape, which had been left 
 standing. As soon as any of these props gave way, a portion 
 of the glacier would of course fall In and move on. A dim 
 twilight, scantily transmitted through the mass of Ice above, 
 prevailed in these caverns of Ice, not sufficient to allow one to 
 
 l^ 
 
 -fir-
 
 V 
 
 read, except close to the fissures, whicli directly admitted the 
 daylight. The intense blue of the mass of the ice contrasted 
 remarkably with the pure white of the icy stalactites, or pen- 
 dants descending from the roof. The water streamed down upon 
 him from all sides, so that, after wandering about for two hours, 
 at times bending and creeping, to get along under the low vault, 
 he returned to the open air, quite drenched and half frozen," 
 
 Wandering about under these glaciers is like making resear- 
 ches in the German sceptical philosophy; you may eatch your 
 death of cold while you are satisfying your curiosity. It is like 
 Strauss losing himself in myth-caverns instead of Gospel verities. 
 It is like the speculations of the author of that book entitled 
 'Vestiges of Creation.' You may see strange things and 
 wonderful, but you come out drenched and half-frozen. And 
 if a man should be there when the supporting stalactites give 
 way, and should be buried under the falling masses, he woukl 
 pay dear for his whistle. 
 
 This Sea of lee, which embosoms in its farthest recesses a 
 little living flovrer-garden, whither the humble-bees from Cha- 
 raouny resort for honey, is also bordered by steep lonely beds 
 of the fragrant Rhododendron, or Rose of the Alps. This 
 hardy and beautiful flower grows from a bush larger than our 
 sweet fern, with foliage like the leaves of the ivory-plum. It 
 continues blooming late in the season, and sometimes covers 
 vast declivities on the mountains at a great height, where one 
 would liardly suppose it possible for a handful of earth to cling 
 to the rocky surface. There, amidst the snows and ice of a 
 thousand winters, it pours forth its perfume on the air, though 
 there be none to inhale the fragrance, or praise the sweetness, 
 save only " the little busy bees," that seem dizzy with delight, 
 as they throw themselves into the bosom of these beds of rosea. 
 
 Higher still on the opposite side of this great ice sea there 
 are mountain slopes of grass at the base of stupendous rocky 
 pinnacles, whither the shepherds of the Alps drive their herds, 
 from Chamouuy for three months' pasturage. They have no 
 way of getting them there but across the dangerous glacier ; 
 and it is said that the passage is a sort of annual celebration, 
 when men, women, and children go up to Montanvcrt to wit- 
 
 L^ 
 
 jK>-
 
 WANDERINGS Of A FILCiRIil. 
 
 v4^f 
 
 ^ 
 
 ness ami assist the difficult transportation. When the herds 
 have crossed, one peasant stays with them for the whole three 
 months of their summer excursion, living upon hrcad and 
 cheese, with one cow among the herd to supply him with milk. 
 When he is not sleeping, he knits stockings and ruminates as 
 contentedly as the hrowsing cattle, his only care heing to in- 
 crease his store. 
 
 But all this while, what is the man's mind, heart, and soul 
 doing? Only knitting stockings and looking at the green 
 grass and the fat cattle ! One cannot help thinking of the great 
 need of intellectual and spiritual resources for these lonely herds- 
 men, IIow much a man might do in these three months' total 
 seclusion and leisure on the mountains ! He might almost fit 
 himself to he the schoolmaster of the valley for the winter — he 
 might commit the Bihle to heart — might learn Ilehrew, Greek, 
 something hesides the mathematics of Ave Marias and Credos, 
 or the homely swain's arithmetic that seemed so pleasant to 
 King Henry; — so many days the ewes have hccn with young; 
 so many weeks ere the poor fools will yean ; so many years to 
 the shearing ; so many pounds to the fleece. But the Bible 
 here is in the main a forbidden hook — and so, from childhood, 
 the upper and nether springs of thought and feeling are scaled, 
 and the mind of the valley moves, not like the living streams, 
 that with each individual gladsome impulse go dancing, spark- 
 ling, hurrying to the ocean, hut, like the frozen glacier in eter- 
 nal chains, some four hundred feet a year, over the same path, 
 hy the same necessity of icy nature. 
 
 ?; 
 I 
 
 v^ J 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CASCADE DE3 PELERINES A SWISS FAMILY — COLERIDGE 's IITMN. 
 
 There is a water-fall in Chamouny Avhich no traveller should 
 omit going to see, though I believe many do, called the " Cas- 
 cade des Pelerines." It is one of the most curious and beau- 
 tiful scenes in Switzerland. A torrent issues from the Glacier 
 des Pelerines high up the mountain above the Glacier du Bos- 

 
 jfM 
 
 CASCADE DES PELERINES. 
 
 71 
 
 Bons, and descends by a succession of leaps, in a deep gorge, 
 from precipice to precipice almost in one continual cataract. 
 But it is all tlie while merely gathering force, and preparing 
 for its last magnificent deep plunge and recoil of beauty. 
 Springing in one round condensed column out of tbe gorge 
 over a perpendicidar cliff, it strikes at its fall, witb its whole 
 body of water, into a sort of vertical rock basin, which one 
 would suppose its prodigious velocity and weight would split 
 into a thousand pieces ; but the whole cataract, thus arrested 
 at once, suddenly rebounds in a parabolic arch, at least sixty 
 feet into the air, and then, having made this splendid airy cur- 
 vature, falls with great noise and beauty into the natural chan- 
 nel below. It is beyond measure beautiful. It is like the fall 
 of divine grace into chosen hearts, that send it forth again for 
 the world's refreshment, in something like such a shower and 
 spray of loveliness, to go winding its life-giving course after- 
 wards as still waters in green pastures. 
 
 The force of the recoil from the plunge of so large a body 
 of water at such a height is so great that large stones thrown 
 into the stream above the fall may be heard amidst the dia 
 striking into the basin, and then are instantly seen careering 
 in the arch of the flashing waters. The same is the case witk 
 bushes and pieces of wood which the boys are always active in 
 throwing in for the curiosity of visitors, who stand below and 
 see each object invariably carried aloft with the cataract in its 
 rebounding atmospheric gambols. When the sun is in the 
 right position, the rainbows play about the fall like the glan- 
 cing of supernatural wings, as if angels were taking a shower- 
 bath. If you have " the head and the legs of a chamois," as 
 my guide said to me, you may climb entirely above this mag- 
 nificent scene, and look out over the cliff right down into the 
 point where the cataract shoots like the lightning, to be again 
 shot back in ten thousand branching jets of diamonds. 
 
 If you take the trouble to explore these precipitous gorges 
 farther up the mountains, you will find other cataracts similar 
 to this, in the midst of such green Alpine herbage, such dark 
 overshadowing verdure, such wild sublimity of landscape, that 
 the pleasure of your discoveries amply repays the fatigue of 
 
 ?k^ 
 
 jiirrj^v
 
 AJ 
 
 -*'/ 
 
 your excursions. Iliglicr up you are met Ly everlasting ice, 
 across ■which you may, if you choose, according to Professor 
 Forbes, make an unusual cut over into the Mer de Glace, and 
 the singular scenery of the Jardin. Katurc hides her grandest 
 beauties, and often makes them almost inaccessible. Is it Jiot 
 because, if they were thrown in our common way, and the view 
 of them to be gained at any time and without labour, their 
 effect would be lost upon us ? What is common is not aj)prcci- 
 ated, oftentimes is not even noticed, just as the dwellers around 
 a great cataract never go to look at it, and become so accus- 
 tomed to its noise that they do not even hear it. 
 
 Those who pursue the stream of truth to its sources have 
 much climbing to do, much fatigue to encounter, but they see 
 great sights. In order to live by the truth, to enjoy the ver- 
 dure with which it refreshes the valleys and plains, and to 
 quench our thirst at it, it is not necessary to pursue these higher, 
 subtile, and difficult investigations and speculations, but to be 
 content and grateful with the life it ministers. For many drink 
 of the truth who know not the depth from whence it springeth, 
 nor the heights nor the fearful precipices over which it has 
 plunged and thundered. Kevertheless, a patient and deep- 
 searching Christian philosopher will find his reward when he 
 follows the stream upwards as well as downwards, amono- the 
 mountains as well as in the vales. 
 
 In my Avanderings, high up among the scenery above this 
 beautiful cascade, I became acquainted with a Swiss family, 
 whose kindly welcome and frank modest manners were to me 
 like the music of their own wild waterfalls. The simple rural 
 beauty, both of face and deportment, in the inmates of the cot- 
 tage, and their kindness of address and feeling, were as attrac- 
 tive as they were unexpected. It was the highest of the sum- 
 mer pasturages in the neighbourhood of the Glacier des Pele- 
 rines. A peasant and his daughter were at work cutting their 
 grass upon the steep declivities, and after some little talk of 
 enquiry and answer he invited me into his mountain Chalet, 
 which he pointed out to me a little distance below. It was the 
 highest human habitation on that side of Mont Blanc, a cabin 
 ^^udely but comfortably constructed for the summer, for it 
 
 i 
 
 f' 
 
 7i 

 
 '"^^^ 
 
 J^"^ 
 
 A SWISS FAMILY. 
 
 would not be possible to abide there in the winter, and used as 
 a sort of mountain dairy for the bestowment of the ricli pro- 
 ductions of tlieir herds, tended there in their mountain pas- 
 turages. I entered the cottage and partook, with great relish, 
 of a bowl of milk and black bread set before me by the kind 
 mother of the family. When I rose to depart, on taking my 
 purse to make some recompense for their kindness, I found my- 
 self unexpectedly minus. Thereupon, it being very question- 
 able whether I could visit the mountain family again, I enter- 
 ed into an agreement with a sweet little girl, who had brought 
 me a drink of cold water from the spring, that she should pick 
 me a basket of strawberries and bring them to me the next day 
 at my hotel at Chamouny ; and so in their debt I bade them 
 good bye. The next morning, as I was sitting with some 
 friends at tea, came in an enormous bowl of the richest moun- 
 tain strawberries. My maiden of the Chalet had })«rformed her 
 promise. 
 
 I met them again several times upon the mountains, and 
 entered into another strawberry treaty with them, and they be- 
 gan at length to view me quite as a brother. But after some 
 conversation touching the essentials of piety and the tenets of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, it was very plain that the mother 
 had a serious suspicion of my soundness in the faith. I could 
 not make her understand what Protestantism was, or rather, 
 finding that she was perfectly unaware of their being any faitli 
 but her own, I endeavoured simply to dwell upon the necessity 
 of prayer with the heart, and of Christ as the Saviour. She 
 had at first concluded that I and all my friends in America 
 were Roman Catholics like themselves, and she took a deeper 
 interest in mc because, as she said, she had a son in America, 
 and just so it was with the sisters on account of their brother. 
 I being the only American they had ever seen, they were per- 
 haps dehghted to find that their beloved absent brother, so far 
 away across the ocean, was not amidst savages. 
 
 I should like to look in upon the family to-day, and carry 
 them a Bible. All the religion in their prayer-books I greatly 
 fear is neutralized by Ava Marias, and absolutions. Between 
 the Virgin Mother in heaven and the Priest on earth, how is ife 
 
 V& 
 
 ur^ 
 
 "^^^^^
 
 possible tliey sliould have any just Ideas of faitli in tlie One 
 great Mediator between God and Man. Alaj God bless them, 
 and bring tbem in some way or another to the knowledge of 
 the trnth in Jesus ! I could have emptied my knapsack of 
 Bibles forty times among the mountains, if I had had them ; 
 and the Bible would soon make Savoy as free as Geneva. 
 
 There was a time during the Middle Ages, wlicu Chamonny 
 was inhabited by monks. The reigning lord of the country 
 made a present of the whole valley to a convent of Benedictine 
 friars, in the eleventh century. Two English travellers, Messrs. 
 Pococke and Windham, drew attention to its wonderful scenery 
 in 1741, and now it is a grand liighway of summer travel, visit- 
 ed annually by three or four thousand people. A visit to Mont 
 Blanc has become a pilgrimage of fashion. Fashion does some 
 good things in her day; and it is a great thing to have the 
 steps of men directed into this grand temple of nature, who 
 would otherwise be dawdling the summer perhaps at immoral 
 watering-places. A man can hardly pass through the vale of 
 Chamouny, before the awful face of Mont Blanc, and not feel 
 that he is an immortal being. The great mountain looks with 
 an c^^e and speaks with a voice that docs something to wake 
 the soul out of its slumbers. 
 
 The sublime hymn by Coleridge, in the Vale before sunrise, 
 is the concentrated expression of all the inspiring and heaven- 
 directing influences of the scenery. The poem is as remark- 
 ably distinguished above the whole range of poetry in our lan- 
 guage, for its sublimity, as the mountain itself among all the 
 great ranges of the Alps. I am determined to quote it in full, 
 for that and the Tour of Mont Blanc ought to go together; 
 and I will present along with it the German original of the 
 poem in twenty lines, nearly as translated by Coleridge's ad- 
 miring and aftcctionate relative. I am not aware that Cole- 
 ridge himself ever visited the Vale of Chamouny; and if not, 
 then that wonderful Hymn to Mont Blanc was the work of 
 imagination solely, building on the basis of the original lines 
 in German. This was a grand and noble foundation, it is true; 
 but the Hymn by Coleridge was a perfect transfiguration of 
 the piece, an inspiration of it M'ith a higher soul, and an in-
 
 'w 
 
 veatlture of it ^vith garments that shine like the sun. It was 
 tJie greatest work of the Poet's great and powerful imagina- 
 tion, combined witli the deep and worshipping sense of spiri- 
 tual things in his soul. 
 
 On visiting the scene, one is apt to feel as if he could not 
 have written it in the vale itself; the details of tlie picture 
 would have been somewhat different; and, confined by the re- 
 ality, one may doubt if oven Coleridge's genius could have gain- 
 ed that lofty ideal point of observation and conception, from 
 which he drew the vast and glorious imagery that rose before 
 him. Not because the poem is more glorious than the reality, 
 for that is impossible; but because, in painting from the re- 
 ality, the force and sublimity of his general conceptions would 
 have been weakened by the attempt at faithfulness in the detail, 
 and nothing like the impression of the aerial grandeur of the 
 scene, its despotic unity in the imagination, notwithstanding 
 3ts variety, would have been conveyed to the mind. 
 
 Yet there are parts of it which at sunrise or sunset either, 
 the Poet might have written from the very windows of his bed- 
 room, if he had been there in the dawn and evenings of days 
 of such extraordinary brilliancy and glory as mai-ked and fill- 
 ed the atmosphere during our sojourn in that blessed region. 
 A glorious region it is, much nearer heaven than our common 
 Avorld, and carrying a sensitive, rightly constituted mind far 
 up in spirit towards the gates of heaven, towards God, whose 
 glory is the light of heaven, and of whose power and majesty 
 the mountains, ice-fields, and glaciers, whether beneath the sun, 
 moon, or stars, are a dim tliough grand and glittering symbol. 
 "Fire and hail, snow and vapoui-, stormy wind fulfilling His 
 word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars praise 
 the Lord. He looketh upon the earth and it trembleth ; lie 
 toucheth the hills, and they smoke." 
 
 The following is the original German hymn, in Mhat the tran- 
 slator denominates a very bald Englisli translation, to be com- 
 pared as a curiosity with its glorification in Coleridge. It oc- 
 cupies but five stanzas of four lines, and is entitled "Chamouuy 
 at Sunrise. To Klopstock." I have here put it into tho 
 metrical form of the original: — 
 
 [^
 
 r — ^y^ 
 
 76 WANDERIXCS Or A riLGRUvT. 
 
 Out of the deep shade of the silent fir-grove, 
 TreniMing, I survey thee, mountaiii-Uoad of eternity, 
 Dazzling (blinding) summit, from whose vast height 
 My dimly-perceiving spirit floats into the everlasting. 
 
 Who sank the pillar deep in the lap of earth 
 Which, far past centuries, fast props tliy mass up ? 
 Who uptowcrcd, high in the vault of ether, 
 Mighty and bold, thy beaming countenance ? 
 
 Who poured you from on liigh, out of eternal Winter's realm, 
 jaggeil streams, downward with thunder-noise ? 
 And who bade aloud, with the Almighty Voice, 
 " Jlcre sliall rest the stifleniiig billows " ? 
 
 \Y\\o marks out there the path for the ]\Iorning Star ? 
 Who wreathes with blossoms the skirt of eternal Frost ? 
 To whom, wild Arveiron, in terrible liarmonies, 
 Rolls up the sound of thy tumult of billows ? 
 
 Jeliovah ! Jehovah ! crashes in the bursting ice ! 
 Avalanche-thunders roll it in the cleft downward : 
 Jehovali ! it rustles in the bright tree-tops ; 
 It whispers murmuring in the purling silvor-brooks. 
 
 This is very grand. Who, but a mighty Poet, one seeing 
 with "the Vision and the Faculty divine," — what but a trans- 
 fusing, all-conquering imagination, — would have dared the at- 
 tempt to compose another poem on the same subject, or to carry 
 this to a greater height of sublimity, by melting it down anew, 
 so to speak, and pouring it out into a vaster, more glorious 
 mould? The more one thinks of it, the more he will see, in 
 the poem so produced, a proof most remarkable, of the spon- 
 taneous, deep-seated, easily exerted, and almost cxhaustless 
 power and originality of Coleridge's genius. Now let us per- 
 use, "with mute thanks and secret ecstasy," his own solemn 
 and stupendous lines : — 
 
 flYM.V BEFORE SUNRISE, IX THl^ YALE OF CIIAMOUNY. 
 
 [licsiiles the rivers Arve .-ind Arveiron, wliich liave their sourcfs in tlie foot of M'liil 
 Bianc, five cmispicuDUS torrents rush down its sides ; and, within a few paces of the 
 placicrs, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers c>( 
 loveliest blue."J 
 
 Ilast thou a charm to stay the Morning Star 
 In his steep course ? so long he seems to pause 
 On thy bald, awful head, Sovran Blanc ? 
 The Arve and Arveiron at thv base 
 
 S" 
 
 t^:^^ ^^Ii 
 
 1^<D
 
 IIYMX BEFORE SUNRISE. 
 
 It 
 
 \ 
 
 Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful foi'ln ! 
 lliscst from fuith tliy silent sea of pines, 
 How silently ! Around tlice and above, 
 Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black ; 
 An ebon mass : mctliinks 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 ! 
 
 dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense. 
 
 Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 
 
 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 
 
 Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody, 
 So sweet, we know not wo 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 natur.il form, swelled vast to heaven! 
 
 Awake, my Soul ! not only passive praise 
 Thou owcst! not alone tlicse swelling tears. 
 Mute thanlcs and secret ecstacy! Aw.ako, 
 Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! 
 Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. 
 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; 
 Companion of the Morning Star at dawn. 
 Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
 Coherald; wake, 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 gl.ad ! 
 Who called you forth from night and utter death, 
 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
 Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, 
 Forever shattered, and the same forever? 
 Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
 Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy 
 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 
 And who command(;d (and the silence came) 
 Hero let the billows stilfcn and have rest ? 
 
 Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's i.i')vv, 
 Adown enormous ravines slope amain-— 
 
 m
 
 ^^4 
 
 -<l 
 
 Torrents, inethinlis, that heard a mighty Voice, 
 And stopped at once, amidst their maddest plunge! 
 Motionless torrents! silent cataracts? 
 Who made you tilorious as the Gates of Heaven 
 Beneath the keen full Aloon? Who bade the Sun 
 Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers 
 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? 
 God! let the toi rents, like a shout of nations, 
 Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! 
 God! sing, ye mcadow-streains, with gladsome voice! 
 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 
 And they, too, have a voice, you 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 tlio 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 praisel 
 
 Thou, too, hoar Mount, with tliy sky-pointing peaks, 
 Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard. 
 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure sereno 
 Into the depths of clouds that vail thy breast, 
 Thou too, again stupendous mountain! thou, 
 That as I raise my head, awliile bowed low 
 In adoration, upward from thy base 
 Slow travelling with dim eyes sufi'uscd 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! 
 Tliou kingly spirit throned among the hills. 
 Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Ileaven, 
 Great Ilierarch! tell thou the silent sky. 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising Sun, 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God ! 
 
 Thanks to thee, thou noble Poet, for giving this glorious 
 voice to Alpine nature — for so befitting and not unworthy an 
 interpretation of Nature's own voice, in words of our own mo- 
 ther-tongue. Thanks to God for his grace vouchsafed to thee, 
 so that now thou praisest Him amidst the infinite host of flam- 
 ing seraphim, before the mount supreme of glory, where all the 
 empyrean rings with angelic halleluialis! The creation of such 
 a mind as Coleridge's is only outdone by its redemptiou through 
 the blood of the Lamb. 0, who can tcil the rapture of a soul 
 
 J^
 
 ^ 
 
 that could give a voice for nations to such a mighty hurst of 
 ^ praise to God in this world, when its powers, uplifted in eter- 
 nity, and dilated with absorhing, uumingled, unutterable love, 
 shall pour themselves forth in the Anthem of Redemption, 
 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain/ 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MONT BLAKC FROM THE COL DE BALME. 
 
 Before setting out on our pilgrimage around Mont Blanc by 
 the passage of tlie Tete Noir, I must give you the notes of my 
 experience in the parallel pass of the Col de Balme. Travel- 
 lers sometimes take one of these passes, and sometimes the 
 other, on their Avay into Italy by the Simplon, or across the 
 Grand St. Bernard; but a lover of Switzerland will Avish to 
 see both. The first I visited during a very magnificent fort- 
 night in October. From the sublime wonders of tlie Mer de 
 Glace, we proceeded down the valley of Chamouny, and arrived 
 at Argentiere, a miserable hamlet at the foot of the glacier of 
 the same name, in the evening of October 8th. We slept at a 
 very dirty inn, in a very dirty room, rolled up in dingy blankets, 
 after a very meagre supper upon hard black bread for the main 
 ingredient. By reason of the memory of this supper, in the 
 natural conclusion that a breakfast in the same spot would be 
 of the same general character, we left the Auberge in the morn- 
 ing as soon as we got out of our blankets, at half-past five, 
 while it was yet dark, in order to reach the resting place on 
 the summit of the mountain at an early hour. 
 
 The Col de Balme is about seven thousand feet high, and 
 lying as it does across the vale of Chamouny at the end towards 
 Martigny and the valley of the Rhone, through which runs the 
 grand route of the Simplon from Switzerland to Italy, you have 
 from it one of the most perfect of all views both of Mont Blanc 
 and the vale of Cliaraouny, Avith all the other mountain ridges 
 on every side. You have, as it were, an observatory erected 
 for you, 7000 feet high, to look at a mountain 16,000. 
 
 I@>-
 
 Ij-M^^^lsg"^^^^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRLM. 
 
 .ri\ 
 
 7 
 
 There is a solitary Chalet, or ti-aveller's Refuge, on tlic sum- 
 mit of the Col, which is kept as an inn during the travelling 
 season, the only habitation beyond the hamlet of Argentierc. 
 When men upon the mountains reject a poor breakfast in the 
 hope of getting a good one, they should take all things into 
 consideration, for they may easily go farther and fare worse. 
 That day was the last of the keeper's staying in the Chalet 
 during that autumn. The season was over, and he was moving 
 down into the more habitable world, so that one day later, in 
 our anxiety for a good breakfast, we should nearly have per- 
 ished, having found the house empty. We reached it after a 
 sharp frosty Avalk of nearly three hours. 
 
 Every man ought to endeavour to shield others from the evils 
 he has experienced himself. A truly benevolent man will al- 
 ways do this, and a traveller, who will not warn others of perils 
 which he has himself encountered, is like one going through a 
 thick wood, and letting the branches fly back in the face of 
 those that follow him. I do therefore cut off this branch, and 
 say, Let no traveller ever attempt upon an empty stomach such 
 a walk as we took that morning; indeed, men in general are 
 not so simple as to do any such thing. 
 
 Till we arrived within a quarter of an hour of the summit, 
 the atmosphere was clear, and Mont Blanc rose to the view with 
 a sublimity, which it seemed at CA^ery step could scarcely be 
 rivalled, and which yet at every step was increasing. The path 
 is a winding ascent, practicable only for mules or on foot. A 
 North-East wind, in this last quarter of an hour, was driving 
 the immensity of mist from the other side of the mountain over 
 the summit, enveloping all creation in a thick frosty fog, so 
 that when we got to the solitary house, we were surrounded by 
 an ocean of cold gray cloud, that left neither mountain nor the 
 sun itself distinguishable. And such, thought we, is the end 
 of all our morning's starvation, perils, and labours ; not to see 
 an inch before us; all this mighty prospect, for which alone 
 one might worthily cross the Atlantic, hidden from us, and 
 quite shut out ! We coidd have wept perhaps, if we had not 
 been too cold and too hungry. Our host burned up the re- 
 mainder of his year's supply of wood, to get us a fire, and then 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^
 
 y 
 
 I'ASS OF THE COL DE BALME. 
 
 81 
 
 most liospitably provided us with a breakfast of roasted pota- 
 toes, whereby all immediate danger of famishing was deferred to 
 a considerable distance. But om* bitter disappointment in the 
 fog was hard to be borne, and we sat brooding and mourning 
 over the gloomy prospect for the day, and wondering what 
 we had best do with ourselves, when suddenly, on tui'ning to- 
 wards the window, Mont Blanc was flashing in the sunshine. 
 
 Such an instantaneous and extraordinary revelation of splen- 
 dour we never dreamed of. The clouds had vanished, we 
 could not tell where, and the whole illimitable vast of glory 
 in this the heart of Switzerland's Alpine grandem's was dis- 
 closed; the snowy Monarch of Mountains, the huge glacier^s 
 the jagged granite peaks, needles, and rough enormous crags 
 and ridges congregated and shooting up in evei-y direction, 
 with the long beautiful Vale of Chamouny visible from end to 
 end, far beneath us, as still and shining as a picture! Just 
 over the longitudinal ridge of mountains on one side was the 
 moon in an infinite depth of ether ; it seemed as if we could 
 touch it ; and on the other the sun was exulting as a bride- 
 groom coming out of his chamber. The clouds still sweeping- 
 past us, now concealing, now partially vailing, and now reveal- 
 ing the view, added to its power by such sudden alternations. 
 
 Far down the vale floated in mid air beneath us a few fleeces 
 of cloud, below and beyond which lay the valley, with its vil- 
 lages, meadows, and winding paths, and the river running- 
 through it like a silver thread. Shortly the mists congregated 
 away beyond this scene, rolling masses upon masses, penetrated 
 and turned into fleecy silver by the sunlight, the whole body of 
 them gradually retreating over the south-western end and 
 barrier of the valley. In our position we now saw the diftcrent 
 gorges in the chain of Mont Blanc lengthwise, Charmontlere, 
 Du Bois, and the Glacier du Bosson protruding its whole enorme 
 from the valley. The grand Mulct, with the vast snow-depths 
 and crevasses of Mont Blanc were revealed to us. That sublime 
 summit was now for the first time seen in its solitary superior- 
 ity, at first appearing round and smooth, white and glittering 
 with perpetual snow, but as the sun in his higher path cast 
 shadows from summit to summit, and revealed ledges and 
 
 =s^isr'-
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 chasms, wc could sec the smoothness hroken. Mont Blanc is 
 on the rl^ht of the valley, looking up from the Col de Balme; 
 the left range hciug much lower, though the summit of the 
 Buct is nearly 10,000 feet in height. Now on the Col de Balme 
 we are midway in these suhlime views, on an elevation of 7000 
 feet, without an intervenhig harrier of any kind to interrupt 
 our sight. 
 
 On the Col itself we are hetween two loftier heights, hoth of 
 Avhich I ascended, one of them being a ridge so sharp and steep, 
 that though I got up without much danger, yet on turning to 
 look about me, and como down, it was absolutely frightful. A 
 step either side would have sent me sheer down a thousand feet; 
 and the crags by which I had mounted upward appeared so 
 loosely perched as if I could shake and tumble them from their 
 places by my hand. The view in every direction seemed in- 
 finitely extended, chain behind chain, ridge after ridge, in 
 almost endless succession. 
 
 But the hour of most intense splendour in this day of glory 
 Avas the rising of the clouds in Chamouny, as we could discern 
 them like stripes of amber floating in an azure sea. They 
 rested upon, and floated over, the successive glacier gorges of 
 the mountain range on either hand, like so many islands of the 
 blest, anchored in mid heaven below us; or like so many radi- 
 ant files of the white-robed heavenly host floating transversely 
 across the valley. This extended through its wliole length, 
 and it was a most singular phenomenon; for through these 
 ridges of cloud we could look, as through a telescope, down into 
 the vale, and along to its farther end; but the intensity of the 
 light flashing from the snows of the mountains, and reflected 
 in these fleecy radiances, almost as so many secondary suns, 
 hmig in the clear atmosphere, was well nigh blinding. 
 
 The scene seemed to me a fit symbol of celestial glories; and 
 I thought, if a vision of such intense splendour could be arrayed 
 by the divine power out of mere earth, air, and water, and 
 made to assume such beauty indescribable at a breath of the 
 wind, a movement of the sun, a slight change in the elements, 
 what mind could even dimly and distantly form to itself a con- 
 ception of the sjjloiidours of the world of heavenly glory. 
 
 M 

 
 GRACE AND NATURE. 
 
 83 
 
 ~4^ i 
 
 And if it sometimes blinds us to look even at earthly glories 
 steadily, what training and purifying of the soul must it re- 
 quire to look at God and his glory! I love the spirit of the 
 Poet Cowper in his communion with nature; so heai'tfelt, so 
 simple, so truly Christian. It is the spirit not of mere senti- 
 mentalism, nor merely a refined taste, nor of a powerful imagi- 
 nation only, nor merely of tender and elevated thought, of which 
 you may find so much in the pages of Wordsworth, but of pure, 
 heartfelt devotion, of sincere and humble piety, bringing you 
 directly to God. 
 
 ' These are thy glorious works, thou Source of Good, 
 How dimly seen, how faintly understood ! 
 Thine and upheld by thy paternal care, 
 This universal frame, thus wondrous fair." 
 
 Alas! how many are the persons who love to look at nature, 
 but do not love to look at nature's God. This is the case 
 certainly with many of those who travel in Switzerland. In- 
 deed it is the case with every man naturally, for this is natural 
 religion. 
 
 " The landscape has his praise, 
 But not its Author. Unconcerned who formed 
 The Paradise he sees, he finds it such, 
 And such well pleased to find it, asks no more." 
 
 And yet, there could not be a discipline better fitted to lead 
 the heart to God, as well as to invigorate the mind, and inspire 
 it with new and elevated views of the Divine Glory, than the 
 discipline of travel among the regions of the Alps, The atmo- 
 sphere is as bracing to the mind as it is to the body; and 
 these stupendous scenes are as good for the heart as they arc 
 for the mind, if they be but rightly studied. But it is not 
 mere taste that will sanctify them. Mere cultivated taste is a 
 cold commentator on the works of nature; as unfit for such an 
 office as mere learning without piety for the office of a teacher 
 of the word of God. There are two books of God, two revela- 
 tions; they are both open before us, God's word on the ono 
 side, and sun, moon, and stars, seas, vales, and mountains 
 throughout the year, with our own mortal and immortal frame, 
 so fearfully and wonderfully made, on the other.
 
 84 WANDERINGS OF A TILGUIM. j^l 
 
 Now, whoever loves to read one of these hooks, hecause God 
 made it, will love to read the other, and find God in it. But 
 this is the teaching of- Grace, not Nature. Nature may teach 
 men to he astronomers, threading the spheres, and viewing 
 their stations, surveying the stars, as if among them they de- 
 signed to make a purchase. Nature may teach men to he 
 subtile chemists, poring among the principles of things, and 
 following the traces of death, and the laws of matter. But 
 nature alone brings not man to God; " the homely nurse dotli 
 all she can," but she cannot make her foster-child love her 
 Creator! 
 
 " What hath not man sought out and found 
 But his dear God ? who yet his glorious law 
 Embosoms in us, mellowing all the ground 
 ^Yith showers and frosts, with love and awe; 
 So that we need not s.iy, whcro's this comm.and? 
 Poor man I thou scarchest round 
 To find out Death, but missest Life at hand ?" 
 
 (jEORGE IlEnBERT. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 STARTING FOR THE TOUR AROUND MONT RLANC. 
 
 When you hear the guides speak of making the Tour of Mont 
 Blanc, you are apt to think of a pleasant circle at the base of 
 the mountain, where, without much terror of its storms or 
 down-rushing armies of glaciers and avalanches, you can always 
 keep it in sight, and tread softly as in the Vale of Chamouny. 
 This is a great mistake ; for the Tour of ilont Blanc takes 
 you across the great St. Bernard, up the Val d'Aoste, through 
 the Allee Blanche, across the Col de la Seigne, over the Col 
 de Bonhommc, and so on by St. Gervais, a route in great part 
 on the uninhabitable extreme verge of nature's life — wild, aw- 
 fully sublime, and often dangerous and utterly impracticable. 
 It is a circle of four or five days, or if you please, a week, pro- 
 vided you have pleasant weather ; if not, you may be obliged 
 to return by the way you came, leaving the untrampled glaciers 
 for the excursions of vour imap^ination. You may have the 

 
 
 y 
 
 great view of Mont Blanc from the Val d'Aoste, without tempt- 
 ing the weather or braving the perils of the high passes ; and, 
 if you choose, can stop at Courmayeur : but you will not have 
 made the tour of the mountain, nor seen the stupendous up- 
 coihng piles of glaciers, nor the white cataracts roaring down 
 among them, nor the shattered chaos of enormous rock-frag- 
 ments, as if a granite world had exploded. It is, without any 
 exaggeration, one of the grandest excursions in Switzerland; 
 and, through the Val d'Aoste, one of the loveliest. 
 
 It was my first pedestrian tour alone ; — it required not a 
 little courage and perseverance to set out and continue going. 
 I experienced a feeling of my dependence on God, and of Ilis 
 care as my only friend and protector, such as I have rarely 
 had. Never, even in preparing to cross the Atlantic, did I 
 feel this more deeply. This sentiment was heightened by my 
 having to leave my luggage in the care of the keeper of the 
 hotel, with directions, in case of any accident, or if he did not 
 hear from me by a certain time, to send my effects to the care 
 of Dr. Malan at Geneva. This was somewhat like making a 
 will before a long journey. My feelings were caused princi- 
 pally by my being alone, in a strange country, far from rela- 
 tives and friends, unknown. How much these circumstances 
 heighten our sense of being on a pilgrimage here below ! Pil- 
 grims, pilgrims, pilgrims ; such we are : but, in the midst of so- 
 ciety, with a thousand ties to bind us, and a thousand props to 
 support us, and many dear friends, relatives, and companions 
 with us, we do not daily feel it, daily realize it. Now lfe.lt that 
 I was a pilgrim in more senses than one, and to be alone, where 
 dano-er waits upon you, or when you think it does, is to be 
 brought very near to God. It is good to be among the moun- 
 tains, alone — good, both for the mind and the heart. Not that 
 a man is nearer to heaven, in place, upon the mountain tops, 
 than at his own fire-side, though nearer the blue sky and the 
 stars. It makes one think of Milton : 
 
 " He that hath light within his own clear breast 
 May sit i' the centre and enjoy the day. 
 But ho that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
 Benighted walks under the mid-day sun ; 
 Himself ia his own dungeon." 
 

 
 86 
 
 WANDEIUNOS OF A PILGRLM. 
 
 Just 60, lie that hath the spirit of heaven witl'.in him walks 
 upon the Delectable Mountains, though he he working in a 
 coal-mine, or following the plough a-field in a rainy day; while 
 ho with the spirit of earth hath his soul chained in Plato's 
 cave, though his feet be treading the heights of Monte Rosa in 
 the sunrise. We must be above the world while in the world, 
 or we shall not be above it when out of it. 
 
 But it is not without a purpose that we are told in the Scrip- 
 tures of our blessed Lord's love of the mountains and of soli- 
 tude, lie went apart into a mountain, to pray ; he withdrew 
 himself into a desert place, and there prayed ; he went out in- 
 to the wilderness, and prayed ; he went up into a mountain to 
 pray, and continued all night in prayer to God; he went up 
 into a mountain to pray, when he was transfigured, and on the 
 mountain his disciples saw his glory. When the soul is fitted 
 for it, there is a natural connection between the mountain-tops 
 and prayer and spiritual glory. It was not as a monk, not as 
 quitting the world, that our Saviour frequented the mountains, 
 but to fit himself the better to endure the world's atmosphere, 
 and fulfil his life of suifering love to its inhabitants. 
 
 I would not counsel a man to make the tour of Switzerland 
 alone ; it is better to have a friend ; but sometimes it is good, 
 both for the mind and heart, to be for days upon the moun- 
 tains, alone. Nevertheless, when you get a little accustomed 
 to it, it needs much watchfulness and some effort, even there, 
 not to forget God. A scene of overwhelming sublimity lifts 
 the mind and heart directly to him, but you want to be musing 
 of him, not merely when the mountains make you think of him, 
 when, with a silent but irresistible voice of power and glory 
 they say to you, God ! but also amidst more humble scenes — 
 in the valleys, with the flowers, by the brooks, beneath the 
 trees, or where, upon the dusty highway, your mind tm-ns in 
 upon itself. 
 
 Not having been prepared for this journey when I left Ge- 
 neva, I was forced to borrow a military knapsaok from my 
 former guide, in which I could put a few articles of clothing 
 and toilette suflicieut for my tour, and carry it Mith ease upon 
 my shoulders. I queried much whether I should take a cloak. 

 
 THE SOLITUDE OF MOUNTAINS. 
 
 but the weather was fine, and would likely he so warm on the 
 other side of the mountains that it would only prove burden- 
 some ; besides, it vreighed almost a ton. I determined to leave 
 it, and to take only an umbrella. So, with a long Alpen-stock 
 shod with iron, my knapsack on my shoulders, and a little 
 edition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans in my waistcoat-pocket, 
 I started off, feeling, after I had got fairly started, very inde- 
 pendent. I went by the Tete Noire. After an hour or so, 
 finding my knapsack very heavy, I got a lad by the wayside to 
 carry it for me for a season, a thing which a pedestrian may 
 always do without diminishing his self-complacency as to his 
 own powers of endurance, or compromising his dignity, or sus- 
 pecting himself of laziness ; and, certainly, until he gets accus- 
 tomed to his load, it is a great relief to borrow another pair of 
 shoulders. 
 
 There is one good thing in carrying your own knapsack ; 
 when you throw it off at evening, you feel so light from the 
 relief that your other fatigues are quite forgotten ; you could 
 almost set out for another day's walk. It seems as though 
 some heavenly power had put wings to your shoulders. I do 
 not expect, by this argument, to persuade any man to walk all 
 day with a weary fardel on his back ; it would be something 
 like "-etting sick in order to enjoy the pleasure of convalescence; 
 but certainly, if one feels compelled to walk under a burden, 
 what I have mentioned is some consolation and encourage- 
 ment. Just so, it may be, that those who have the heaviest 
 burdens to bear through life will be the lighter for them when 
 they lay them down at evening in the grave. Certainly they 
 will, if the burdens were borne for Christ, if they came upon 
 the shoulders in his service, or if they were carried in sweet 
 cheerful submission to him, because he laid them there. Men 
 will be lighter and brighter for all such burdens for ever and 
 ever ; lighter and brighter in their path of glory and happi- 
 ness through eternity than those whose knapsack of evils was 
 borne for them by others, or who had none to bear for Christ. 
 Yes, burthened pilgrim, this light affliction worketh an exceed- 
 ing and eternal weight of glory. 
 
 But there is another kind of burden ; hajipy indeed should 
 
 m^ 
 
 -^i€S~-
 
 ^ 
 
 ■n-AXUEIUNGS OF A I'lLGIlLM. 
 
 we all be if \vc could get rid of it both now and for ever. This 
 load on one's back makes the lonely traveller think of Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim from the city of Destruction ; but here among the 
 mountains the pedestrian is very different from the Pilgrim to- 
 wards Zion ; for the spiritual traveller cannot get anotlier per- 
 son, whether man or boy, to carry his load of sins for him ; he 
 must bear his burden himself, till he comes to the cross, and 
 there is but one Being who can take it off for him, but One 
 who has power or love enough to bear it for him. Even if 
 other men could bear our sj)iritual burdens, they would not bo 
 loving enough to do it. There is indeed a system in the world 
 that pretends to take off this load, that has its sin-porters, if 
 I may so call them, in its priests, who will both take the res- 
 ponsibility of a man's conscience and remove the burden of sin 
 whenever it presses ; but for all this the burden is worse in the 
 end. It is infinitely better to bear it and to feel it until Christ 
 takes it off, than to be insensible to it, or go to false means to 
 get rid of it. 
 
 I had not been travelling more than two hours when the 
 clouds began to roll down the valley of Chamouny behind me, 
 threatening a rainy day. The Valorsine, with its green slopes 
 and clustered chalets, opened upon me. As I passed through 
 the village it began to rain, but I raised my umbrella and 
 trudged on. It rained harder, and grew dark and chilly. And 
 now I began to think myself very imprudent for leaving my 
 pilot-coat behind me, and even to question whether it were not 
 wrong for an invalid to undertake at all a pedestrian tour in 
 this manner, and, indeed, would it not be best to go back to 
 Chamouny at once, and take a different mode of travelling ? 
 But no, thought I, I will at least get to the Tete Noire, even 
 in the rain, and there we can determine. But I was getting 
 wet, and the prospect Avas quite desolate. One or two groups 
 of travellers passed me in the"\vay to Chamouny; they would 
 get speedily to comfortable quarters. 
 
 Now I met a peasant going home from the fields on account 
 of the weather. You'll get very wet, said he, but if you'll turn 
 back with me a little way, I have a good cloak that I will 
 lend you, and will, if you wish, carry your knapsack for you, 
 
 ^ 
 
 -^^M>
 
 cvftii to Martigny, where we can easily arrive by the evening. 
 1 turned back with him at once, to see at least what his car- 
 riqne, as he called it, should be, and found that he had got 
 really a magnificent greatcoat of drab broadcloth, with nearly 
 twenty capes, which would shield me effectually from the rain, 
 and carry me dry and warm at least through the Tete Noire. 
 He had a far more precious treasure in a sweet little daughter 
 waiting for him in the rude house to which he carried me, 
 where I sat down amidst a profusion of rakes, ploughs, grind- 
 stones, and rural implements unknown, that would have done 
 honour to a New-England farm-house, while the peasant dis- 
 appeared in a sort of hayloft above, to put on his " go-to-meet- 
 ing clothes," for the voyage to Martigny. Meanwhile I array- 
 ed myself in the carrique, and we set out. lie told me he 
 bought the coat at Paris for only thirty-five francs ; and in all 
 likelihood he would get the value of it again and again by 
 thus lending it to storm-beaten travellers. Now I began to take 
 back what I had said to myself about imprudence. If I can 
 borrow a cloak in the Tete Noire, thought I to myself, so I can 
 on the Grand St. Bernard, and elsewhere, if need be. What 
 happens one day may happen the next. AUons ! we'll not turn 
 bact to Charaouny yet. 
 
 " Some few that I have known in days of old, 
 Would run most dreadful risk of catching cold ; 
 While you, my friend, whatever wind should blow 
 Might travel Alpland safely to and fro. 
 An honest man, close buttoned to the chin, 
 Broad cloth without and a warm heart within." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CASCADE BAHBERINA AND PASS OF THE TETE NOIRE. 
 
 My peasant guide was very reasonable in his demands, and ex- 
 ceedingly kind and communicative. He carried me by a side 
 path to a scene of great beauty and grandeur, which travellers 
 often miss seeing, because it is off the grand route and difiicult 
 to find, and many of the guides cither do not know it, or do
 
 
 WANDEUINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 1r^ 
 
 90 
 
 , nut wish to take the additional trouble of getting to it. This 
 was the Cascade Barberina, one of the grandest water-falls in 
 Switzerland. The torrent of water comes down from the gla- 
 ciers of the Buet, and makes a sudden and most terrific plunge 
 sliccr over the precipice into a black jagged mountain gorge, 
 whicli the ancients would have celebrated as one of the mouths 
 of hell, with a mighty roar and crash that is almost stunning. 
 On this side you stand upon a green knoll, a little grassy moun- 
 tain, of which the vei-dure is perpetually wetted by the spray, 
 and holding on by your staff lirmly thrust into the ground, or 
 by a tree on the borders of the gorge, you may look down into 
 the roaring depths, see the cataract strike, and admire the con- 
 flict of the waters. The accompaniments are very grand; 
 banging masses of verdant forest on either side, but above, 
 enormous, snow-covered mountains, out of which, from the 
 mouth of a craggy gorge bursts at once upon you the raging 
 torrent. In a sunny day you would have rainbows arching 
 the torn rocks glittering in the spray, and dancing over the 
 impcarled grass where you are standing. But even amidst the 
 rain, as I was, in my drab greatcoat, it was a scene of great 
 sublimity. 
 
 Coming to it, my guide carried me along the side of a moun- 
 tain across the path of a tourmente, or mountain whirlwind, the 
 marks of Avhich, in themselves alono, are worth going far to 
 see. A circuitous belt of the largest trees amidst the pine and 
 fir forest that clothes the mountain, are stripped of branches, 
 verdure, and sometimes bark, as if scathed by lightning, while 
 others are broken and twisted, as you might twist a wnllow 
 sapling. The fury of these tourmentes is inconceivable; a tra- 
 veller overtaken by one of them would inevitably be lost; they 
 would almost tear the crags themselves from the mountains. 
 A similar scene is presented in the valley up which you pass 
 from Chamouny to see the Cascade des Pelerines, marking in 
 this case the passage of an avalanche, of which the wind pro- 
 duced by its swift flight has swept, torn, and broken a thousand 
 trees in the same manner. At first you can hardly credit it, 
 but you are convinced that it was the wind, and not the waves 
 of the avalanche, by seeing some trees broken short ofi", half 
 
 
 rrgfe- 
 
 ^
 
 ^A^^^^^A 
 
 PASS OF THE TETE NOIRE. 
 
 way down, as if tlie storm-angel Lad twisted and snapped them 
 asunder with careful hands, close heside other trees prostrated 
 and stripped, and others still standing. The traveller gazes 
 upon these mute spectacles, mute, hut fiercely eloquent, with 
 deep interest. 
 
 I IJ From the Cascade Barberina, we regained, by a romantic 
 path, the grand route, which we could see far beneath us. 1 
 was hungry and tired, and it was high time to be so. My 
 guide carried me into a mountain chalet, incomparably ruder 
 than his own, built in the conical shape of a tent, with a hole 
 at the top, so that the smoke might escape without the trouble 
 of a chimney. As I stood to dry my clothes at the verge of 
 the circle of stones where the fire was kindled, the rain came 
 down upon me from the aperture above, demonstrating the 
 comfort of the arrangements. The wigwam was inhabited by 
 a very large family, and they talked in their native patois, of 
 which I could not understand a syllable. They set before me 
 a bowl of boiled milk, with black bread so hard that one of its 
 large round loaves might have served Achilles for an embossed 
 shield, or Ajax to play at quoits with. Neither had it the pro- 
 perty of sweetness any more than of softness, but it is whole- 
 some, and would keep for ages. 
 
 As we passed on from thence, we could discern a solitary 
 umbrella at the bottom of the valley, with a traveller beneath 
 it; my peasant told me it was the curate of the parish. If ho 
 was visiting his people on that rainy day, I am sure he deserved 
 credit, though if I could travel for health and pleasure, it was 
 quite obvious that he might likewise, to do good. We were 
 now entered upon the savage grandeur of the pass of the Tete 
 Noire. 
 
 There is a combination of grand and beautiful elements in 
 this pass, which it is very difiicult to ai'ray in language, and 
 the painter can transfer to his canvass only little by little the 
 wonders of the scene. Abrupt precipices, frowning at each 
 other across the way like black thunder clouds about to meet; 
 enormous crags overhanging you so far, that you tremble to 
 pass under them ; savage cliffs looking down upon you and 
 watching you on the other side, as if waiting to see the moun-
 
 ■^w 
 
 % 
 
 tail! fall upon you; a torrent thundering beneath you; masses 
 of the richest verdure flung in wild drapery over the whole 
 gorge; galleries hewn in the rock, by which you pass the an- 
 gular pci-pendicular cliffs as in rocky hammocks swung in the 
 air; villages suspended above you, and looking sometimes as if 
 floating in the clouds; snowy mountain ridges far above these; 
 clusters of chalets almost as far below you, with the tinkling 
 of bells, the hum of voices, and the roar of the torrent fitfully 
 sweeping up to you on the wind ; these are the combinations 
 presented to you in the Tete Noire. 
 
 It is a concentration and repetition in miniature of some of 
 the grand features of the Simplon, but at the same time rich 
 and beautiful beyond description. I enjoyed this passage much, 
 although in the rain; and when I got to the solitary Aubergc 
 in the midst of all this grandeur, I resolved to go no farther, 
 but to Avait one night at least for fair weather. A party of 
 English ladies with one gentleman passed me just then. I told 
 him I did not like to leave such scenery without beholding it 
 by sun-light. You are right, said he, to wait, being alone, but 
 we must move on. Poor man! It was but too evident he en- 
 vied me my loneliness and independence. Just at this moment 
 he could not well do otherwise ; indeed, there is a comfort in 
 being alone, sometimes ; I certainly congratulated myself that 
 I was not in the place of that gentleman, to go dripping behind 
 the ladies in such a forlorn mist, through some of the finest sce- 
 nery in the world. Had there been ladies in my case, we too 
 should have had to move on, so there may possibly sometimes 
 be something gained by being a single man. For, if I had 
 been double or triple, the triplicity could hardly have been ac- 
 commodated, or would have thought it necessary, as this En- 
 glish party did, to go farther, and perhaps fare worse. So on 
 they Avent, through the mist and rain, doubting whether to ad- 
 mire the scenery, or to regret that they could not see it; while 
 for me the good people at the Auberge kindled a fire, prepared 
 me a comfortable supper with plenty of strawberries and cream, 
 and gave me a comfortable bed. In strawberry and cream 
 time, a traveller fares grandly in Switzerland, and I managed 
 to bear the disappointment of a stormy evening with much
 
 / 
 
 more equanimity than if I had teen clambering the precipices 
 on the way to Martigny. 
 
 The snow fell upon the mountains during the night, and the 
 next day it was fine weather, the air as clear as crystal, and 
 the sun shining as if just created. Sudden and beautiful was 
 the revelation of the mountains, hidden in mist the evening 
 before, now glittering far down even to the fields of summer 
 verdure, in their robe of new fallen snow, and far up into the 
 heavens, Avith their crown of glaciers. The pass of the Tete 
 Noire now changes its direction into the valley of Trient, at 
 the foot of the Forclaz and the Col de Balme. From the Au- 
 berge in the Tete Noire to the Forclaz, it was about two hours, 
 a constant scene of grandeur and picturesqueness. Ascending 
 to the Forclaz, the pinnacles from one of which a most unfor- 
 tunate young German traveller a few years ago fell and lost 
 his life, are directly before you, the hamlets and valley of Trient 
 arc beneath your feet; but a step or two onward carries you to 
 a point, where, on the other side, one of the most extensive and 
 beautiful views in Switzeidand is instantaneously revealed. 
 This is Martigny and the great valley of the Rhone, shut in 
 by two mighty mountain ranges, and visible for many leagues 
 lip the Simplon without interruption or obstruction to your view. 
 As you descend towards ^Martigny, the view becomes richer and 
 more distinct, without losing any of its vastness. 
 
 Just before reaching the valley, I turned off into a village 
 path, which the peasants pointed out to me, crossing a most 
 luxuriant and lovely ravine with pleasant embowered cottages, 
 and joining the route of the Grand St. Bernard a short'distancc 
 up the valley of the Drance; by which cross-cut I both enjoyed 
 a more romantic, unfrequented way, and avoided the necessity 
 of travelling down to Martigny, gaining some miles besides. 
 An admirable road runs up this valley, following the course of 
 one of the most furious torrents of the Alps. The villages 
 which you pass through are, I think, much better looking in 
 general than those in the valley of the Rhone. I had made 
 this remark without being aware under what government they 
 were subject; not knowing that I had gone from one state into 
 another. Supposing thiit I was still in the dominions of the 
 
 [^ 
 
 m 

 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 King of Sartliuia, I asked a peasant, who was carrying my 
 ]cna2>saek for an hour or two, if he were not a subject of that 
 monarch, but he did not even let me get through with the 
 question, so great was his scorn at the idea. " no," exclaim- 
 ed he, " Liberty! Liberty! "We are of Suisse!" To be the sub- 
 ject of a King, and especially the King of Sardinia, seemed to 
 liim equivalent to the want of liberty, if not to slavery. 
 
 The carriage road over the Grand St. Bernard stops at a 
 place called Liddes, from whence, or from St. Pierre, about 
 three miles farther, mules are usually taken. A little beyond 
 St. Pierre is the boundary of the Papal states, and about two 
 hours further you reach the Cantine, or Auberge, the last ha- 
 bitable spot in a most desolate defile, utterly bare of trees and 
 shrubs, gloomy and wild, just where the steep ascent of the 
 Grand St. Bernard commences. I had intended getting to the 
 Hospice that night, but it was altogether too late, even if I had 
 had a guide: without a guide it would have been rashness and 
 folly to have attempted it. They gave me, at this wild spot, 
 a good supper, an excellent bed, and a good breakfast, and 
 were very moderate in their charges. The day had been a fa- 
 tiguing one, though crowded with scenes of grandeur and 
 beauty from morning till night, and closed with a sunset of 
 such exquisite loveliness, such richness and magnificence, as it 
 is very rare to witness. No language can describe the beauty 
 of the outlines and slo2)cs of the mountains in the setting sun, 
 nor the splendour of the distant snow-covered ranges and sum- 
 mits. I could have stood for hours to watch them, and a 
 great enjoyment it is to have them always before you, to mark 
 their changes as you travel, and to take in leisurely every fea- 
 ture of beauty in the region you are crossing. I had passed 
 to-day from the extreme of luxuriance and richness in nature, 
 to that of desolation and wild sublimity. The beauty of the 
 landscape at Orsieres deserves many words, if they could paint 
 it, and the extraordinary richness of cultivation far up the moun- 
 tain sides, sometimes to their very summits, makes them so 
 lovely, that the eye is never satisfied with gazing. And often 
 there are villages and clustered chalets so lofty, that you won- 
 der if the airy inhabitants ever have any communication with 
 the world below. 
 
 r^ 
 
 Iflc.^^'.
 
 I'ASS OF THE GRAND ST. BERNARD. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ■^l 
 
 \ 
 
 PASS OF THE GRAND ST. BERNARD. 
 
 In the year 1800 Napoleon crossed the Grand St. Bernard 
 with his army, dragging their artillery, and a fearful task they 
 must have had of it, in the month of May, especially through 
 the forest and over the friglitful precipices of St. Pierre. They 
 unlocked the cannon from their stocks, put them in the hollow 
 trunks of trees, and then one-half the battalions dragged them 
 up the mountain, while the other half carried the arms and ac- 
 coutrements of their comrades, with stores of provisions for five 
 days. Tlie road at this day scales the face of the deep ravine 
 over the Drance, having been cut boldly out of the perpendicu- 
 lar rock, wide enough for a carriage; so that a man passing 
 now so easily can scarcely conceive the difficulties with which 
 Napoleon had to contend in scaling the precipices. For some 
 distance up from St. Pierre, the road liesthroiigh the fir forest, 
 where Napoleon came so near losing liis life by slipping from 
 his mule on the verge of the tremendous precipice. Perhaps 
 he was dreaming of the battle of Marengo, but he was saved 
 from falling over into the gulf only by his guide, who caught 
 him by the coat and thus preserved him. The guide w^as re- 
 warded witli a thousand francs, and it would not have been 
 amiss if the tailor who made the consular coat had been pen- 
 sioned likewise, for if that had given way the French would 
 never have had an Emperor. The mountains here on both 
 sides ai-e hung with verdure, but this speedily ceases — the 
 larches and the pines become stunted, and at length disappear, 
 leaving nothing but a covering of mosses and patches of grass, 
 and at last the bare gray crags, declivities, and pinnacles of rock, 
 or mounts of snow. You pass through difficult rugged defiles, 
 and across rich mountain pasturages, watered by streams from 
 the glaciers, which shoot their steep icy masses down into con- 
 tact with the verdure on the plains. 
 
 My next morning's walk of about three hours brought me 
 to the celebrated Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard. Nearly 
 
 if»- 
 
 l^ 
 
 l^ 
 
 ZJs^r^
 
 WANDERINGS OF \ PJLGRIM. 
 
 half au hour of this journey is over ice and snow. Tlic path 
 circles the precipices, and crosses the torrent, and scales tho 
 declivities in such a manner, that in winter, when the deceitful 
 masses of snow have covered the ahysses, the passage mnst he 
 very dangerous. A few wooden poles are stuck up here and 
 there, to mark the way, hut at such intervals, that if, in a misty 
 dav, or when the snow has covered the foot-path, you should 
 undertake to follow them, you Avould certainly fall. Indeed, I 
 do not see how there can he any passage at all in the winter, 
 when the snow falls to such a depth, that around the huilding 
 of the Hospice it is from twelve to twenty feet. Wo be to the 
 poor traveller. overtaken in a storm! How any man can ever 
 escape in such a case is a marvel — but the dogs and monks 
 have saved many a Avanderer ready to perish. 
 
 There are some dreary and solemn memorials of the dangers ^ 
 of the way, in certain little low-browed stone huts like ice- 
 houses, planted here and there a little out of the path, the use 
 of which a traveller would hardly conjecture in fair weather, 
 though he might learn it from fearful experience in a storm. 
 The guides will tell him that these are refuges in extreme peril, 
 or in cases of death are used as temporory vaults, in which the 
 stiffened bodies of unfortunate travellers are deposited, till they 
 can be finally laid, Avith book and bell, and funeral hymns, and 
 solemn chantings, in the stranger's burial-place at the Hospice. 
 A man says Avithin himself, as he stops and contemplates the 
 rude, solitary building, What if I had been laid there? And 
 then, as swift as thought, he is away across the ocean, and 
 gazing in upon the happy family circle, where his place is 
 vacant, and he thinks what misery it would make there — Avhat 
 a funeral and a burial there would be in the hearts of those 
 beloved inmates, and what lasting, wasting anguish, if he 
 should die away from home, if he should perish in the storms 
 of his pilgrimage. He bows down his head and muses, and 
 the faces of his home look him in the face, and those loving 
 eves of Mother and Sister are on him, and he hears his name 
 breathed at the family altar in fervent prayer. But ah, how 
 many dangers to be encountered, how many thousand leagues 
 of earth and ocean to be traversed, before again he can kneel
 
 with them at that loved altar! And who can tell whether ever 
 agaiu they shall all kneel there together? This will be as God 
 pleases; but if not, shall there not be family altars in heaven 
 — altars of praise indeed and not of prayer — but grateful altars 
 still, where the dear family circle, so broken and wasted here, 
 shall be gathered agaiu, no more to be divided, in rapture, love, 
 and praise, for ever? God grant it! This hope shall be one 
 of our songs in this House of our Pilgrimage. 
 
 Nothino- can be more beautiful than the flowers which border 
 the snow and ice, are sprinkled over the rocks, sown in the 
 valleys, and spring up everywhere. Where the hardiest shrubs 
 dare not grow, these grow. The fearless little things dance 
 over the precipices, and gem the grass like stars. I am sur- 
 prised that they and the grass with them can thrive amidst 
 such constant cold: for I plucked an icicle hanging from a 
 rock over which the green moss and grass were hanging also, 
 and this in the month of August. The nights are cold, but 
 the sun has great power. The cows find pasturage in summer 
 quite up to the Hospice. 
 
 ,>. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOSPICE OP THE GRAND ST. BERNARD. 
 
 This is a bright, mild pearl of love and mercy set in the midst 
 upon the icy crown of Winter. True, it was the hand of Su- 
 perstition that placed it there, but also the voice and the feeling 
 of self-denying, active benevolence were in it. Sudden and 
 grateful to the lonely traveller, from the Alpine side, is the 
 sight of the Hospice, for its stone steps do almost hang down 
 over deep, precipitous gulfs, where a tourmente might bury you 
 for ever, even with the sweet chime of the chapel-bell dying on 
 your car amid the tempest. So near one might come to the 
 Refuge, and yet be lost. Storms arise almost as sudden as 
 Indian hurricanes, and whirling mists spring up, like dense, 
 dark fogs around a ship at sea, with jagged reefs before her: 
 and neither by storm nor mist would one wish to be overtaken 
 12 G
 
 ^U j ^ ^ I.^ 
 
 /^^^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLCniM 
 
 on this mountain, even in August, out of sight of the building. 
 So miolit one perish at the threshoUl of mercy, even as tlie 
 alorm-o'ertakcn peasant sinks down exhausted in the snow, 
 within reach of the struggling rays of light from his own cot- 
 tage window, nor wife, nor little one, shall more behold. 
 
 If a man wishes to be cheated into a complacent regard for 
 monastic institutions, let him read the ' Ages of Faith,' or go 
 with a crust of bread and a pitcher of water to pass the day 
 at the cloud-capped hermitage of Cintra, or sit down tired 
 and thankful at the pleasant table of the monks of St. Ber- 
 nard. Indeed, if all monasteries had been like this, there had 
 been more summer, and less winter in the world. 
 
 Bernard said (but not the saint that founded the Hospice). 
 '■'' Bonum est nos hie esse, quia homo vivit purius, cadit larius, 
 surgit velocius, incedit cautius, quiescit securius, moritur felicius, 
 piirgahir citius, prccmiatur copiosius. ' ' Not to trouble my readers 
 with the Latin, which has doubtless decoyed many a monk 
 into orders by its golden net-work, I shall add Wordsworth's 
 translation of this as follows : 
 
 " Here man more purely lives, less oft doth fall. 
 More promptly rises, walks with nicer heed, 
 More safely rests, dies happier, is freed 
 Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains, vrithal, 
 A brighter crown :" — 
 
 Every line of it, alas! as every word of the Latin, false; proved 
 so by the reality and by history; yet, as Wordsworth says, a 
 potent call, that hath cheated full oft the heart's desire after 
 purity and happiness. As if a man could shut out his de- 
 pravity, by shutting himself up in a cell! There is no jilace, 
 neither in the clouds, nor under the earth, nor on the moun- 
 tains, where Satan cannot find some mischief for idle hearts to do. 
 The sagacious dogs of the Hospice make as good monks as 
 their masters. Noble creatures they are, but they greeted me 
 with a furious bark, almost as deep as thunder, being nearly 
 the first object and salutation I encountered, after passing the 
 crowd of mules waiting out of doors for travellers. The dogs 
 are somewhat lean and long, as if their station were no sine- 
 cure, and not accompanied by quite so good quadrupedal fare
 
 as tlieir labours are entitled to. Probably the cold, keen air 
 keeps them thin. They are tall, large-limbed, deep-mouthed, 
 broad-chested, and looking like veteran campaigners. The 
 breed is from Spain, and most extraordinary stories are told 
 of their sagacity of intellect, and keenness of scent, yet not 
 incredible to one who has watched the psychology of doo-s even 
 of inferior natures. They are faithful sentinels in summer, 
 good Samaritans in the winter. 
 
 But I had almost asked, Why do I speak of the Summer? 
 For the deep little lake before tlxe Hospice, though on the sun- 
 ny Italian side, does not melt till July, and freezes again in 
 September, and in some seasons, I am told, is not free from 
 ice at any time. And the snow falls almost every day in the 
 year. They had had three or four inches two nights before I 
 reached the Hospice. And when the snow melts, it reveals to 
 the waiting eyes of the inmates nothing but the bare ridgy 
 backs and sharp granite needles, crags, and almost perpendi- 
 cular slopes of the mountains. Not a tree js to be seen any- 
 where, nor a sign of vegetable life, nor a straggling shrub of 
 any kind, but only patches of moss, and grass, and the flowers, 
 that spring up by a wonderful, sweet, kindly impulse out of this 
 dreariness, like instructive moral sentiments in the hearts of 
 the roughest and most unenlightened men. The flowering 
 tufts of our humanity often grow, like the Iceland moss, be- 
 neath the snow, and must be sought in the same manner. 
 These earnest, patient, quick-coming, long-enduring little flow- 
 ers on the Grand St. Bernard, are an emblem of the welcome 
 kindness of the monks. They remind one, as the foot treads 
 among them, or as you kneel down to admire and gather them, 
 of Wordsworth's very beautiful lines, very memorable: — 
 
 " The primal duties shine aloft like stars, 
 The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless. 
 Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers." 
 
 Or better still, they remind one of Cowper's sensible and beauti- 
 ful couplets : — 
 
 " Truths, that the learn'd pursue with eager thovgM, 
 Arc not important always, as dear bought ; 
 Proving, at last thouL'h told in pompous strains, 
 A childish waste of philosophic pains ;
 
 V '■ '^u5^^'- <^ ?A vs> — ^ 
 
 S^ ; 100 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A Pn-GniAl 
 
 
 ^v: 
 
 But ti-utlis, on which dcpond our main concern, 
 That 'tis our shame and misery not to lean;, 
 Shine by the side of every path we tread, 
 With such a lustre he tliat runs may read." 
 
 With these good monks the charities and primal duties are the 
 same, and they shine lilce stars, and are scattered like flowers, 
 all the year round. And it is at no little sacrifice that the 
 post is maintained, for the climate is injurious to health, and 
 the dwellers here are cut off" from human society during the 
 greater part of the year. It is true that the peopling of the 
 Hospice with an order of religieuses is now somewhat a work of 
 supererogation, since a family with a few hardy domestics could 
 keep up an auherge sufficient for travellers the year round, and 
 at much less expence; nevertheless the institution is one of 
 great benevolence, and the monks are full of cordiality and 
 kindness. A guest-chamber or hall is kept for travellers, apart 
 from the refectory of the monks, only two or three of the 
 elder and more distinguished among them have the custom of 
 entertaining the strangers. I sat down to dine with several 
 Sisters of Charity from a village on the Alpine side, when there 
 were two of the brotherhood presiding at the feast. It being 
 Friday, there was no meat, but a variety of dishes, admirably 
 dressed, and constituting a most excellent repast. The monks 
 said grace and returned thanks with much seriousness, and 
 they were pleasant and communicative in conversation. 
 
 The monks remain at the Hospice only for a limited term of 
 service. One of them told mc he had lived there for fourteen 
 years, and he pointed out another who had been there twenty. 
 In general, the brotherhood consist of young recruits, whose 
 vigorous constitutions can stand but for a few years the con- 
 stant cold and the keen air of these almost nninhabitablc 
 heights and solitudes. They enter on this life at the age of 
 eighteen, with a vow of fifteen years' perseverance. Much of 
 this time is occupied in the daily exercises of the Chapel — the 
 Itoman Catholic Liturgy and service being admirably contri- 
 ved, if strictly observed, to fill up with ritual observances, with 
 •'bodily exercise" of incense-wavings, and marchings too and 
 fro, and kneelings, and chantings, and masses, and prayers, 
 and saint-worshippings, the time which would otherwise hang 
 
 ■r^^^g^ 
 
 l\ 
 
 \ 
 
 '■S^'
 
 ^ 
 
 MONKS OF THE HOSPICE 
 
 very heavy on the monks' hands, and the time of any devotees 
 Vf^ho have nothing else to do. I asked one of the monks what 
 they found to employ themselves with in the long winters. Oh, 
 he said, we study and read. 
 
 But the Roman Catholic Theology must he more harren 
 than the mountains; canon law and Popes' decretals, mingled 
 with Ave Marias, Bellarmine, and the tei-rihle conjugations in 
 the grammar of the confessional, make volumes of melancholy, 
 soul-torturing Scriptures. Even old Thomas Aquinas, Dan- 
 te's great favourite, is the granite without the flowers : and, 
 though you can here and there find great rock crystals, yet 
 these are the force of nature in spite of Rome, and not the 
 growth of Bahylou, nor of the monastic, superstitious, head- 
 telling, will-worship and discipline. Nevertheless, we will do 
 them justice. 
 
 " Record we too, with just and faithful pen, 
 That many hooded Cenobites there were, 
 Who in their private cells had yet a cai"o 
 Of public quiet ; unambitious men, 
 Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken, 
 Whose fervent exhortations from afar 
 Moved Princes to their duty peace or war : 
 And ofttimcs, in the most forbidding den 
 Of solitude, with love of Science strong, 
 How patiently the yoke of Thought they bear '. 
 IIow subtly glide its finest threads along! 
 Spirits that crowd the intellectual sphere 
 With many boundaries, as the Astronomer, 
 With orb and cycle, guides the starry throng." 
 
 They have a very nice chapel, adorned with paintings, and 
 in it is a " Tronc,''^ or charity-box, Avhere travellers who partake 
 of the hospitality of the kind monks, do ordinarily deposit alms, 
 though the shelter and Hospice are entirely Avithout charge. 
 The Hospice is spacious, and the bed-rooms for strangers are 
 very neat and comfortable. A pleasant fire is always burning in 
 the guest-hall for travellers, and it is almost always necessai-y, 
 for the air is keen in August; but all their wood must be 
 brought from the valleys below. A piano decorates this room, 
 the gift of some kind lady, with plenty of music, and some in- 
 teresting books. The records of the Hospice, or registers, I 
 
 f
 
 \ 
 
 shouUl say, of the names of visitors, abound with interesting 
 autograplis, men of science and literature, men of the church 
 and the world, monarchs and nobles, and men whose names 
 sound great, as ^ell as multitudes both of simple and uncouth 
 nomenclature, unknown to fame. 
 
 There is a valuable museum in a hall adjoining the stranger's 
 refectory, where one might spend a long time with profit and 
 delight. The collection of medals and antique coins is very 
 fine, and there are some fine portraits, paintings and engra- 
 vings. It is curious to sec what blunders the finest artists 
 will sometimes make in unconscious forgctfulness. There is 
 in the museum an admirable spiiited drawing, which bears the 
 name of Brockedon, presented by him to the monks — a sketch 
 of the dogs and the monks rescuing a lost traveller from the 
 snow. The Hospice is drawn as in full sight, and yet the^ogs, 
 monks, and travellers, are plunging in the snow at the foot of 
 «77J enormous pine-tree. Now there is not a tree of any kind to 
 be seen or to be found within several miles of the Ilospicc. 
 The engraving, however, is very fine. I am not sure that it 
 is by Brockedon; I think one of the monks told me not; but 
 it was presented by him. 
 
 The Hospice is on the very highest point of the pass, built 
 of stone, a very large building, capable of sheltering three hun- 
 dred persons or more. Five or six hundred sometimes receive 
 assistance in one day. One of the houses near the Hospice was 
 erected as a place of refuge in case of fire in the main building. 
 It is 8200 feet above the level of the sea. There are tremen- 
 dous winter avalanches in consequence of the accumulation of 
 the snow in such enormous masses as can no longer hold on to 
 the mountains, but shoot down with a suddenness, swiftness, 
 violence, and noise, compared by the monks to the discharge 
 of a cannon. Sometimes the snow-drifts encircle the walls of 
 the Hospice to the height of forty feet; but it is said that the 
 severest cold ever recorded here was only 29 degrees below zero 
 of Fahrenheit; sufficiently cold, to be sure, but not quite so 
 bad as when the mercury freezes. We have known it to be 
 35 degrees below zero in the interior of the State of !Mainc; 
 and at Bangor, one winter, it was below 40, or, rather, being 
 
 /^
 
 \l 
 
 siosKS OF TiiE nosriCE. 
 
 frozen, it could no longer Le measured. The greatest degree 
 of heat recorded at the Hospice has been 68 degrees. The 
 air always has a piercing sharpness, which makes a fire de- 
 lightful and necessary even at noon- day, in the month of Au- 
 gust. The monks get their supply of wood for fuel from a fo- 
 rest in the Val de Ferret, about twelve miles distant, not a 
 stick being found within two leagues of the convent. 
 
 It is a curious fact that on account of the extreme rarity of 
 the atmosphere at the great elevation of the Hospice, the water 
 boils at about 187 degrees of Fahrenheit, in consequence of 
 which it takes nearly as long again to cook meat, as it would 
 if the water boiled at the ordinary point of 212 degrees. The 
 fire must be kept glowing, and the pot boiling, five hours, to 
 cook a piece of meat, which it would have taken only three 
 hours to get ready for the table, if the water would have wait- 
 ed till 212. This costs fuel, so that their dish of bouilli makes 
 the monks consume an inordinate quantity of wood in the kit- 
 chen. On the other hand, it may take less fire to boil the ket- 
 tle for tea, or to make coffee, or boil an egg. As to the baked 
 meats, we take it the oven is no slower in its work here than 
 in the valleys; but for the business of boiling they lose 25 dc. 
 grees of heat, for want of that pressure and density of the at- 
 mosphere which would keep the water quiet up to 212. Just 
 so, some men's moral and intellectual energies evaporate, or go 
 off in an untimely explosion, unless kept xmdcr forcible disci- 
 pline and restraint. 
 
 This, therefore, is but a symbol of the importance of con- 
 centrating thought and passion in order to accomplish great 
 things in a short time, with as little waste as possible. A 
 man has no increase of strength after he gets to the boiling 
 point. A man, therefore, whose energies of passion boil over, 
 before Ms thoughts get powerfully heated, may make a great 
 noise, but he will take a long time, at an expence of much fuel, 
 in doing what a man of concentration would accomplish in 
 half the time with half the ado. Some men boil over at 187 ; 
 other men wait till 212; others go still higher before they come 
 to the boiling point; and the higher they go, the greater is the 
 eaving of intellectual fuel and time. 
 
 -i^^S— 
 
 ll^
 
 "He who would do some great tiling in this short life," says 
 Foster, spcakiug of the fire of Howard's benevolence, "must 
 apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his for- 
 ces as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, 
 looks like insanity." This delay in boiling is undoubtedly a 
 great clement in decision of character, as it is in tenacity and 
 perseverance. While some men are boiling impetuously, others, 
 at a much higher point, with far greater intensity of heat, 
 keep quiet, manifest no turbulence whatever ; but, Avhen the 
 proper time comes, then they act, with a power and constancy 
 all the more effectual for their previous calmness. So it is 
 with religious feeling : that which is deepest makes the least 
 noise, but its principle and action is steadfast and intense. 
 Stillest streams oft water fairest meadows; and the bird that 
 flutters least is longest on the wing. 
 
 I believe it is some years since any persons have been lost in 
 passing the mountain, though Brockedon says that some addi- 
 tions to the sepulchre are annually made. In December 1825, three 
 domestics of the convent, together with an unfortunate traveller, 
 of whom they had gone in search w^ith their dogs in a stormy 
 time, were overwhelmed with an avalanche. Only one of the 
 dofs escaped. These humane animals rejoice in their bene- 
 volent vocation as much as the monks do in theirs. They go 
 out with the brethren in search of travellers, having some food 
 or cordials slung around their necks; and, being able on their 
 four feet to cross dangerous snow-sheets, Avhere men could not 
 venture, they trace out the unfortunate storm victims, and mi- 
 nister to their sufferings, if they find them alive, or come back 
 to tell their masters where the dead are shrouded. These 
 melancholy duties were formerly far more frequent. 
 
 The scene of greatest interest at the Hospice, a solemn, ex- 
 traordinary interest indeed, is that of the Morgue, or building 
 where the dead bodies of lost travellers are deposited. There 
 they are, some of them as when the breath of life departed, 
 and the Death Angel, with his instruments of frost and snow, 
 stiffened and embalniod them for ages. The floor is thick with 
 nameless skulls and bones and human dust heaped in confu- 
 sion. But around the wall arc groups of poor suftercrs in the 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^
 
 THE FROZEN DEAD. 
 
 w 
 
 very position in Avliich tliey were found, as rigid as marble, 
 and in this air, bj the preserving element of an eternal frost, 
 almost as uncrimibling. There is a mother and her child, a 
 most affecting image of suffering and love. The face of the 
 little one remains pressed to the mother's bosom, only the back 
 part of the skull being visible, the body enfolded in her careful 
 arms, careful in vain, affectionate in vain, to shield her offspring 
 from the elemental wrath of the tempest. The snow fell fast 
 and thick, and the hurricane wound them both up in one white 
 shroud and buried them. There is also a tall, strong man 
 standing alone, the face dried and black, but the white, un- 
 broken teeth firmly set and closed, grinning from the fleshless 
 jaws — it is a most awful spectacle. The face seems to look 
 at you from the recesses of the sepulchre, as if it would tell 
 you the story of a fearful death-struggle in the storm. There 
 are other groups more indistinct, but these two are never to be 
 forgotten, and the whole of these dried and frozen remnants of 
 humanity are a terrific demonstration of the fearfulness of this 
 mountain-pass, when the elements, let loose in fury, encounter 
 the unhappy traveller. You look at aU this through the grated 
 window; there is just light enough to make it solemnly and 
 distinctly visible, and to read in it a powerfid record of mental 
 and physical agony, and of maternal love in death. That little 
 child, hiding its face in its mother's bosom, and both frozen to 
 death; — one can never forget the group, nor the memento mori, 
 nor the token of deathless love. 
 
 m>- 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 DESCENT INTO THE VAL d'aOSTE— ^ROMSH INTOLERANCE, 
 AND THAT OF STATE AND CHURCH. 
 
 We leave the Hospice with regret, but it is quite too cold to 
 remain. The view on both sides, both the Italian and the 
 Swiss side, is very grand, though you see nothing but count- 
 less ridges of mountains. The snowy Velan is an object of 
 great magnificence. On the Italian side, wc first circle the 

 
 ^^^-^ 
 
 -41 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A I'lLGllIM. 
 
 little lake, the centre of wliicli is the Louiulary line between 
 Savoy and the Canton Vallais, within which the Hospice 
 stands. Then a rapid winding descent speedily brings the 
 traveller from the undisputed domain of ice and granite first 
 to the mosses, then the scant grass, then the mountain shrubs, 
 then the stunted larches, then the fir forests, and last the 
 luxuriant vineyards and chestnut verdure of the Val d'Aoste. 
 It were endless to enumerate the wild and beautiful windings of 
 the route, the openings from it, the valleys of picturesque beauty 
 M'hich run ofi" among the mountains, and the grandeur of the 
 view of Mont Blanc, when you again encounter it. The first 
 village from the Hospice is that of St. Remy, where the sen- 
 tinel of the Bureau carefully examined the contents of my knap- 
 sack. 
 
 Taking up my crimson guide-book, he remarked that he 
 supposed it was a book of prayer. I told him no, but showed 
 him my pocket epistle to the Romans. John Murray's guide- 
 book might very well on the continent be denominated the En- 
 glishman's prayer-book, for everybody has it in his hand, morn- 
 ing, noon, and night. What does Mr. Murray say? is the 
 question that decides everything on the road. At the inns, 
 when you come down to breakfast in the morning, besides a 
 cup of coffee, an egg, and a roll, your traveller has his Murray 
 at his plate, open at the day's route before him. If he is a 
 genuine Irishman, you may expect him to take a bite at it, in- 
 stead of his bread. And when, fatigued, you sit down at tea 
 in the evening, there is John Murray again in his scarlet bind- 
 ing. The book looked very like a mass-book to the sentinel, 
 and certainly, it being always the first thing that met his sight 
 in every pocket, trunk, or knapsack, if he made the same mis- 
 take Avith every English traveller that crossed the mountain 
 that summer that he did with me, he must have thought the 
 English a wonderfully devout people. 
 
 But perhaps, if I had told him it was my prayer-book or 
 Bible, he would have taken it away from me. For this was 
 the very place where an English gentleman, whom I afterwards 
 met at Geneva, travelling with his daughter, had their English 
 Bible and prayer-book both taken from them, in obedience to
 
 ROMISn INTOLERANCE IX SAVOY, 
 
 an edict that had just been issued by the Sardinian police, in 
 regard to all books on the frontier. lie made a great storm 
 about it, and would not give them up till he had compelled 
 the oflScer to sign a receipt for them under his own name, tell- 
 ing him at the same time that he should report the aflair to 
 the English ambassador at Turin, when he would soon know 
 if Englishmen were to be insulted in that way, The conse- 
 quence was that after his return to Geneva he received his 
 prayer-book and Bible safe and sound, restored by the autho- 
 rities. The encyclical letter of the Pope had, that season, 
 frightened the Sardinian government into unusual jealousy 
 against the Scriptures. But if I had made a detour a little 
 out of the village, I could have carried half a hundred weight 
 of Bibles into Sardinia unmolested. Strange to say, my 
 passport was not demanded, and it was only because, being on 
 foot, the passport officer did not happen to be watching when 
 I passed. 
 
 In six hours from the Hospice you reach the lovely valley, 
 where, beneath a southern sun and sky, are spread the vine- 
 yards and the Cite D'Aoste. Few scenes are more refreshingly 
 beautiful than the rich chestnut and Avalnut foliage, which marks 
 your proximity to the city; in a few hours you have gone from 
 the extreme of coldness and sterility, amidst eternal ice and 
 snow, to that of an almost tropical warmth and luxuriance of 
 vegetation. It was Saturday evening about eight o'clock, 
 when I reached the Hotel de la Vallee. The sunset was su- 
 perb, and you could see at once the Grand St. Bernard and 
 Jilont Blanc filling their different quarters of the horizon, and 
 throwing back from their crimsoned snowy summits the last 
 rays of light. My hotel I found most excellent, mine host a 
 Swiss and a Protestant, he and his family forming the only 
 four Protestant individuals in all the city. 
 
 Next after Rome, it is in the kingdom of Savo}', under the 
 Piedraontese government and administration, that tlie Romish 
 Clergy and the Jesuits have obtained the most absolute power. 
 They exclude the people, as far as possible, from the know- 
 ledge of the Scriptures, and watch against the introduction of 
 heretical books with a quarantine more strict than the laws of 
 
 ^^
 
 ^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OP A PILGRIM. 
 
 W 
 
 A 
 
 the Orient against the Plagne. Nevertheless, the labours of 
 the colporteurs and others do now and then sow the seed of 
 the word of God successfully. Then cometh the Devil and 
 taketh it away. A young Savoyard, a poor little chimney- 
 sweep, purchased one day a Testament, for which he paid ten 
 sous, and set himself immediately to read it. Delighted to pos- 
 sess the word of God, he, in his simplicity, ran to the priest, 
 to show him the good bargain he had made with his savings. 
 The priest took the book, and told the young Savoyard that it 
 came fi'om the hands of heretics, and that it was a book forbid- 
 den to be read. The peasant replied that everything he had read 
 in the book told him about Christ, and, besides, said he, it is 
 so beautiful! You shall see how beautiful it is, said the priest, 
 seizing it, and casting it into the fire. The young Savoyard 
 went away weeping. 
 
 I will be tolerant of everything, said Coleridge, except 
 every other man's intolerance. This is a good rule. The worst 
 thing in controversy is its tendency to engender an intolerant 
 spirit. To be much in it, is like eating Lucifer matches for 
 your daily food. What was intended to strike light gets into 
 the bowels, gives a man the colic, and makes him sour and 
 mad. Nay more, if such food be persisted in, it sets his tongue 
 on fire of hell, makes him a living spit-fire, a walking quarrel, 
 an antagonism incarnate. Controversy, as a religious neces- 
 sity of earnest contention for the faith once delivered to the 
 saints, is a great and sacred duty, and good and blessed in 
 its place with love, but it is bad as a habit. Without love, it 
 is a beast that throws its rider, even if he gets faii-ly into the 
 saddle, which he seldom does, for he almost always overleaps 
 it, and falls on the other side. 
 
 But, what shall be said of controversy against a system 
 that would take the Bread of Life from men's tables, and shut 
 them up in prison for distributing and reading it? Is it not a 
 sacred duty of humanity? Yea, it is ; no man can receive 
 such an account of the intolerance of this system as the follow- 
 ing (which I shall tell as it was given to me in writing,) with- 
 out a feeling of the deepest indignation. 
 
 It was of M. Pachc, of the village of Morges, in Switzcr- 
 
 '^ 
 
 'i<: 

 
 ROMISn INTOLERANCE IN SAVOY. 
 
 laud, a Minister of the Gospel, and a memLer of one of the 
 most respectable families of the whole country, who was so- 
 journing, during the summer, for his health, at the baths of 
 Aix, in Savoy. He was so ill that he was often shut up in 
 his chamber, and obliged to keep his bed. An old woman had 
 the care of him as his nurse, a creature as cunning and ma- 
 licious as she was bigoted. She soon observed, by his con- 
 versation and manner of life, that M. Paclie was a religious 
 man, although, knowing the jealousy of the priests, he had 
 prudently abstained from giving her either Bibles or Tracts. 
 This, however, did not prevent the old woman from going to 
 her priest, and telling him, it is said, at the confessional, all 
 that she had seen or heard of her patient's heresy. 
 
 The priest took the alarm, but M. Pache could not be ar- - 
 rested without some plausible pretext, and how should that be / 
 gained? Under guidance of her Confessor, the old woman 
 pretended to her patient to be filled with a very sincere and 
 earnest desire to be instructed as to the interests of her soul. 
 She entered into conversation with M. Pache, and finished by 
 bec'-o-iiio- him to give her one or two of the religious tracts 
 which she had seen upon his table. The sick man yielded to 
 her request — for who, not knowing her wicked league with the 
 priest, could have refused it? 
 
 Soon as the old woman had got possession of the tracts, she 
 ran in triumph to carry them to the priest. M. Pache was at 
 once arrested and conducted to prison. Some influential 
 friends exerted themselves to obtain his liberation, but in vain ; 
 they were told that M. Pache must wait in prison the issuing 
 of his judgment. The prisoner next addressed a petition to 
 the King of Sardinia, with whom he had been personally ac- 
 quainted, had lived with him at Geneva, had dwelt in the same 
 house with him, and studied in the same school. He received 
 for answer, the assurance that the King remembered him very 
 well, but that he could not hinder the free course of justice. 
 
 At length, after having waited a long time in vain for his 
 sentence in prison — all bail being refused to him — ho was 
 brouirht before the Senate of Chambery, and there condemned 
 to a vcar's further imprisonment, a fine of a hundred pieces of 
 
 ^'.^^- 
 
 \$p-
 
 s^^^^^ 
 
 no 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGUnf 
 
 gold, and besides, to pay the cxjicncos of the process. The 
 infamous treatment would have been still worse had it not been 
 for his personal relations with the King, and the interference 
 of some persons of high rant. 
 
 The treatment which this Minister of the Gospel received 
 while in prison was severe and cruel. They only who may 
 have visited the interior of a prison in a Romish country, and 
 especially in Italy, can imagine what M. Pache must have suf- 
 fered. During considerable space of time he was shut up iu 
 the same cell with eight banditti ! A man of admirable edu- 
 cation, of refined manners, a companion of the studies of the 
 King, resorting to the baths of Aix, for his health, is taken 
 sick from his bed, and shut up in a foul, infected dungeon, 
 with corrupt and disgusting villains, where he cannot enjoy 
 one moment's repose, nor even a corner to himself, but day 
 and night is surrounded with filthy creatures, covered witli 
 vermin ! All this for giving away a religious tract, at tlic 
 wily instigation of the priest himself! 
 
 With all this, it will scarcely be believed that out of this 
 monstrous piece of persecution and deceit the Romish Church 
 arrogated to herself the praise of great tolerance ! After M. 
 Pache had sufi"ered in prison nine or ten months, the Bishop 
 of Strasburg interfered in his favour by a pompous letter, 
 ■which spoke of " the pity and compassion of the Church," and 
 pretended to implore mercy and deliverance for a heretic justly 
 condemned ! This v/as really adding mockery and insult to 
 the punishment; but, at length, just as the period of imprison- 
 ment for their victim was expiring, M. Pache was set at liberty 
 in consideration of the application of the bishop. Of course 
 this was applauded as a proof of the compassion of the Romish 
 Church, which may well pretend to be merciful, when its very 
 acts of persecution can be turned, by the ingenuity of the 
 priests, into the strongest and most popular proofs of its to 
 lerance. Who can wonder at the appellations bestowed in the 
 Scriptures wpoii such a church? Mystery of Iniquity, Mother 
 of Abominations, and Man of Sin ! 
 
 I am bound to add, that, towards the end of his imprison- 
 aient, M. Pache obtained a remarkable alleviation of its mi- 
 
 ■^^a—' 
 
 r^
 
 UOillSII INTOLERANCE IN SAVOV. 
 
 Ill 
 
 W 
 
 series, in consequence of his former friendship with the Kino-, 
 and the solicitations and measures of some personages of high 
 rank. He obtained the favour of being transferred ft-om the 
 dungeon where he was surrounded hj such a band of malefac- 
 tors, and was put into another cell, in company with a mur- 
 derer! This was a pleasant companion for a sick man and a 
 clergyman, and a new proof of the compassions of the Romisli 
 Church, in consenting so wonderfully to ameliorate the position 
 of a heretic. 
 
 The original account of this most iniquitous procedure may 
 be found in the Archives du Christianisme. My informant 
 adds that M. Pache was condemned in virtue of a law which 
 forbids the circulation of the Scriptures and of tracts in the 
 States of the King of Sardinia. If the inhabitants of Savoy 
 have rightly informed me, he says there is in force in that 
 country a law called "the LaAV of Blasphemy," which annexes 
 the penalty of five years in the gallej'S to every attack made 
 against the Romish religion. He had himself passed a village 
 in the mountains, where a man was condemned to two years 
 in the galleys, for speaking ill of the Virgin Mary I 
 
 What a countiy is this ! what despotism of the priesthood ! 
 what degradation and trembling servitude of the people! Sure- 
 ly, every man having the lea? t regard for freedom and piety is 
 bound to exert himself to the uttermost against such a system 
 of intolerance. It is time it were brought to an end — for the 
 whole creation, where it exists, groaneth and travaileth in bond- 
 age under it. 
 
 There are two great forms of this bondage of Antichrist, — 
 the Church absorbing the State, as in the government of the 
 Papacy, and violently preventing men from worshipping accor- 
 ding to their conscience; and a State absorbing the Cluu-ch, as 
 is the case with almost every State and Church establishment, 
 and compelling men to acts of religious profession and worship, 
 when conscience tells them it is all hypocrisy. It is nothing 
 less than sacrilege and simony, which thus springs from per- 
 mitting the State to prescribe, enforce, or sustain, as a civil 
 rio-ht and duty, the form of worship in the Church. Take the 
 instance so forcibly dcsci'ibed by Col. Tronchin, of the young 
 man compelled by the laws of the Genevese National Establish-
 
 ] 12 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 incnt to CO lie 'o confirmation and the communion at an ap- 
 pointed age. Perhaps the young man is the support of Jiis 
 family, and in this case he may be shut out from employment 
 if he have not performed the sacred act, without which he will 
 hardly be able to gain bread for the subsistence of his parents. 
 Be his own life upright or debauched, be his principles relig- 
 ious or infidel, be the Church true or false, he must enter it, he 
 must accomplish the solemn formality, and the sooner the bet- 
 ter, in order for his successful entrance into the active world. 
 
 Hence, by a singular perversion, this profession of piety by 
 " the act of Confirmation," comes to be regarded by many as 
 an " act of emancipation," a sort of absolution to sin. A father 
 in the National Church, hearing his son use blasphemous lan- 
 guage, reproved him thus : Miserable boy ! you have not yet 
 communicated, and you swear like a pagan ! And it is not un- 
 usual for mothers to refuse permission to their daughters to 
 mingle in the gay amusements of the world, because, say they, 
 they are still under religious instruction, and have not j^et com- 
 inunicated ! Thus the most important of all religious rites, that 
 which constitutes the solemn profession of a Christian, becomes 
 a compulsory act even for the greatest unbelievers. A class of 
 catechumens at Geneva celebrated the day of their admission 
 to the Lord's Supper by a shameful debauch! This is but the 
 legitimate consequence of setting religion in a dependence on 
 the State. Intolerance and iri-eligion are just as sure to follow, 
 as they do when you give to the Church the power of the State, 
 and thus tempt her to persecute. 
 
 The sole remedy and safe-guard is this: Keep the Cliurch 
 and State separate. Leave the conscience alone with God. 
 Leave the Church in her dependence on the Word of God only, 
 the Grace of Christ only, and the Work of the Spirit only. 
 Here is light and liberty, glory and power. 
 
 IS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 LOWER VALLEY OF AOSTE INTO IVREA AND TURIN. 
 
 Of all my wanderings beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc, no 
 excursion was more excitingly beautiful than a return walk by
 
 LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 -«11!< 
 
 moonlight from the city of Aoste aci-oss the Grand St. Bernard, 
 and back again to Chamouny. T shall interpose it here, be- 
 cause, though in actual time it did not come within the Tour 
 of Mont Blanc, which we are now making, it is, nevertheless, 
 one of its unities, though like a wild dream interposed between 
 the realities of day. 
 
 I was on my way from Turin to Chamouny. We had left 
 that charming Piedmontese city at noon, for Ivrea, in the dili- 
 gence. The beauty of ride, especially when we began to enter 
 on the confines of the mountains, was quite indescribable. It 
 was the commencement of harvest season in September. The *( 
 softness and luxuriance of the landscape, the abundance of fruits, \ 
 flowers, and foliage, the fields entering on their autumnal rich- 
 ness, the carts pressed down with sheaves for the harvest-home, 
 the hilarity of the peasantry, the goodly fruitage, the fragrant 
 odours, and the bright light and sweetness of the Italian cli- 
 mate, made this one of the pleasantest parts of the year for 
 such an excursion. All nature was laughing' with plenty. 
 
 Ivrea is a walled market-town twelve leagues from Turin 
 containing about 8000 inhabitants, and occujjying a most i>ic- 
 turesque and lovely defile on the banks of the Doire. Tlie 
 scene by moonlight on the waters of this river, and from tlie 
 bridge, by which you enter the town, might have tempted 
 Raphael from Rome with his canvass. The place is the gate 
 to the Val d'Aoste, which extends about 75 miles, in one con- 
 tinued winding way of loveliness and sublimity, up to the very 
 glaciers of Mont Blanc. Through this valley Napoleon fought 
 his way to Marengo, in the year 1800, and Hannibal of old 
 came down by this pass of beauty into Italy, both of them be- 
 holding the scenery not through the green and peaceful colour- 
 ing of nature, but through the red and smoky atmosphere of 
 war. Earlier still, this town of Ivrea is recorded to have been 
 a slave- mart for selling the conquered inhabitants of the coun- 
 try — the brave old Salassi — 3G,000 at once, by the Romans 
 under Varro. 
 
 Nature writes nothing of all this upon the rocks and rivers; 
 but if the spirits of those armies, with their generals, eoidd ^J 
 pass by moonlight now through this region of silent, unchanged
 
 eS^A 
 
 WANDEIUXGS OF A riLGIUM. 
 
 beauty, they would sec nothing but this. Not the present, but 
 the past, woukl be before them, in processions more terrible by 
 far than glittering squadrons, with whole parks of brazen 
 throated artillery. How many places, which the traveller pas- 
 ses without thought, must constitute to some beings a memoria 
 tec/mica of a power almost as dread as to Cain's own mind 
 would have been the spot where tlie earth drank the blood of 
 Abel! 
 
 "There are many," remarks Jolin Foster, "to whom local 
 associations present images, which they fervently wish they 
 could forget; images which haunt the places where crimes have 
 been perpetrated, and which seem to approach and glare on the 
 criminal as he hastily passes by, especially if in the evening, or 
 the night. No local associations are so impressive as those of 
 guilt. It may here be observed, that as each has his own sepa- 
 rate remembrances, giving to some places an aspect and signi- 
 ticancc, which he alone can perceive, there must be an unknown 
 number of pleasing.or mournful, or dreadful associations, spread 
 over the scenes inhabited or visited by men. We pass without 
 any awakened consciousness by the bridge, or the wood, or the 
 house, where there is something to excite the most painful or 
 frightful ideas in the next man that shall come that way, or 
 possibly the companion that walks along with us. IIow much 
 there is in a thousand spots of the earth, that is invisible and 
 silent to all but the conscious individual !" 
 
 " I hear a, voice you cannot hear ; 
 I siio .1 hand you cannot sec." 
 
 All places that recall injuries done to others, or to ourselves, 
 or to God, must be, to the heart tliat hath not been visited 
 with Repentance, the habitation of Remorse. Nemesis dwells 
 there, and Erinnys with her snakes. Nor is there any help for 
 this, but in the mercy of Jesus Christ; nothing that will re- 
 move the red images of avenging Justice from the mind but 
 the washing of the guilty soul in the blood of the slain Lamb. 
 Blessed be God, that will do it for the chief of sinners. 
 
 " There is a fountain filled with blood, 
 Drawn from laimanuel's veins, 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 c^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 'k
 
 ^ 
 
 And sinners, plunged beneath tliat fiood, 
 Lose all their guilty stains." 
 
 Leaving out Mont Blanc, tlic romantic wildness and gran^ 
 dear of the Valley from Ivrea up to Aoste, about fifteen leagues 
 are more exciting than the other half of the way from Aoste 
 to Courmaj-eur. There is the utmost luxuriance comhincd 
 with sublimity, and savage desolation with beauty. E-Ich 
 vines are trellised amidst rocks, hanging out their purple fruit 
 over the precipices. The torn and thunder-rifted gorge at 
 Fort Bard and beyond, is almost equal in wildness to the Via 
 Mala in the passage of the Splugen. Precipices rise above you 
 into perpendicular mountains, Avhile a village hangs in the 
 moonlight beneath the parapet of the road on the other side, 
 and beyond and below the village, rushes the river. The com- 
 bination of Italian and almost tropical vegetation with the gran- 
 deur of these mountains, is what especially strikes the mind. 
 
 Fort Bard appears like a white castle hanging in the air. 
 It was such an impregnable position, crowning a pile of cra^rs, 
 over which alone there was any possibility of passing up or 
 down the valley, that the Austrians, who lield it in 1800, were 
 very near checking the progress of Napoleon, and so routino* 
 his army before the battle of Marengo. But the fort must be 
 carried. Some hundreds of daring soldiers scaled the danger- 
 ous and almost inaccessible mountain of the Albaredo, over- 
 hanging the castle, and there, with a single cannon, silenced 
 the dread battery which prevented all approach to the passage. 
 Then, in the conflict at midnight, the soldiers in the fort, under 
 the tire of another cannon, which was poured over their heads 
 from a belfrey near the gate, were compelled to surrender, and 
 so the storm of victory passed on, to burst upon the plains of 
 Italy. 
 
 At one of the small villages on our route, two young girls 
 took passage for Aoste, whom I could not but admire for the 
 modesty and beauty of their faces and manners. I had taken 
 the front seat or coupec of the coach, for the sake of clear 
 vision; they were obliged to take the same, because there was ^ 
 none other left, the cool night air keeping the inside seats ftdl, M 
 They seemed unwilling to acknowledge any disposition to sleep, 
 
 i|BS^
 
 ^rff. ^ 
 
 ■TT^ 
 
 116 
 
 WAXDERIXGS OF A riLGUI.M 
 
 but at length the youngest of the two fell asleep on her sister's 
 arms, and the elder reclined and slept against the corner. 
 Wlien they awoke, they betook themselves to their devotions, 
 and it was affecting to witness the simplicity and earnestness 
 with which, whenever we passed an image of the Virgin by 
 the roadside, they crossed themselves and prayed. Is it not 
 sad to have this strong religious tendency, this yearning after 
 the repose of the soul in faith, turned thus from its rightful ob- 
 ject, and perverted into a sinful superstition? 0, if the Gos- 
 pel could be clearly preached in Italy, how M'ould the people, 
 the common people, flock to the joyful sound! If Christ could 
 there be lifted up, he would draw all men unto him. The 
 Scribes and Pharisees would rage, imdoubtcdly, but the com- 
 mon people would hear him gladly, as of old. WeU ! the time 
 is coming. 
 
 Have you ever been travelling in the diligence by night 
 through a lovely country, and experienced the dilemma of tho 
 conflict between sleeping and walking at that hour of prime, 
 when the dawn is breaking, and all the processes of nature 
 arc so exquisitely beautiful, that you wish for every sense to bo 
 on the alert to watch them ? At length you decide the matter 
 by getting out in the cool morning twilight, and walking till 
 your frame is warm with exercise, and your eyes are opened. 
 A delicious cup of coflfee awaits you at the next post, and you 
 feel refreshed as if the diligence had been to you a comfortable 
 elastic mattrass, or, at the worst, a bed of heather in the wil- 
 derness, from which you rose to see the pale brow of the morn- 
 ing, as saith Dante, looking o'er the eastern cliff, lucent with 
 jewels. 
 
 " Where we then were, 
 Two steps of her ascent the night had past. 
 And now the third was closing up its wing, 
 Vtlien I, who liad so much of Adam with me, 
 Sank down upon my couch, o'crcome with sleep." 
 
 But the morning air is gently stirring the dew-laden leaves to- 
 wards the breaking dawn, and bidding them drop their coro- 
 net of pearls upon the grass, in honour of the approaching sun, 
 
 ■y^^^^ 
 
 \^
 
 ST. BERNARD BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 CPIAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE GRAND ST. BERNARD BY MOONLIGHT. — FLOOD OF 
 THE DRANCE. 
 
 It was about noon on Friday that 1 set out from Aoste on foot 
 for the Grand St. Bernard, in order, hy passing the mountain 
 that night, to make a possible day's march to Chamouny be- 
 fore the Sabbath. Mine host gave me a miserable, drunken 
 guide, a fat, bloated, hairy, savage looking wretch, whom, how- 
 ever, he recommended so highly, that between his word, and 
 my anxiety to get on in season, I was persuaded to commit my 
 knapsack to hira, and we marched. But I almost had to drag 
 the creature after me. lie would drink nothing but wine, and 
 quenched his thirst as often as he could get the opportunity; 
 he was like a full hogshead attempting to walk. Then, at the 
 
 ? '^^t— 
 
 already making the East glow like a sapphire ; and the birds 
 are singing their sweet early hymn of praise; and the stars, 
 that all night long spangled the firmament with fires, are dimly 
 withdrawing into the blue ether; and between all this, and the 
 fragrance of tlie aromatic eastern berry, if we too are not awake, || 
 and singing our morning hymn of gratitude and love, we shall ^f 
 make Nature herself ashamed of us. 
 
 What pictures of beauty are the villages that lie nestled 
 above us in the verdant nooks of the mountains ! Ah yes, in 
 the distance they are the very perfection of the romantic and 
 picturesque, but the charm disappears when you ride through 
 them as through a row of beggars on a dunghill. Both in the 
 moral and material world, so far as man mingles his work with 
 it, distance has always much to do with enchantment. Now 
 up the broad valley, the secluded city of Aoste, nigh buried 
 among mountains, opens upon us, the approach to it from the 
 south as well as the north being most beautiful, through the 
 rich foliage of magnificent chestnuts and walnuts. Romantic 
 castles crown, here and there, the crags that rise from the 
 bosom of the luxuriant vegetation.
 
 
 WAXDEIIINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 last village below tlic Hospice, he stopped aud ordered supper; 
 snjiug that thej would give him nothing but soup and water 
 on the mountain, and he chose to have something solid aud 
 palatable. The poor fellow might have got a very sufficient 
 supper at the Hospice gratis, but he could not forego his wine. 
 In order to hurry him, I took my knapsack on my own shoul- 
 ders and hastened on, leaving him to follow, if he chose. It 
 was night-fall, and we aiTived at the Hospice about eight o'clock 
 by the light of the rising moon. 
 
 The view of the lovely lake and the llospice by moonlight, 
 with the surrounding mountains, makes one of the wildest and 
 most impressive scenes that can possibly be conceived of. 
 There is a deep aud awful stillness and solemnity, with the 
 most gloomy grandeur. 
 
 " The moon, ucU nigh 
 To midnight hour belated, made the stars 
 Appear to wink and fade ; and licr broad disk 
 Seemed like a crag on fire, as up the vault 
 Iler course she journeyed." — Dante. 
 
 The day being Friday, as before, I coidd get no meat, though 
 1 had Avalked seven mortal hours and the air was keen ; not 
 even an egg, though I was actually hungry. No wonder my 
 drunkard was determined to cat at St. Remy; the devout in- 
 stinct of his stomach taught him that it was fast-day at the 
 Hospice, whii;h I had forgotten. But the coffee was delicious. 
 Such a cup of Alocha, with the richest boiled milk, I never 
 tasted. The material elements of life provided by the good 
 monks are of the best kind, and doubtless it was my fault being 
 hungry on Friday. It was a very heretical appetite, for which 
 I could not get even the absolution of an egg. 
 
 I persuaded a stout young herdsman at the Hospice to ac- 
 company me down the mountain, dismissed my drunkard, and 
 after getting quite rested and enlivened by the hosjjitable coffee 
 of the fast-keeping monks, we started about ten o'clock. Be- 
 fore leaving, I went once more over the magnificent collection 
 in the Museum Egyptiacum at the Hospice, with the gallery 
 of paintings. One of the paintings is a very remarkable piece, 
 ft blind fiddler by Espagnolctto. 
 
 ^T^J- 

 
 The mooulight descent of the mountain, in so glorious a night, 
 is an excursion of the greatest enjoyment, the air being cokl 
 and sparkling, inspiriting, and bracing the frame for exercise. 
 With what majesty and glory did the moon rise in the hea- 
 vens! With what a flood of light, faUing on the ancient gray 
 peaks, crags, and rugged mountain ridges, glittering on the 
 glaciers, shining on the white foaming torrents, gilding the 
 snowy outlines with ermines of pale fire, robing the fir-forests 
 with a vail of melancholy, thoughtful, solemn beauty ! In 
 such an hour, in the stillness of midnight, the voices of the 
 torrents, to the sky, the moon, and the mountains, go down 
 into the soul. The wild gorges, the deep, torn ravines, the 
 jagged precipices, the Avhite glaciers, are invested by this moon- 
 light of harvest, amidst their stern and awful desolation, with ^^ 
 a charm that is indescribable. The little stone refuges by the 
 path-side for storm-beaten travellers, and burial vaults for dead 
 ones, slept quietly under the moon, with theii- iron grated win- 
 dows, singular objects, of which no man could guess the pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The lonely area of the Cantine, or house of refuge, so deso- 
 late when I passed up, was now clad in grandeur and beauty. 
 The snowy peaks, rising above the more sombre and gray 
 ridges, might have been deemed the alabaster spires and domes; 
 or the encircling walls of some celestial city. The utter lone- 
 liness of the city was singularly shaded and humanized by a 
 lifrht visible so far up the mountains, that it seemed as if it 
 burned from the bottom of the glacier. My guide said it was 
 possibly a light in the cabin of some bold, industrious Chamois 
 hunter. How that single light, in the recesses below the gla- 
 cier, vails and softens the wild mountain with an imaginative, 
 almost domestic interest! 
 
 " Even as a dragon's eye, that feels the stress 
 Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp, 
 Sullenly glaring through sepulchral damp, 
 So burns yon taper mid its black recess 
 Of Mountains, silent, dreary, motionless : 
 The lake below reflOcts it not ; the sky 
 Muffled in clouds affords no company 
 To mitigate and cheer its loneliness. 
 Yet round the body of tliat joyless thing,
 
 WANDEKINGS OF A PILGIIIM. 
 
 v^ 
 
 ^Vllich sends so far its melancholy light, 
 Perhaps are seated in domestic ring 
 A gay society with faces briglit. 
 Conversing, reading, laughing; or they sing, 
 While hearts and voices in the song unite." 
 
 Our descent from tlio niount;iin was so ra])iil, that wc arrived 
 at Liddes between twelve and one o'clock, but tlie surly inha- 
 bitants would not admit us into either of the inns. Not a soul 
 -was stirring in the village. After many ineffectual attempts, 
 we roused some signs of life in the main hotel, a Aviudow was 
 cautiously raised, a nightcap appeared, and a female voice in- 
 formed us that every room in the house had been taken in pos- 
 session by a party of Englishmen for the mountains, and they 
 would not let us in. We enquired if they would make us sleep 
 in the street, but they shut the window, and Parley the porter 
 Avas not to be tempted. In the other inn wc succeeded in get- 
 ting the door open, but M'ere warned off the premises by angry 
 sleepers in their beds. Here was a predicament. There was 
 not a shed nor a bundle of straw Avhere we could lie down, but 
 we could walk all night more safely than avc could have slept 
 by the way-side ; and so I determined to go on. 
 
 The next village of Orsieres Avas about three hours' distance. 
 We could get there Avith all easebetAveen three and four o'clock 
 in the morning, and the night Avas so glorious that it might 
 have tempted a traveller to the Avalk, even had there been no 
 compulsion. For us there Avas no alternative. My guide had 
 engaged to come only as far as Liddes, but I persuaded him by 
 a ncAv bargain, and again Ave started off. So, after a Avalk of 
 thirty-nine miles, performed between twcU^e at noon and four 
 the next morning, Ave came to a conclusive halt at Orsieres, 
 Avhere I succeeded in getting a bed in a A'^ery comfortable hotel, 
 and slept soundly, as a labouring man has a perfect right to 
 do. 
 
 About nine o'clock the same morning, I Avas on my Avay 
 again Avith a new guide, forAvho could think of Avalking all the 
 Avay to Chamouny under a heavy knapsack, after forty miles 
 pedestrian travel of the preceding sixteen hours ? The Avea- 
 tlier continued delightful, and strange to say, I felt very little 
 fatigue. The air bore me up in its elastic embrace, and made 
 
 S^^^^^^^^^^S^^
 
 
 
 iy 
 
 me cheerful. It was like the effect of earnest spiritual effort 
 in the heavenly pilgrimage ; the soul grows strong and elastic 
 hy journeying upwards. The fatigue of one day fits it the 
 better for the labours of the next. My soul foUoweth hard 
 after Thee; thy right hand upholdeth me: — when there is this 
 hard labour of the Soul after God (and David's lanouao-e is 
 very emphatic), there is also the right hand of God ujiholding 
 it; it is upborne on indefatigable wings, every effort bringing 
 new strength and lightness. Very blessed is such mountain 
 air and exercise. 
 
 I am right glad to find that the wonders of Alpine scenery 
 lose none of their effect by familiarity ; nay, they grow upon 
 the mind, as it learns to appreciate and compare them. I was 
 more impressed with the features of the landscape before me 
 than I had been in coming up the valley in August. The road 
 between St. Branchier and Beauvernois presents a scene of 
 savage desolation and picturesque wildness not often rivalled, 
 even in Switzerland. 
 
 The furious torrent Drance thunders down the gorge between 
 rugged and inaccesible mountains, where there is no vegeta- 
 tion but such as has fallen from its hold, as it were, in despair, 
 and struggles in confusion. Rocks are piled up as if a whole 
 mountain had fallen with its own weight ; a gallery overhang- 
 ing the torrent is passed through, and to add some picturesque- 
 ness in a view of almost unrelenting desolation, you have a rude 
 little wooden bridge carelessly thrown across the cataract for 
 the inhabitants. A friar was leisurely fishing for trout along 
 the eddying borders of the water. 
 
 This valley was the sceno of that awful sweep of destruction 
 caused by the gathering and bursting of a great lake among 
 the glaciers, where the Drance was dammed up in the moun- 
 tains. The chaos of rocks I had passed through were memor- 
 ials of its progress. One of the boulders rolled down by the 
 cataract is said to contain 1400 square feet. This inundation 
 happeiied in ItilS. From a similar cause, the falling of great 
 glaciers from the mountains across the bed of the Drance, and 
 so damming it up, there was a much more terrible destruction 
 in the year 1595, by which more tha,n one hundred and fortj 
 
 D»- 
 
 m
 
 122 
 
 WAXIiElUXGS OF A PILGKIM. 
 
 poi-soiis perished. It is tlius tliat tlio Alpine torrents prove 
 from time to time the sources of vastly greater ruin than the 
 avalanches, overwheliuing whole regions that the avalanches 
 cannot visit, bursting whole mouutaiu ridges, and changing the 
 landmarks and the face of nature. 
 
 One of the best descriptions of the catastrojihe of 181S is 
 given by the artist Broclcedon, from the account of Escher do 
 Liuth, published in the Bihliotheque do Geneve. The reader 
 may learn from it something of the dangers that ever lie in 
 wait on Alpine life even in the midst of fancied security. 
 
 ^i 
 
 " In the spring of 1818, the people of the valley of Bagncs 
 became alarmed on observing the low state of the waters of the 
 Drance at a season when the melting of the snows usually en- 
 larged the torrent; and this alarm was encreased by the records 
 of similar appearances before the dreadful inundation of 1595, 
 which was then occasioned by the accumulation of the waters 
 behind the debris of a glacier that formed a dam, which re- 
 mained until the pressure of the water burst the dike, and it 
 rushed through the valley, leaving desolation in its course. 
 
 " In April, 181S, some persons went up the valley to ascer- 
 tain the cause of the deficiency of water, and they discovered 
 that vast masses of the glaciers of Getroz, and avalanches of 
 snow, had fallen into a narrow part of the valley, between 
 Mont Pleureur and Mont Mauvoisin, and formed a dike of ice 
 and snow GOO feet wide and 4:00 feet high, on a base of 3000 
 feet, behind M'hich the waters of the Drance had accumulated, 
 and formed a lake above 7000 feet long. M. Vcnetz, the en- 
 gineer of the Vallais, was consulted, and he immediately de- 
 cided upon cutting a gallery through this barrier of ice, 60 feet 
 above the level of the water at the time of commencing, and 
 where the dike was GOO feet thick. lie calculated upon mak- 
 ing a tunnel through this mass before the water should have 
 risen 60 feet higher in the lake. On the 10th of May, the work 
 was begun by gangs of fifty men, who relieved each other, and 
 worked, without intermission, day and night, with inconceiv- 
 able courage and perseverance, neither deterred by the daily 
 occurring danger from the falling of fresh masses of the glacier,
 
 ^:r 
 
 I 
 
 lEltRIFIC ALPINE FLOOD. 
 
 123 
 
 nor by the rapid eucrease of the water in the hike, which rose 
 62 feet in 31 daj^s — on an average nearly 2 feet each day ; but 
 it once rose 6 feet in one day, aud threatened each moment to 
 burst the dilce by its cncreasing pressure ; or, rising in a more 
 rapid proportion than the men could proceed with their work, 
 render their efforts abortive, by rising above them. Sometimes 
 dreadful noises were heard, as the pressure of the water detach- 
 ed masses of ice from the bottom, vfhich, floating, presented so 
 much of their bulk above the water as led to the belief that 
 some of them were 70 feet thick. The men persevered in their 
 fearful duty without any serious accident, and, though suffer- 
 ing severely from cold and wet, and surrounded by dangers 
 which cannot be justly described, by the 4th of June they had 
 accomplished an opening 600 feet long ; but having begun their 
 work on both sides of the dike at the same time, the place where 
 they ought to have met was 20 feet lower on one side of the 
 lake than on the other: it was fortunate that latterly the en- 
 crease of the perpendicular height of the water was less, owing 
 to the extension of its surface. They proceeded to level the 
 highest side of the tunnel, and completed it just before the 
 water reached them. On the evening of the 13th the water 
 began to flow. At first, the opening was not large enough to 
 carry ofi' the supplies of water which the lake received, and it 
 rose 2 feet above the tunnel ; but this soon enlarged from the 
 action of the water, as it melted the floor of the gallery, and 
 the torrent rushed through. In thirty-two hours the lake sunk 
 10 feet, and during the following twenty-four hours 20 feet 
 more; in a few days It would have been emptied ; for the floor 
 melting, and being driven off as the water escaped, kept itself 
 below the level of the water within ; but the cataract which 
 issued from the gallery, melted and broke up also a large por- 
 tion of the base of the dike which had served as its buttress : 
 its resistance decreased faster than the pressure of the lake 
 lessened, and at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th of June 
 the dike burst, and in half an hour the water escaped through 
 the breach, and loft the lake empty. 
 
 " The greatest accumulation of water had been 800,000,000 
 of cubic feet; the tunnel, before the disruption, had carried off 
 
 ^>V
 
 12-i 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIlIM. 
 
 nearly 330,000,000— Escher says, 270,000,000; but lie neglect- 
 ed to add 60,000,000 which flowed into the lake in three days. 
 In half an hour, 530,000,000 cubic feet of water passed through 
 the breach, or 300,000 feet per second ; which is five times 
 greater in quantity than the Rhino at Jjaslc, where it is 1300 
 English feet wide. In one hour and a half the water reached 
 Jlartigny, a distance of eight leagues. Through tlio first 
 70,000 feet it passed Avith the velocity of 33 feet per second — 
 four or five times faster than the most rapid river known ; yet 
 it was charged with ice, rocks, earth, trees, houses, cattle, and 
 men ; thirty-four persons were lost, 400 cottages swept away, 
 and the damage done in the two hours of its desolating power 
 exceeded a million of Swiss livres. All the pcoide of the val- 
 ley had been cautioned against the danger of a sudden irrup- 
 tion ; yet it was fatal to so many. All the bridges in its course 
 were swept away, and among them tlic bridge of Mauvoisin, 
 Avhich was elevated 90 feet above the ordinary height of the 
 Drancc. If the dike had remained untouched, and it could 
 Jiave endured the pressure until the lake had reached the level 
 of its top, a volume of 1,700,000,000 cubic feet of water would 
 liave been accimiulatcd there, and a devastation much more 
 extensive must have been the consequence. From this greater 
 danger the people of the valley of the Drance were preserved 
 by the heroism and devotion of the brave men who effected the 
 formation of the gallery, under the direction of M. Vcnetz. I 
 know no instance on record of courage equal to this ; their 
 risk of life was not for fame or for riches — they had not the 
 usual excitements to personal risk, in a world's applause or 
 gazetted promotion, — their devoted courage was to save the 
 lives and property of their fellow-men, not to destroy them. 
 They steadily and heroically persevered in their labours, amidst 
 dangers such as a field of battle never presented, and from which 
 some of the bravest brutes that ever lived would have shrunk 
 in dismay. These truly brave Vallaisans deserve all honour!" 
 The devastation at Martigny was fearful. More than twenty 
 years have not sufiiced to restore the fertility of nature, covered 
 as the soil then was with a thick, desolating mass of stones, sand, 
 and gravel. 
 
 ■^^j— 
 
 '<*,^'
 
 y 
 
 At Beauveruoia the valley again assumes an aspect of great 
 luxuriance, which encreases as you draw towards the opening 
 into the great valley of the Rhone. Here you turn aside into 
 a crosspath, through beautifid slopes, and woods of walnut and 
 chestnut, to gain the fatiguing ascent of the Forclaz. It was 
 the walnut harvest ; the peasants, men, women, and children, 
 were gathering the nuts by cartloads, and a pleasant sight it 
 was to see Mother Earth's abundance for her offspring. Their 
 Heavenly Father feedeth them. T/iat thou givest them, they 
 gather. 
 
 \€^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 
 SUNSET. TEE TETE NOIRE. THE VALORSINE BY MOONLIGHT. — 
 
 PIETY OF THE GUIDES. 
 
 I AHRIYED at the Auberge of the Tete N'oire about four o'clock 
 I'n the afternoon, and found it shut and abandoned for the sea- 
 son. But here I had promised to dismiss my guide, and so 
 was obliged to march forward with my heavy pack alone, a 
 fatigue by no means despicable, after the long wearying walk 
 already encountered. Most happily I had stored the pockets 
 of my fancy blouse with a luncheon, and possessed, with some 
 other fruits, an enormous pomegranate, which had added to 
 the weight of my knapsack since leaving the city of Turin, I 
 had no idea the weighty delicious fruit was to stand me in so 
 good stead. 
 
 I sat down at the shut of day in the wildest and most beau- 
 tiful part of the Pass. The stream Avas roaring through the 
 gorge with grand music at my feet, the foliage reflected the 
 golden light of sunset, the evening shadows of the mountains 
 were falling on the valley. I had some leagues to travel yet, 
 before the shadow of Mont Blanc again would cover me, but 
 the moon would rise and travel with me, and who, with such 
 a companion, could feel friendless or lonely ? He who made 
 the moon, and bade it rise upon the mountains, — his mercy 
 rises with it, our life's star. So, having laid my pack upon 
 
 ^^
 
 ~»vi 
 
 
 i , 
 V ■ 
 
 i/ 
 
 WAXDERINGS OF A PILGUIM. 
 
 tlie grass, to serve lue for a taWc, beside the huge celebrated 
 rock Bahnarussa, that overhangs tlie patliway, I partook, with 
 most romantic relisli, my lonely, frugal repast of bread, Aos- 
 tiau pears, Parmisan cheese, and the ripe, ruddy, refreshing 
 pomegranate. What a delicious fruit is this ! It vras well 
 M-orthy of being associated wiih the music of the golden bells 
 upon the ministering robes 'of Aaron. 
 
 The Poet Horace pays a great compliment to mulberries. 
 
 " Illo aalubrcs (gnys lie), 
 jEstates porjigct, qui nigria prandia inoris 
 Finict, ante gravcm quae legerit arbore soloni." 
 
 This dietetic precept I shall render tlius : That man will o-et 
 along very comfortably through the hot weather, who will 
 every day finish his dinner with black mulberries, gathered in 
 the dewy coolness of the morning. If the measure would per- 
 mit, instead of moris I would put granada, and say. If a man 
 desires a quiet old age, let him every day eat a ripe pomegra- 
 nate. But it is not every traveller that can know the pleasure 
 of quenching his thirst with it in the Pass of the Tete Noire. 
 
 Shouldering my pack again, I hastened forward, greatly en- 
 joying the wildness and grandem- of the scenery. At the Val- 
 orsinc I found another guide, a sturdy peasant, who was just 
 driving home his cows from pasture for the milking. " Wait 
 till I change my clothes," said he, "and I will go with you." 
 lie was very glad of a visit to Chamouny, particularly as the 
 next day was a feast day. He carried me into a cottage like 
 a gipsey's cavern. 
 
 •We proceeded still by moonlight, which is always so lovely 
 among the mountains. The moon is the beautiful moon of 
 harvest. In the deep glens of the valley it is long in rising, 
 for its lovely light falls on the mountain summits, and kindles 
 them like cressets in the sky, long before you catch a glimpse 
 of the round silvery orb, which is the fountain of all this glory ; 
 until the bright vail of rays, as it falls softly from crag to crag, 
 chases the shade down into the valley, leaving the rocks, the 
 woods, the caverns steeped in an etfulgence, which gives them 
 a beauty not to be imagined in the glare of day. 
 
 
 
 'f
 
 riETY OF Tllii; GU1DE3. 
 
 ^w 
 
 The first appearance of the light of the rising moon upon a 
 high mountain, while you are in ohscuritj below, produces an 
 effect of enchantment. It is like a blush, or sudden glow, 
 coming out of the mountain, like the emotion of some radiant 
 spirit dwelling within, expressed externally, or like the faint 
 beginning of the fire-light behind a transparency. On the op- 
 posite side of the valley, all is yet in deep shade, but at the 
 mountain summit, behind which the hidden moon is sailing up 
 the sky, there is a wild deepening light, and a fleecy cloud 
 steeped in it, looking as if the moon were to break out into the 
 blue depths, just there, at the point where the cliff cuts the 
 stars and the azure. Still it is long before you see her full 
 round orb, and you travel on in expectancy. Her light upon 
 the virgin snow is wildly brilliant and beautiful. 
 
 My guides to-day have been Roman Catholics. I have had 
 a good deal of conversation with them, and found in the first a 
 truly serious disposition, and a regard for the forms of devo- 
 tion in his church, which I would hope is mingled with some- 
 thing of true piety. He told me much about his habits of 
 prayer, that he prayed every day, using the pater noster, the 
 ave, the credo, acts of faith, etcetera, which he knew by heart. 
 He also prayed to the saints, especially St. Bernard. I asked 
 him if he ever prayed in any other manner, and he said No, 
 never with any prayer but what was written for him. I asked 
 him if he did not sometimes, from a deep sense of sin in him- 
 self, cry out to God thus, "Lord, have mercy upon me, a great 
 sinner, and forgive my guilt," and he said Yes. 
 
 He told me that he had seen the Bible, and possessed a New 
 Testament, which he read about twice a week. I asked him 
 why not oftener? He said he had no time. I told him that 
 he could easily read a few verses every day, if he chose, for it 
 would take almost no time at all. I told him the word of God 
 was the bread of the soul, notre pain qnotidiennc, for which he 
 prayed in the pater noster, and that it was necessary to be eaten 
 daily. What good would it do for our bodies, if we ate but 
 twice in the week? We should soon starve; and just so with 
 our souls. We need to receive God's bread, our spiritual food, 
 the Bread of Eternal Life, every day, morning and evening at 
 
 ki. 
 
 ')'>•
 
 y 
 
 least. This would bo two meals for our souls, M-Lcrc wc nialic 
 three, or more, for our bodies. "Give us this day our daily 
 bread." This does not mean merely give to our bodies where- 
 withal to cat ; but far more it means, feed our souls Avith that 
 precious spiritual bread, without which we perish. Sanctify us 
 by thy truth. Be Tuou our daily Bread, the Life of our So"uls. 
 For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that 
 procccdcth out of the mouth of God shall man live. 
 
 My guide seemed much impressed with this manner of pre- 
 senting the case, but I doubt if he ever had the least idea of 
 what the Word of God really is for the soul. He told me that 
 he goes to confession regularly, and takes the sacrament twice 
 a year, when the priest gives him absolution, and all his sins 
 are taken away. I told him that the Blood of Jesus Christ 
 alone could take away sin, and he assented to it ; but this was 
 the great truth of the Gospel, which the Romish system renders 
 "bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul," while her own su- 
 perstitions govern its active life. She docs not turn the truth 
 out of doors, but sets error to be its keeper, confined and strait- 
 jacketed, as if it were a madman ; or to be its nurse, as if it 
 weic a paralytic. So if any visitors enquire after its health, 
 error answers them. 
 
 Tliis guide was a person of the better sort, and there was a 
 mixture of truth and error in him. Some day the truth may 
 get loose, and save him. 
 
 My next guide was a Yalorsine, a subject of the King of 
 Sardinia. He shrugged his shoulders, and said it was neces- 
 sary to believe in the Church and as the Church believed. He 
 goes to confession once a year, and believes that then all his 
 sins arc washed away when the priest gives absolution. He 
 believes that the holy sacrament gives life and saves the soul, 
 alleging the words of our Saviour, "He that eateth my flesh 
 and drinketh my blood," etc. So much of the Gospel as this 
 he had been taught like a parrot. He bad never seen the New 
 Testament, and hardly seemed to know what it was. 
 
 He put many questions to me concerning religion in Amer- 
 ica, and asked among other things if we believed in the com- 
 mandments of God. Sidney Smith probably would have 
 
 £^^^ 
 
 ^
 
 answered him, "all except tlie one, 'thou shalt not steal.'" 
 He prays night and morning with the pater noster, the credo, 
 the ave Maria, etc. I gave him a little volume containing the 
 gospel of Luke, which I had brought with me from the Wal- 
 denses. 
 
 Another man whom I talked with at Chamouny, told me 
 that he Mew of a Bible in one house, but it Avas at some dis- 
 tance. They were very rare, though sometimes families got 
 them from Paris, but the priests did not like them to have the 
 Scriptures. This man firmly believed that the priests have 
 power to forgive sins. 
 
 Now what a monstrous system is this! What utter and 
 complete destruction of a man's free agency, in that great 
 and solemn business, in which of all others he should act 
 for himself, and feel his responsibility. These men seemed to 
 have shuffled off their religious anxieties without the slightest 
 concern for the result, as a traveller deposits his funds with a 
 banker, and takes a circular letter of credit. The transaction 
 with the priest is an anodyne administered to the conscience, 
 which makes it sleep profoundly, and if perchance it wakes, 
 an appeal to the Virgin quiets it. sad and dreadful Mystery 
 of Iniquity! Prayer itself, the highest, most ennobling exer- 
 cise of the soul, turned into idolatry and superstition! "How 
 will these men," asks Dr. South, with his accustomed pith and 
 power, in one of his sermons, — "How will these men answer for 
 their sins, lolio stand thus condemned for their devotions? 
 
 Mont Blanc has been almost hidden during this last visit. 
 But there is a wild hurried light at times under the clouds, 
 when they are a little lifted, which shows what is concealed, 
 with great sublimity. At times also the clouds open around a 
 lofty peak, anr", it stands out in the sky alone, while the whole 
 mountain and ^vorld besides is hidden in mist. A craggy or 
 snowy peak so seen, seems to have gone like an island with 
 wings up into the heavens, it appearing so lofty and so wildly 
 bright. The glacier du Bosson struggling down the valley 
 seems like a lost thing from another world. How beautiful 
 the new-fallen snow upon the DiQuntains! 
 
 12 f 
 
 ^ 
 
 <S2
 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CITY OF AOSTE — SABBATH — PEASANTS — MONDMENT TO CALVIN. 
 
 The city of Aosto, lying under an Italian sky, and out of the 
 way of communication with the Gospel, has always remained 
 in allegiance to the Pope and Tradition. It is not very far 
 from the interesting territory of the Waldenses, where the light 
 of Gospel truth has never gone out, and Avherc, from age tc 
 ao-e, men have suffered martyrdom rather than wear the mark 
 of the Beast on their foreheads. But a few mountains inter- 
 posed make Evangelical Christians of one party, and of the 
 other subjects of Rome. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the feeling of confidence and com- 
 fort which you have, in a Romish city like this, on findings 
 yourself in a pleasant Protestant family. The people of mine 
 inn were not Christians in personal experience, but the bare 
 absence of the bondage of the priesthood, and the disregard of 
 the superstitious ceremonies of the Cathedral, with the specu- 
 lative knowledge of the truth which they had in Switzerland, 
 gave them a great superiority to those around them. What a 
 shameful thing to human nature it is to feel afraid of your 
 fellow-creatures on account of their religion, because their re- 
 ligion makes them your enemies, and teaches them to view you 
 as criminals, who ought to be punished. One can hardly pass 
 through a Romish city without seeing Giant Grim sitting at 
 the door of his cave, and muttering, as you pass by, You will 
 never mend till more of you be burned. But all the bigotry 
 and jealousy in the world cannot make the grass less green in i 
 this delicious region, nor the song of the birds less sweet, nor 
 cause the sun to shine less brightly upon Protestants, than he 
 does upon Romanists. It is a lovely place, where you may ex- 
 perience both the delight of the Poet in the loveliness of Na- 
 ture, and the grief of the Poet for what man has made of man. 
 
 " I heard .a tliousand blended notes, 
 While in a grove I 3.".t reclined, 
 In that sweet mode when pleasant thoughts 
 
 Bring sad thoughts to tlie mind.
 
 SABBATU IX A03TE. 
 
 To licr fair works did Nature link 
 The human soul that through me ran, 
 And much it grieved my heart to think 
 
 What man has made of man. 
 
 Through primrose tufts in that sweet bower, 
 The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ; 
 And 'tis my faith that every flower 
 
 Enjoys the aii* it breathes. 
 
 The birds around me hopped and played ; 
 Their thoughts I cannot measure : — 
 But the least motion which they made. 
 
 It seemed a thrill of pleasure. 
 
 The budding twigs spread out their fan 
 To catch the breezy air ; 
 And I must think, do all I can, 
 
 That there was pleasure there. 
 
 If this belief from Heaven is sent. 
 If such be nature's holy plan. 
 Have I not reason to lament, 
 
 What man has made of man ? 
 
 I spent the Sabbath in this city, and enjoyed much a soli- 
 tary walk in the fields and along the margin of the river. 
 Beautiful region! How calm and grand the mountains, look- 
 ing down upon the green earth like venerable, benevolent genii, 
 who guard the abodes of its inhabitants, or like ancient white- 
 haired prophets speaking of the mysteries of heaven ! It is 
 sweet to commune with God amidst the lovely scenes of nature, 
 when the desecration and forgetfulness of his Sabbath and his 
 temples built by human hands compel you, as it were, to seek 
 him in solitude, by the music of running water beneath the 
 open temple of a sky so glorious, amidst groves of such quiet 
 shade and luxuriance, with such Sabbath-like repose. And 
 amidst the idolatry and wilful superstitions of Romanism, near 
 the heart of the great system where its throbbings agitate tha 
 whole mass of society, it is good to plead with God, that his 
 Holy Spirit may descend upon this region, and his own truth 
 prevail. 
 
 The calm retreat, the silent sbade. 
 With prayer and praise agree, 
 
 1^
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGUIM 
 
 f=a^4.f.^.p:^>,4 
 
 n, 
 
 -^k 
 
 % 
 
 iiy 
 
 <>\k 
 
 And accm by thy swoot bounty made 
 For those who worship Thee. 
 
 My heart went back to America, to dear relatives and 
 friends going to the house of God with those that keep the day 
 holy. Ah, if our Heavenly Father is as good to them as he 
 has been to me, I have nothing to ask for them but a heart 
 filled with lively gratitude for all his mercy. Moimtains, king- 
 doms, oceans are between us, but wo are equally near to God, 
 and we still meet at the Mercy Seat, though thousand leagues 
 of sea and laud separate us. This is better than looking at 
 the moon, at hours appointed, even though marked by love. 
 
 " Oh ye, who guard and grace my home, 
 While in far distant lands we roam, 
 Enquiring thoughts arc turned to you ; 
 Does a clear ether meet your eyes? , 
 Or have black vapours hid the skies 
 And mountains from your view? 
 
 " I ask in vain — and know far less 
 If sickness, sorrow, or distress . 
 Have spared my dwelling to this hour : 
 Sad blindncs I but ordained to prove 
 Our Faith in Heaven's unfailing Love 
 And all controlling Power." 
 
 Wordswoeth's Eclipse of the Suiu 
 
 At the morning mass the Romish cathedral was full of wor- 
 shippers, there being more men than I have seen in a Romish 
 church for a long time. The streets were very quiet, but a 
 little out of the city the common people were playing ball, and 
 towards evening the noble public square in front of our hotel 
 was crowded Avith men, women, and children, gathered around 
 a large band of musicians in the centre, who meet there and 
 play every Sabbath evening. Their music-books and benches 
 were arranged around a hollow square, in the centre of which 
 the leader directed their operations and timed their movements 
 with most energetic jerking and slapping of hands. Amidst 
 the crowd, a group of three priests enjoying the music, con- 
 versing, and now and then apparently suggesting some piece 
 which they would like to have performed. The respect paid 
 
 i-O^
 
 i 
 
 PEASANTS AND rULESTS. 
 
 to them, and the air of ease and dignity with M'hich thej mov- 
 ed, were so strikingly dilierent from the mutual deportment of 
 priest and people on the other side of the Grand St. Bernard 
 that I could not but remark it. 
 
 And yet, it is curious to listen to the talk of the common 
 people in regard to the priests, even here, where so little light 
 has been let in upon them. I had quite a long conversation 
 with a well dressed peasant whom I met in the fields, and he 
 told me that the priests were very avaricious — would do noth- 
 ing for love, but everything for money, and attended more to 
 the rich than to the poor, and all for self-interest. Now, there 
 are in every country plenty of people who will talk abundantly 
 and unwarrantably against their clergy ; but this man consid- 
 ered himself a good Roman Catholic, and he had just then ^ 
 come from mass. He would hardly have got absolution if he wl -GS^ 
 had made confession of his talk this day to a heretic. 
 
 I spoke to him of the beauty and richness of the country. 
 He said it was a country of miscres, poor, miserable people. I 
 spoke to him of the goodness of God and the preciousness of 
 the Saviour. He seemed to have some right ideas of the na- 
 ture of prayer. He said that the world cared little for Jesus 
 Christ, and that poor people had need of much patience to be 
 pious amidst their poverty : most true indeed this was, but the 
 poor fellow seemed to have the idea that their suiferings in this 
 life, if rightly endured, would be considered as a sort of pen- 
 ance, in consideration of which they would gain eternal life in 
 the world which is to come. 
 
 It never came to my mind so forcibly before, how the idea 
 of penance and merit by suffering is inwrought by the Romish 
 system into every conception of religion in the souls of the poor 
 misguided multitudes. Imbued as they are from infancy with 
 the errors of that system, how can they have any true idea of 
 the Gospel ? Alas ! how pernicious ! how destructive of the 
 true view of Christ as a Saviour ! Penance and human merit 
 as the purchase of salvation ! This is the theology which Rome 
 teaches, and if I am not mistaken, it is the religious atmos- 
 phere, an atmosphere of thick blending, ruinous error, in which M 
 almost every soul under that teaching grows and dies. I mean,
 
 if possible, to get at the practical effect of tliis atmosphere m 
 the almost unconscious thoughts and feelings of unsophisticated 
 peasants, and common ignorant men, I wish to learn how far 
 it is possible for a common mind, in innocence and simplicity 
 of purpose — for a person who sincerely, and, as it were, uncon- 
 sciously, pursues the routine dictated and taught by the Romish 
 Church, to have any right conception of religion or of Christ. 
 I believe it will be found, that even if Rome were chargeable 
 with no other error or iniquity, this idea of the purchase of 
 salvation by human works and merit, effectually darkens the 
 mind in every case, and excludes from it the light of the Gospel ; 
 as much so as the vilest rites of idolatry do degrade and darken 
 the mind in lands utterly heathen. Therefore it is that the 
 multitudes under the delusions of Rome need missionaries as 
 much as the Pagans. They are totally ignorant of the great 
 truth of faith in Christ. It is not in their system. It is far 
 from the teachings of the priests — far from the knowledge of 
 the people. 
 
 Let the poet Dante, the great poet of a Romish creed and 
 scholastic philosophy intermingled, but a poet " all compact" 
 with freedom and great thought, seeing beneath the surface, 
 and telling what he saw, — let /am describe the route of Romish 
 teachers and you will no more call it prejudice and harsh judg- 
 ment, if you find the same colours copied now from the reality 
 of thiuffs. 
 
 " Men, thus at variance with the truth, 
 Dream, though their eyes be open ; reckless some 
 Of error ; others well aware they err, 
 To whom more guilt and shame arc justly due. 
 Each the known tr.ack of sage philosophy 
 Deserts, and has a by-way of his own : 
 So much the restless eagerness to shine, 
 And love of singularity, prevail. 
 Yet this, offensive as it is, provokes 
 Heavens anger less, than ivhen the Book of God 
 Js forced to yield to mans authority 
 Or from its straightness ivarped : no reckoning tnade 
 What blood the sowing of it in the ivorld 
 Has cost ; what favour for himself he ivns, 
 Who meekly clings to it. 
 
 The aim of all
 
 -^ ^^^^^^^ ^ 
 
 DANTE, AND GOD S WORD. 
 
 Is how to sliine ; €en they, luhose ojjicc is 
 To preach the Gospel, let the Gospel sleep. 
 And pass their own inventions off instead. 
 One tells, how at Christ's sufferings the wan moon 
 Bent back her steps, and shadowed o'er the sun 
 With intervonient disk, as she withdrew. 
 Another, how the light shrouded itself 
 Within its tabernacle, and left dark 
 The Spaniard, and the Indian, with the Jew. 
 Such fables Florence in her pulpit hears, 
 B\ ^ Bandied about more frequent than the names 
 
 Of Bindi and of Lapi in her streets. 
 The sheep meanwhile, poor witless ones, return 
 From pasture, fed with wind : and what avails 
 For their excuse they do not see their harm ? 
 
 " Christ said not to his first conventicle 
 Go forth and preach impostures to the world ; 
 But gave them Tnuin to build on ; and the sound 
 Was mighty on their lips ; nor needed they. 
 Beside the Gospel, other spear or shield. 
 To aid them in their warfiire for the faith.'' 
 
 What a noble, powerful voice is this ! Dante had in his soul 
 the germ of the very principle of Protestantism and of freedom, 
 adherence to the Word of God above all authority ; and hence no 
 small portion of his power ; hence the fetters broken from his 
 genius. He could scarcely have said more had he seen the mo- 
 dern Romish preachers taking for their text the Holy coat of 
 Treves. 
 
 " The preacher now provides himself with store 
 Of jests and gibes ; and, so there be no lack 
 Of laughter while he vents them, his big cowl 
 Distends, and he has won the meed he sought. 
 Could but the vulgar catch a glimpse the while 
 Of that dark bird, which nestles in his hood, 
 They scarce would wait to hear the blessing said, 
 AVhich now ihe dotards hold in such esteem, 
 That every counterfeit, who spreads abroad 
 Ti e hands of holy promise, finds a throng 
 Of credulous fools beneath. St. Anthony 
 Fattens with this his swine, and others worse 
 Than swine, who diet at his lazy board, 
 Paying with false indulgences their fare." 
 
 Pauadise, Canto XXIX, Carey's Danta 
 
 ] met several women on the Sabbath, reading in Romish 
 
 if:^
 
 books of devotion, and observed that in the Cathedral many 
 persons had their prayer-books in their hands. Sometimes a 
 maiden wouhl be sitting at the house door in the street, reading. 
 Again, I passed an old man clad in his Sabbath garments, 
 reading to his wife. Again, a little out of the city, a woman 
 sitting under the shadow of the trees and reading to her chil- 
 dren. It was a collection of Roman Catholic hymns, some of 
 them very excellent, others addressed to the saints, and full of 
 error from beginning to end. But it was pleasant to see that 
 there were so many people who knew how to read. This being 
 the case, they are 2»'epafed, at least, to receive the Bible ; it 
 coidd not be lost upon them. 
 
 One of the little girls, seeing I was very curious in my enqui- 
 ries as to the books they read and studied, and as to whether 
 they had the Bible, ran into the house, and brought me the two 
 other books, which I suppose constituted their little library, 
 one of which contained the lives of some excellent devout per- 
 sons in humble situations, one of them being celebrated for his 
 great devotion to the Virgin Mary. The other book was a 
 History of the Holy Bible, which was all they possessed ap- 
 proximating to the Scriptures. The priests give them the His- 
 tory of the Bible, but withhold the Bible itself. 
 
 The woman asked me what religion they were of in my 
 country, and I told her the Reformed Religion ; but finding 
 that she did not understand me, I told her the religion of Jesus 
 Christ. Ah, said she, it is the same religion as ours ; our re- 
 ligion is the religion of Jesus Christ, you have the same. I 
 did not attempt to explain to her the difference, but simply spoke 
 of the necessity of faith in Christ, and of prayer always. But 
 really, to what a system of monstrous error the name and seal 
 of Jesus Christ are affixed in the Romish Church ! Their re- 
 ligion has with great propriety been called the religion of the 
 Virgin rather than of Christ, Marianism instead of Christianity. 
 
 The city of Aoste was for a little season the scene of the 
 labours of Calvin, a place of retreat from the persecutions of 
 his enemies. But he was obliged by the roar of the Beast to 
 flee from this beautiful valley; and now in the city itself there 
 is a stone cross with an inscription at its base, to commemorate 
 
 I
 
 his departure, a curious testimony of tlie priests as to the power 
 of this great man, and the dread with which his presence, hi3 
 influence, and his labours, were regarded among them. 
 
 Mine host toUl me a curious story, which he said was cur- 
 rent and firmly believed in the city and the valley as to the 
 cause of Calvin's flight, which was that he had promised the 
 people, as a sign of the truth of his teaching, to raise a dead 
 man to life ; that he made the attempt and failed, and that the 
 whole city was so enraged against him that he had to flee at 
 midnight, or rather at eleven o'clock, across the Grand St. Ber- 
 nard, to save himself from destruction. As a proof of tliis 
 legend, the inhabitants of Aoste, to commemorate this event, 
 have ever since made the hour of eleven their midday and mid- 
 night, so that they dine at eleven instead of twelve, and consider 
 eleven as noon. They dine and sleep on the remembrance of 
 Calvin's flight from their holy Romish Apostolic city. Much 
 good may it do them. It Is a dream, which mingles with their 
 dreams, and facilitates their digestion ; the inscription on the 
 monument Is as good to them as wine after dinner ; and much 
 more innocent Is it than many other Popish lies and supersti- 
 tions, of which the ridiculous legend about Calvin raising a 
 dead body bears the stamp of a notable example. 
 
 One of the most striking features in the character of this 
 great man (as in that of all the prominent Reformers) was the 
 extreme remove of his mind from everything like fanaticism. 
 Without being a Stoic, he was one of the calmest of them all. 
 They were all remarkably characterized by strong faith, a liv- 
 ing faith, celestial but sober, as men who see realities, and 
 never degenerating Into presumption or fanatical pretence. The 
 whole life of Calvin, as the steady burning of a uniform but 
 intense energy, reminds us of Foster's original remark in re- 
 gard to the fire of Howard's benevolence : " it was the calm- 
 ness of an Intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human 
 mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the in- 
 dividual forbidding it to be less." Intense, unremitting de- 
 termination, so Intense "that if, instead of being habitual, it 
 had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, 
 it would have appeai-ed a vehement impetuosit 
 
 
 ^-
 
 ■^ 
 
 more signal exhibition. Calmly, but rapidly, it burnt his life 
 to the socket. Of him, as of Howard, one might wonder what 
 must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or 
 pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive, after 
 the final adjustment of his plans. It was this inflexible decision 
 of mind, as much as the largeness and aculeness of his intellect, 
 and the depth of his piety, which gave him such supreme in- 
 fluence and sway in the GencA'Cse republic. Perhaps it was 
 more this than all his other great qualities, in which his friends, 
 and they who were muc'i older than himself, felt his superiority. 
 
 Calvin was not a man to attempt a miracle, but to strip the 
 disguise from every pretender. It would have been a strange 
 hallucination indeed, if his clear intellect, and uniform logical 
 passion, had ever taken the form of a miracle-working enthu- 
 siasm. He Avas the incarnation of the Logic of the Reforma- 
 tion, as Melancthon was of its Benevolence, Zuingle of its Zeal, 
 and Luther of its Faith, Boldness, and Hope. It was not a 
 mere scholastic Logic, but rich and large, and at the same time 
 simple and natural, and all informed, permeated, and kindled 
 by Divine Truth. It was not subtlet}', but the faculty of keen, 
 clear insight, without the rambling of a thought, and of rigid, 
 severe expression, without the waste of a Avord. In Calvin's 
 life and character, two great qualities met, Method and Passion ; 
 not the creations of the senses, but deep in the soul ; qualities 
 of Intellect and Duty, the mould and frame-work of the man. 
 
 And now as to intolerance. If it came under the guise of 
 an angel, we should hate it ; and we abhor it not the less, where 
 it is an accident in a system of truth, than where it is the very 
 spirit, demand, and breathing necessity of a system of error. 
 It grows out o/the Romish system at all times ; it has attached 
 itself to the system of the Reformation sometimes ; it springs 
 almost inevitably from the union of Church and State with any 
 system whatever. The intolerance of the Reformed Churches 
 has been the detestable fruit of this detestable connection. 
 
 Edmund Burke once remarked that " the whole class of the 
 severe and restrictive virtues are at a market almost too high 
 for humanity." Calvin was distinguished for these virtues, 
 and perhaps he bore his faculties as meekly as any mortal
 
 -«s 
 
 ek 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 SACRAMENT OF FIRE. 
 
 mixture of earth's mould could have done, endowed with them 
 so highly. They are of an unhending class, and may some- 
 times put the mind out of a proper sympathy for human weak- 
 ness. But the secret of that intolerance which sometimes dark- 
 ened the progress of the Reformation, and which has heen per- 
 mitted to throw so deep a shade over the character of Calvin, 
 has been better told by Coleridge than by any other writer. 
 
 "At the Reformation," said he, "the first Reformers were 
 beset with an almost morbid anxiety not to be considered here- 
 tical in point of doctrine. They knew that the Romanists were 
 on the watch to fasten the brand of heresy upon them Avhenever 
 a fair pretext could be found; and I have no doubt it was the 
 excess of this fear which at once led to the burning of Servetus, 
 and also to the thanks offered by all the Protestant Churches, 
 to Calvin and the Church of Geneva, for burning him." 
 
 Poor human nature! A wiser and still more loving John 
 than Calvin woidd once have burned all Samaria, if our blessed 
 Lord would have permitted it. But Grace shall one day take 
 all these wrinkles from the Chm-ch of Christ, and present it 
 without spot, fair as the Moon, clear as the Sun, and terrible 
 as an army with banners. 
 
 Mark the perverted and fanatical use which James and John 
 would have made of the example of Elias ! " Lord ! wilt thou 
 that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume 
 them, even as Elias did?" But what a sweet rebuke was that 
 which restrained and corrected a zeal so mingled yvlth. the un- 
 righteous spirit! "The Son of Man is not come to destroy 
 men's lives, but to save them." Who could have thought, 
 after this, that fire to burn up erring men would have passed 
 into the Church as one of its great sacraments, "Acts of Faith," 
 and most solemn celebrations of worship? But in so doing, it 
 constitutes one of the most glaring, evident seals, not of the 
 Church of Christ but of Anti-Christ. Whoever adopts it adopts 
 a seal of the Great Apostacj'. 
 
 Mark you, also, that James and John, before they would 
 have used it, consulted their Divine Master — " Lord, tvih thou 
 that we command fire?" If always, in such a mood, men had 
 so consulted Christ, when thinking of applying fire, they would
 
 WANDEllINGS OF A PILGRIII. 
 
 have found out its wickedness; they would have received and 
 felt the answer, Ye know not what spirit yc arc of. 
 
 It is remarkahle that death hy burning has always been con- 
 sidered as consecrated, if I may so speak, to the crime of a re- 
 ligious faith. It is the Baptism of Fire, with which the Court 
 of Rome preeminently has chosen to finish and perfect the eth- 
 ercalization of those noble spirits, who in the midst of torture 
 and death opposed her errors and her despotism. It is the 
 only Sacrament that Romish bigotry and superstition have ever 
 granted to heretics; the sacrament with which a multitude of 
 souls of the best mould ever shaped have been dismissed in a 
 chariot of fire to Immortality. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ANTIQUITIES, CALAMITIES AND BY- LAWS OF AOSTE. 
 MONT BLANC FROM lYROGNE. 
 
 ^.y 
 
 The old Romans left a more enduring memorial of their resi- 
 dence and conquests in the city of Aoste than Calvin did of 
 his. There is a triumphal arch erected by Augustus twenty- 
 four years before Christ, a Roman bridge across the river, and 
 a remarkable double Roman gate or entrance to the city. There 
 are ruins of an amphitheatre, subterranean vaults, and many 
 fragments of antiquity and use unknown. Mine host carried me 
 into one of the long subterranean passages beneath the city, 
 built, it is said, by the ancient native inhabitants before the 
 time of the Romans ; now half filled and choked with rubbish, 
 but running in different directions clear across the city, and 
 even, it is said, under the bed of the river. The old city in 
 the time of the Romans was called Cordele, the chief city of 
 the Salassi. 
 
 The city is most beautiful in its position, close to the junc- 
 tion of the rivers Buttier and Doire, in the centre of a luxurious 
 valley, from many points of which you can see both the Mont 
 Blanc and the snowy ranges of the grand St. Bernard. Mag- 
 nificient mountains, girdled with beautiful verdure far up to- 
 
 
 I
 
 ANTIQUITIES OF AOSTE. 
 
 wards their I'ocliy summits, enclose the valley, and rich 
 vineyards cover their beautiful slopes heloAv. In the eleventh 
 century Anselm, Archhishop of Canterbury, was born in this 
 city, and St. Bernard in his day was Archdeacon of Aoste, so 
 that it is a city of great names and memories in other triumphs 
 than the flight of Calvin. 
 
 The inhabitants speak French, and are horribly disfigured 
 with cretinism and goitre, enormous bag necks, and idiots or 
 a-etins, meeting you, in both men and women, in almost every 
 street. What a calamity is this ! and amidst such fertility and 
 beauty, such softness, sweetness, purity, and luxuriance of na- 
 ture! While nature smiles (Foster sadly remarks), there are 
 many pale countenances that do not. But sadder is the sight 
 of a living face, from which the last gleam of intellect has de- 
 parted, than of many dreadful forms of pain and misery. This 
 fearful disease of cretinism excludes its victims from society, 
 and reduces them to the level of brutes. Men of science have 
 endeavoured without success to discover its cause and arrest its 
 progress. Saussure supposed that it is occasioned by a vicious 
 atmosphere, not changed and renewed, and wanting in certain 
 elements necessary to the healthful development of man. But 
 if this were the case, why should not all the inhabitants of the 
 village feel it? Why should it decimate them? Why should 
 any escape? Strange, indeed, and dreadfully subtile and pene- 
 trating, must that peculiarity in the atmosphere be which pas- 
 ses through the frame to attack the intellect. 
 
 Mine host told me that the goitre was to be attributed to the 
 filthy habits of the people, who live in the stables with the cat- 
 tle, in winter, for the sake of warmth : this is not improbable, 
 but again, on the other hand, there are communities quite as 
 filthy in various parts of the world, where this goitre never yet 
 made its appearance. The streets of the city are clean, and 
 indeed, in the midst of most of them a clear running stream 
 from the mountains pours over the pavements. Fruits are 
 abundant and delicious ; moreover it was the season of straw- 
 berries, with plenty of cream. 
 
 I was amused with looking over the exposition of the articles 
 of law relative to the government of the city. No loud singing 
 
 l<^
 
 142 "^ \; 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 is allowed in the streets after ten o'clock in the evening, nor 
 any noises capable of disturbing good people who wish to sleej). 
 Vagabonds are to be carried to watch-houses, and nothing but 
 lionest callings are to be permitted, and decent moral amuse- 
 ments for recreation. All persons arc forbidden to expose for 
 show any images in wood or wax, of Venus, or any great not- 
 able assassins, or men famous for their crimes in any way. 
 All the world knows that Venus is a great assassin, well de- 
 serving of capital punishment ; and if the priests had stated 
 that this was one of the laws which Calvin caused to be framed 
 Avhile residing in the city, it might be easier believed than their 
 tale of Calvin raising the dead. In these laws the utmost vigi- 
 lance is enjoined against the introduction into the city of books 
 or tracts of any kind tending injuriously towards the Holy 
 Catholic Roman Apostolic Church Religion or Government. 
 The cleanness of the streets may possibly be accounted for by 
 a law that every person shall be held to keep the street clean 
 before his own door, carefully removing all the dirt, and pre- 
 venting its accumulation. This is somewhat different from our 
 laws in New York, where the swine have a premium as city 
 scavengers. 
 
 There is a most curious pi'openslty in the lower orders to 
 associate a foreign language, or the supposed ignorance of 
 their own, with deafness. Most persons have probably met 
 with instances of this, but I never knew a more singular ex- 
 ample than that of a peasant in Aoste, who, seeing that I was 
 a foreigner, stepped up to me, and answered a question I had 
 asked him, with a shout such as you would pour into the ear 
 of a person incurably deaf. He evidently supposed, that be- 
 ing a foreigner, I had lost my hearing, or rather that I pos- 
 sessed the sense of hearing only for my own language, and 
 could understand his only when it thundered. On this princi- 
 ple, all a man needs in travelling through foreign countries 
 would be an car-trumpet, instead of the grammar and diction- 
 ary. 
 
 From the Cite d'Aoste to Courmayeur, at the end of the 
 valley near Mont Blanc, it is about twenty-seven miles. I had, 
 a return char-a banc entirely to myself, for the very small sum^ 
 
 ■$»> 
 
 Jl
 
 143 
 
 I 
 
 of five francs. The ride and the views of Mont Blanc enjoyed 
 in it were worth five hundred. For twelve miles the road winds 
 along the bottom of the valley, sometimes at the edge of a tor- 
 rent, sometimes crossing it, through scenes of the richest ve- 
 getation. The openings of rich valleys here and there lead off 
 the eye as in a perspective wilderness of wildness and beauty; 
 and the grandeur of the mountains, snow-topped even in Au- 
 gust, encreases as the valley narrows towards Mont Blanc. 
 
 About half way up the valley from Aoste to Courmayeur is 
 a little vagabond village named Ivrogne, I know not on what 
 principle or for what reason so baptized, unless it were from 
 the fact that you pass immediately to a point where, in the 
 language of Lord Byron, the scene is of such effulgence, that 
 you are well nigh "dazzled and drunk with beauty." For, a^ 
 little beyond this village of Ivrogne, Mont Blanc bursts upon- 
 you with indescribable sublimity. Your weather must indeed 
 be fine, and you must be there at a particular hour, for the 
 most favourable position of the sun upon the scene ; but when 
 these requisites concur, nothing in nature can be more glorious 
 than the vision, which 1 had almost said blazes in floods of liv- 
 ing light before you. 
 
 I have seen Mont Blanc from all the best points of view, 
 from the Breven, the Flegere, from St. Martin, in fine weather 
 in August, with every advantage, and from the Col de Balme 
 on a day in October so glorious that I then thought never 
 could be presented, at any other season, such a juncture of 
 elements in one picture, of such unutterable sublimity and 
 beauty. But all things taken together, no other view is to be 
 compared for its magnificence with this in the Val d'Aoste. 
 The valley from this point up to Courma^'eur, more than twelve 
 miles, forms a mighty infolding perspective, of which the gor- 
 ges of the mountains, inlaid and withdrawing one behind ano- 
 ther, like ridges of misty light, lead off the eye into a wondrous 
 depth and distance, with Mont Blanc completely filling up the 
 close. This scene, by the winding of your way, bursts almost 
 as suddenly upon you as if the heavens were opened. ThCj 
 poet Dante may give you some little impression of the glory.
 
 ;^^^ i 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 "As when the lightning, in .a sudden sliccn 
 Unfolded, dashes from the blinding; oyos 
 The visive spirits, dazzled and bedinimct'- •, 
 So, round about me, fulminating streams 
 Of living radiance played, and left me swathed 
 And vailed in dense impenetrable blaze. 
 
 I looked, 
 And in the likeness of a river saw 
 Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves 
 Flashed up effulgence, as they glided on 
 'Twixt banks on either side painted with spring 
 Incredible how fair: and from the tide 
 There ever and anon outstarting tlow 
 Sparkles instinct with life; and in the flowers 
 Did set them, like to rubies chased in gold. 
 Then, as if drunk witli odours, plunged a^ain 
 Into the wondrous flood. 
 
 llow vast a space 
 Of ample radiance ! Yet, nor amplitude, 
 Nor heiglit impeded, but my view with case 
 Took in the full dimensions of that joy." 
 
 rARADisE, Canto XXX. 
 
 If to this you please to add Milton's description of the gate in 
 heaven's wall, as seen out of Chaos, you will have, not indeed 
 an accurate picture, hut a semblance, an image by approxima- 
 tion, of the manner in which Mont Blanc may rise before the 
 
 t 
 
 " Far distant he descries. 
 Ascending by degrees magnificent 
 Up to the wall of heaven, a structure high, 
 At top where >f, but far more rich, appeared 
 The work as of a kingly palace gate 
 With frontispiece of diamond and of gold 
 Embellished ; thick with sparkling orient gems 
 The portal shone, inimitable on earth 
 By model or by shading pencil drawn. 
 The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw 
 Angels ascending and descending, bands 
 Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled 
 To Tadan-Aram in the field of Luz, 
 Dreaming by night under the open sky, 
 And waking cried, Tiiis is the gate of heaven."
 
 ■<! 
 
 ^1 
 
 [{^. 
 
 MONT BLAXC FROM THE UPrER VAL d'aoSIE. 
 
 Almost every separate view of Mont Blanc from different vales 
 and mountains has some peculiarity to characterize it. I never 
 obtained so complete an idea of the vastness of its slopes of 
 snow, and the immensity of its glaciers as -when gazing on it 
 in a fine day from the summit of the Flegere in the vale of 
 Chamouny. But that day the peculiar interest of the view was 
 derived from the fact that a number of travellers could be seen 
 ascending Mont Blanc, and it was in fact particularly on that 
 account that at that time we made the ascent of the Flegere. 
 The French government had sent several scientific gentlemen 
 to climb the mountain, remain upon its summit several nights, 
 and fill the world with the glory of their observations. They 
 had made several most perillous and unsuccessful trials to 
 accomplish their mission, but Mont Blanc always proved too 
 surly for them, till there came an interval of fine weather; then, 
 it being known in the valley that they were on their way up 
 the mountain to the number of about forty, guides and all, 
 many of the travellers then in the valley seized this opportunity 
 to ascend the Flegere and have a look at the French voyagcurs 
 in their perillous expedition. And intensely interesting it was 
 to look at them with the telescope, about two thirds up the 
 mountain, creeping along like emmits, in a single file behind 
 one another, over the surface of the ice and snow. 
 
 Now they seemed hanging to the face of one precipice, and 
 suspended over the awful gulf of another. Now they wound 
 carefully and painfully along the brink of an enormous glacier, 
 where a slide of snow from above, or the separation of the mass 
 over which they were treading would have carried them all to 
 destruction. Again they were seen higher up, evidently en- 
 gaged in cutting footsteps in the steep ice path, and making 
 such slow progress, that the eye can scarcely distinguish their ^ 
 motion at all. Then we would lose sight of them entirely, and ^ 
 again they would appear in another direction, having surmoun 
 
 12 
 
 ^^^V <^^^>>^>^'<^
 
 ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ 
 
 WAXDERIXGS OF A TILGRIM. 
 
 tcJ tlic obstacles successfully, but again we saw tliem in a po- 
 sition cvideutly so hazardous, that from moment to moment it 
 would have been no surprise to see them fall. The exclama- 
 tion of almost every individual looking at them was this. What 
 a foolhardy enterprise ! What fools to risk their lives in such 
 an undertaking ! And yet the danger is probably not so ex- 
 treme as it appeared to us, although indeed the hazards of the 
 ascent of Mont Blanc are at all times very great, while there 
 is really no sufficient recompense to the traveller on the summit, 
 for the peril and fatigue encountered in reaching it. 
 
 It is like those heights of ambition so much coveted in the 
 world, and so glittering in the distance, where, if men live to 
 reach them, they cannot live upon them. They may have all 
 the appliances and means of life, as these French savans car- 
 ried their tents to pitch upon the summit of Mont Blanc ; but 
 the peak that looked so warm and glittering in the sunshine, 
 and of such a rosy hue in the evening rays, was too deadly 
 cold, and swept by blasts too fierce and cutting; they were glad 
 to relinquish the attempt and come down. The view of the 
 party a few hours below the summit was a sight of deep inte- 
 rest. So was the spectacle of the immeasurable ridges and 
 fields, gulfs and avalanches, heights and depths, unfathomable 
 chasms and impassable precipices of ice and snow, of such daz- 
 zling whiteness, of such endless extent, in such gigantic masses. 
 The telescope sweeps over them, and they are brought startliug- 
 ly near to the eye, and the spectator feels grateful that neither 
 himself nor any of his friends are compelled to hazard their 
 lives amidst suchperillous sublimities of nature, whether in in- 
 dividual or governmental scientific curiosity. 
 
 The views of Mont Blanc from the Flcgere, from the Breven, 
 and from the Col de Balmc, might each seem, under favourable 
 circumstances, so sublime and glorious, that nothing could ex- 
 ceed them, or cause any increase in their sublimity. But Mont 
 Blanc from the Italian side, from the Val d'Aoste, is presented 
 to the eye in a greater unity of sublimity, with a more undi- 
 vided and overwhelming impression than from any other point. 
 In the vale of Chamouny you are almost too near; you are un- 
 der the mountain, and not before it ; and from the heights 
 
 A
 
 
 
 f¥ 
 
 y 
 
 MOXT BLANC FIIOM THE FLEGERE. 
 
 around it, tliere are otlier objects that command a portion of 
 your admiration. But here Mont Blanc is the only object, as 
 it were, between you and eternity. It is said that on this side 
 the mountain rises, in almost a sheer perpendicular precipice, 
 thirteen thousand feet high; an object that quite tyrannizes 
 over the whole valley, so that you see nothing else ; and in a 
 day of such glowing brilliancy as I am writing of, you desire 
 to see nothing else, for it seems as if heaven's splendours were 
 coming down upon you ! 
 
 It was between four and five in the afternoon that I came 
 upon this view — and I gazed, and gazed, and gazed, almost 
 wishing that I could spend as many days as these were min- 
 utes in the same position, and full of regret to leave a spot of 
 such glorious beauty. The splendour was almost blinding. 
 A brilliant sun, a few fleecy clouds around the mountain, a <^i|-0^ 
 clear transparent atmosphere, the valley invested with the rich- 
 est verdure, range after range of mountains retreating behind 
 one another, tints softening from shade to shade, the light 
 mingling with, and, as it were, entering into, the green her- 
 bage and forming with it a soft, luminous composition", dim 
 ridges of hazy light, and at the close of this perspective of 
 magnificence, Mont Blanc sheeted with snow, and flashing like 
 a type of the Celestial City! 
 
 Coming suddenly upon such a scene, you think that no other 
 point of view can possibly be equal to this, and you are temp- 
 ted not to stir from the spot till sundown ; but looking nar- 
 rowly, you see that the road scales the clifi's at some distance 
 beyond, at an overhanging point, where Mont Blanc will still 
 be in full view; so you pass on, plunging for a few moments 
 into a wood of chestnuts and then lose Mont Blanc entirely. 
 Then you emerge, admiring the rich scene through which you 
 have been advancing, until you gain the point which you ob- 
 served from a distance, where the road circles the jagged, out- 
 jutting crags of the mountain at a great distance above the 
 bottom of the valley, and then again the vision of glory bursts 
 upon you. What combinations! Forests of the richest, deep- 
 est green, vast masses of foliage below you, as fresh and glit- /tf|L_^ 
 tcring in the sunlight as if just washed in a June shower> '
 
 mountain crags towering above, the river Doire thundering 
 far beneath you, down black, jagged, savage ravines ; behind 
 you, at one end of the valley, a range of snow-crowned moun- 
 tains ; before you, the same vast and magnificent perspective 
 which arrested your admiration at first, Avith its infulding and 
 retreating ranges of verdure and sunlight, and at the close, 
 Mont Blanc flashing as lightning, as it were a mountain of 
 pure alabaster. 
 
 The fleecy clouds that here and there circled and touched it, 
 or like a coliort of angels bruised its summit with their wings, 
 added greatly to the glory ; for the sunlight reflected from the 
 snow upon the clouds, and from the clouds upon the snow, 
 made a more glowing and dazzling splendour. The outHnes 
 of the mountains being so sharply defined against the serene 
 blue of the sky, you might deem the whole mass to have been 
 cut out from the ether. You have this view for hours, as you 
 pass up the valley, but at this particular point it is the most 
 glorious. 
 
 It was of such amazing effulgence at this hour, that no lan- 
 guage can give any just idea of it. Gazing steadfastly and 
 long upon it, I began to comprehend what Coleridge meant, 
 when he said that he almost lost the sense of his own being in 
 that of the mountain, so that it seemed to bo a part of him and 
 he of it. Gazing thus, your sense almost becomes dizzy in 
 the tremulous efi"ulgence. And then the sunset ! The rich hues 
 of sunset upon such a scene ! The golden light upon the ver- 
 dure, the warm crimson tints upon the snow, the crags glow- 
 ing like jasper, the masses of shade cast from summit to sum- 
 mit, the shafts of light shooting past them into the sky, and 
 all this flood of rich magnificence succeeded so rapidly by the 
 cold gray of the snow, and gone entirely when the stars arc 
 visible above the mountains, and it is night! 
 
 Now again let me collect some images from the burning pen 
 of Dante, who, if he had been set to draw from an earthly 
 symbol, what his imagination painted of the figurings of Para- 
 dise, might have chosen this mountain at this evening hour. 
 For, indeed, it seems as if this must be the way travelled by 
 happy spirits from earth to heaven, and this the place where
 
 VOICE OF MONT BT.AXC. 
 
 140 
 
 the angels of God are ascending and descending, eacli Lriglit 
 er than the sun. 
 
 i]w 
 
 " A lamping as of quick and volleyed lightning, 
 Within the bosom of that mighty sheen 
 Played tremulous. 
 
 And as some cliff, that from the bottom eyes 
 Its imago mirrored in the crystal flood, 
 As if to admire its brave apparelling 
 Of verdure and of flowers ; so, round about, 
 Eyeing the light, on more than million thrones, 
 >Stood, eminent, vrhatever from our earth 
 lias to the skies returned. 
 Behold this fair assemblage, snovry white. 
 How numberless. The city where we dwell 
 Behold how vast ; and these our seats so thronged, 
 
 'Twixt gladness and amaze, 
 In sooth no will had I to utter aught. 
 Or hear. And, as a pilgrim, when he rests 
 Within the temple of his own, looks round 
 In breathless awe, and liopes sometimes to tell 
 Of all its goodly state ; e'en so mine eyes 
 Coursed up and down along the living light, 
 Now low, and now aloft, and now around. 
 Visiting every step. 
 
 Emboldened, on 
 I passed, as I remember, till my view 
 Hovered the brink of dread infinitude.'' 
 
 Paradise, Cantos xxv and xxxi. 
 
 The feelings are various in viewing such a scene. It lifts 
 the soul to God — it seems a sjmhol of his invisible glory — ^you 
 are almost entranced with its splendour! Wonderful! that out 
 of the materials of earth, air, ice, rock, and mist, with the sim- 
 ple robe of light, such a fit type of the splendours of eternity 
 can be constructed. It is the light that makes the glory. Who 
 coverest thyself with light as with a garment! Who dwellest 
 in light inaccessible and full of glory ! It is God that makes 
 the light ; it is God that with it makes such shadows of his 
 own brightness. But if such be the material, what is the im- 
 material? — if such bo the earthly, what is the spiritual? — if 
 such be the hem, as it were, of God's robe of creation, what is 
 God ? And if he can present to the weak sense of men in bodies 
 of clay such ecstasy of material glory, what must bo the scenes
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 of spiritual glory presented to the incorporeal sense of those 
 that love him? 
 
 " If such the sweetness of the streams, 
 What must the Fountain bo, 
 Wliere saints and angels draw their bliss 
 Immediately from Thee ?" 
 
 But the view of such a scene also makes one sensible of his 
 own insignificance and sinfulness ; it makes one feel how unfit 
 he is for the presence of a God of such inaccessible glory. The 
 one powerful impression made upon my mind was this : if out 
 of such material elements the Divine Being can form to the eye 
 a scene of such awful splendour, what mighty preparation of 
 Divine Grace do we need, as sinful beings, before we can he- 
 hold God — before we can see his face without perishing — he- 
 fore we can be admitted to his immediate spiritual presence ! 
 Ah, Mont Blanc, in such an hour, utters forth that sentence, 
 Without holiness no man shall see God ! 
 
 ^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 PASS OF THE COL DE LA SEIGNE. 
 
 After a day of so much enjoyment, I arrived at Courmayeur, 
 thankful that I had been led to persevere iu my pedestrian ex- 
 cursion. There are at this village some most salutary mineral 
 springs, very like the Congress springs at Saratoga, resorted 
 to by many of the Piedmontcse. The water pours directly out 
 of the rock, in a natural grotto, with which a rude building is 
 connected, and in each tumbler deposits a good deal of flinty 
 sediment. One might have enjoyed a fortnight at these re- 
 freshing Avaters, with such sublime scenery around, and I had 
 a great mind to stay awhile, for I kno>w of no such glorious 
 watering-place in the world; hut the difiicult passes of the Col 
 de la Seigne and the Col de Bonhomme were before me, and 
 "who could tell how long the fine weather I was enjoying might 
 last, or how soon it might change? Courmayeur is close be- 
 ucath Mont Blanc; ten minutes' Avalk from the village brings 
 
 i^ 
 
 f^^^
 
 ■j^g 
 
 ^^^^z^^ 
 
 hSk$ 
 
 -<^i 
 
 GLACIERS OF MONT BLANC. 
 
 151 
 
 you to a full, magnificent view .of him, much more perpendicu- 
 lar on this side than on that of Chamouny. You may step from 
 a sward of the greenest delicious grass enamelled with flowers, 
 into ice-bergs as old as the creation. 
 
 After some deliberation I resolved to start at once, with one 
 of the brothers Proment for my guide, and had cause to be 
 grateful for this resolution, since om- fine days lasted but just 
 long enough to bring us within three or four hours of Cha- 
 mouny, and the mountain-passes could not have been crossed 
 in bad weather. 
 
 Immediately on leaving the village, you have before you a 
 very grand view of Mont Blanc, v.'ith his whole majestic train 
 of sweeping snowy mountains. The AUee Blanche, up which 
 you pass, must have been so named from the stupendous fields 
 of ice and snow, and from those vast white glaciers, on the 
 very borders of which you traverse a long time, as you may on 
 the borders of the Mer de Glace. There is no situation in 
 which these mighty ice-creations are seen to more advantage, 
 or appear in greater sublimity. There is none where your path 
 passes so near to them. You might suppose that it Avas in 
 crossing one of these Alpine gorges verging on chaos, that 
 Dante gathered first some dim struggling conception of his 
 nine hells. It would be easy to people the region with blue- 
 pinched spirits, thrilling in thick-ribbed ice, and ghosts, fiend- 
 like chained to the splintered rocks, or wrestling in their dis- 
 mal cloisters. 
 
 " The shore, encompassing th' abyss 
 Seems turreted with giants, half their length 
 Upi'caring, horrible, whom Jove from heaven 
 Yet threatens, when his muttering thunder rolls." 
 
 Here you may see the distorted resemblances of a thousand 
 prodigious things, crouching, deformed, unutterable, of earth, 
 and ice, and subterranean, tortured floods, freezing or fiery 
 Phlegethon, Styx, Acheron, with all the abhorred brood of 
 Night and Chaos ; remnants of a world, where the thick air 
 may have upborne upon its crude consistence winged lizards a 
 Iea"-ue long, now petrified and fixed upright in mummy cases 
 
 ? 
 
 r^n
 
 -^^ 
 
 under coats of ice, as the bas-reliefs, aiul grinning, iceberg 
 Caryatides of the mountains. The cold, hoarse brooks growl 
 when the storm rages, till, fed from ten thousand sluices, they 
 Bwell into impetuous cataracts, and thunder down, tearing tlio 
 hills in their passage. Sometimes a whole glacier drops wedge- 
 like into them, when they rise into broad imprisoned lakes, 
 pressing and tugging at their crystal barriers; till at length, 
 bursting all restraint, they are precipitated down into the vales 
 with dreadful ruin. 
 
 Sometimes from a great height you look down upon the 
 glaciers, and observe their monstrous minarets, battlements, 
 shivered domes, and splintered, deep, frightful ravines, and 
 sometimes you look up, where they seem as if pouring down 
 from heaven across your path their frozen cataracts. The mo- 
 raines, or colossal ridges of broken rocks, which they have 
 ploughed up, are truly wonderful. Sometimes you can almost 
 command the whole length and windings of the glacier up to its 
 issue, and down to the point where a river rushes from its icy 
 caverns. At one spot the guide traced for me the perillous 
 route to Chamouny by the Col de Geant. We crossed a whole 
 mountain of frightful ruins, looking as if some lofty Alps of 
 granite had toppled down by its own weight, and burst into a 
 wild chaos of ridges of fragments. 
 
 Along this scene of stupendous desolation, the uneasy path 
 upcoiling, scales the huge fallen crags, vestiges of Titanic con- 
 vulsions and conflicts, where a storm would bring down an 
 avalanche from the accumulated ruins of other avalanches. All 
 this way, the snowy mountains are overhanging you on one side, 
 and the bare outjutting precipices look ready to fall from the 
 sky on the other. We are continually following the valley of 
 the Doire to the crash and roar of its thundering music. At 
 a spot on the other side of the stream, my guide pointed me to 
 a cave, at the base of a mountain impregnated with saltpetre, 
 wliich he said was of a frightful depth, and was the resort of 
 great numbers of chamois. Under a huge rock opposite this 
 cave, the hunters lay in ambush, to take aim at the chamois 
 v.'ithout being seen. 
 
 We passed the little lake of Combal, encreascd by a massive 
 
 
 % 
 
 ^- 
 
 lg^
 
 ^S^^m.^^.i 
 
 S\VISS GIULS HAYMAKING. 
 
 ^ 
 
 153 
 
 artificial rocky barrier, and bordered, on the side opposite Mont 
 Blanc, with hardy green shruhbery and beautiful flowers. It 
 cost us nearly five hours to accomplish the height of the pass, but 
 about three hours from Courmayeur, just above the last beau- 
 tiful farms watered by the Doire, where the women and maidens 
 were busy making hay, we stopped at the solitary Auberge 
 and made an excellent dinner of time-defying bread, that might 
 outlast the mountains, together with goats' milk, rich, light and 
 wholesome. The woman told me she had four children, two 
 boys and two girls, and added that it was two girls too many. 
 
 This was one of the most unmotherhj speeches I ever heard, 
 but it was uttered on the extreme verge of the habitable world, 
 where Mont Blanc darts his frost-arrows through the air, and 
 shakes over the earth his robe of glaciers, and looks you out of 
 countenance with a theory of population sterner than that of 
 Mr. Malthus. Yet it icas strange that a mother could wish to 
 have had not one daughter for herself, not one loving sister for 
 her sons ! What must be the hardship of that life, how full of 
 unrelenting toil, how pressed with chill penury, how stript of 
 flowers, and barren of all beauty and dry as summer's dust, 
 that could suff'er in a mother's heart so unnatural a wish! Ah, 
 there must have been something of hardness in the heart, as 
 well as hardship in the life, to bring about such feelings. 
 
 I remonstrated with the poor woman in behalf of her daugh- 
 ters, but she observed that other families had girls enough, and 
 intimated that they were a mere incumbrance, while the boys 
 could earn their own bread. But if the girls who were making 
 hay lower down the valley did not earn theirs, there is never a 
 hunter in all Switzerland could earn it. Indeed, there seemed 
 to me to be almost no labour, in which the loomen-folh do not 
 bear a good part in these Alpine solitudes. Their station in the 
 household is anything but a sinecure ; they only do not hunt 
 for chamois. 
 
 Farther up than this we passed a little cluster of huts for 
 making cheese, and drank of the rich fresh milk which they 
 were just drawing from the cows, pouring it into a colossal 
 Titanic kettle, to undergo in mass the process preparatory for 
 the cheese-press. 
 
 *► 
 
 \\g/
 
 ^l 
 
 
 *VANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 i^ 
 
 At lengtli over fields of ice and snow we gained tlie summit of 
 the Col dc Seigne, from whence a very grand view is to bo 
 enjoyed on both sides, but especially on the side towards tho 
 Val d'Entrevcs and Courmayeur. The summit of Mont Blanc 
 is sublimely visible, with the glaciers pouring down its sides 
 into the valley, at the distant end of which the Mont Velan and 
 the summits of the Grand St. Bernard fill up the view. The 
 descent from this point to Chapieu was rapid and easy. Ar- 
 riving at a cluster of chalets called Motet, we were advised to 
 go over the Col de Fours toNant Bourantfor the night, instead 
 of proceeding down to Chapieu, as this would be adding an 
 hour's travel to Nant Bourant ; but it was late, and looked 
 theatening, so that we determined to proceed towards Chapieu 
 for our sleeping place, and glad was I for this determination. 
 For, in less than an hour the clouds gathered towards us M'ith 
 every appearance of a sudden storm, which would have been 
 terrible, had we been overtaken by it at evening, on the heights 
 of the Col de Fours, as we must have been had we attempted 
 that course. 
 
 To get to our shelter at Chapieu before the rain, we hurried, 
 and ran, even after a day's fatiguing march ; and we had but 
 just arrived at these lonely huts, when it began to thunder ana 
 lighten on the mountains, and the rain fell ; and never did shel- 
 ter appear to me more grateful. I was reminded of my adven- 
 tures in Spain, outside the city of Barcelona, in the midst of 
 the Carlist war at night-fall. The thunder among the moun- 
 tains was terribly grand. I feared a wet day for the next, but 
 the storm spent itself in the night, and at break of dawn clear- 
 ed off beautifully. 
 
 But here the morn sows not the earth with orient pearl, "her 
 rosy steps in the eastern clime advancing," nor are there leaves, 
 nor fuming rills, nor thick, delicious boughs, nor verdurous 
 walls of foliage, with birds singing their matin song among 
 them, but a cluster of miserable hamlets, inhabited only in the 
 summer, in the midst of desolate torrent-beds of rocks, hemmed 
 in by bare rough mountains. The valley is like a gloomy tri- 
 angular shaft sunk in a continent of granite, or like the broad, 
 deep crater of an extinct volcano. Nevertheless, on first rising
 
 PASS OF THE COL DE BONHOMME. 
 
 155 
 
 out of It, the view of tlie mountains opposite, as you climb to- 
 wards the Col de Bonhomme, is very grand. The shafts of 
 light, pouring down into it from the mountain-peaks at sunrise, 
 as the sun gains and surmounts one after another, present a 
 spectacle of the greatest beauty. The Morn thus kindles the 
 dreariest bare crags with an imaginative glory, before the dewv 
 leaves or the grass under our steps have begun to reflect it. 
 So Schiller beautifully says, " before truth sends its triumphant 
 light into the recesses of the heart, the Imagination intercepts 
 its rays ; and the summit of humanity is radiant, while the 
 damp night still lingers in the valleys." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PASS OF THE COL DE BONHOMME. 
 
 Thb chalet where we lodged and breakfasted was, I believe, the 
 death-place of an English traveller, a few years ago, who had 
 been overtaken by a storm on the Col de Bonhomme, and per- 
 ished, it was said, not so much from exposure to the cold upon 
 the mountain (from the effect of which he might perhaps have 
 been saved) as from too sudden exposure to the fire, on being 
 brought into the cottage. He and his companions were both 
 lost, one of them a clergyman aged 30, the other a young gentle- 
 man of 20. They had two guides, but the snow fell so fast and 
 thick, with such intense cold, that one of the travellers sank 
 down entirely exhausted and perished on the mountain, and the 
 other reached the house of refuge in the valley only to die. The 
 story is of deep and melancholy interest. 
 
 The summit of the pass is more than 8000 feet above the 
 level of the sea, and in bad weather is of extremest difBculty 
 and danger. It was easy to see that whether on the ridge of 
 the pass, or for a long way down, to be overtaken by an Alpine 
 storm would almost inevitably be fatal. So it would, if com- 
 pelled to go on in one of those fogs, which sometimes settle for 
 days upon the mountains. 
 
 Wc reached the height of the pass by a very difficult ascent. 
 
 rr^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 Ji^^ . 
 
 v^^
 
 156 
 
 WAXDERIXGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 in about tlirec hours from Chapieu. Those unfortuuate Eng- 
 lish travellers were coming from the other side, and had arrived 
 within little more than an hour of our resting-place, when the 
 storm conquered them. On either side the prospect command 
 ed is one of the sublimest and most extensive views in Switzer- 
 land. The magnificent snow-covered mountain beyond the 
 valley from which we ascended, being one of the most beauti- 
 ful summits of the Alps, is here in so bright a day seen in all 
 its grandeur, with its triangular pyramidal peak towering 
 against the sky, far above the ocean of mountains around it. 
 
 " How clear, how keen, how marvellously bviu'lt, 
 The effulgence from yon distant mountain's licad, 
 "Which, strewn with snow as smooth as heaven can shed, 
 Shines like another sun, on mortal sight 
 Uprisen, as if to check approaching night." 
 
 Mighty and glorious vision! serene, radiant as the face of an 
 Archangel, dazzling as the morn risen on mid-noon, and glit- 
 tering with such entire and steadfast, yet tremulous effulgence 
 beneath the blaze of day, that you can hardly leave the spot 
 that commands an object of so great sublimity. On the side 
 towards Piedmont and France, the vast and multitudinous 
 mountain ranges are scai'cely less sublime, from their immense 
 extent and variety. 
 
 Going down from such a view into the valley, one's sensa- 
 tions are full of regret, it makes you almost sorrowful. When 
 you gain such a view, you feel it to be well worth all the fatigue 
 you have encountered in the ascent, and the time it has cost 
 you. But how little time you can enjoy it, how short the mo- 
 ments ! Nevertheless, the memory of it does not pass from the 
 mind when you come down into our common world, and mingle 
 again with its inhabitants, and live amidst its evcry-day scenes; 
 but it 16 put away as an additional picture in the remembrance- 
 gallei-y of the soul, and you often recur to it, as a vision of glory. 
 
 Descending from such an elevated point, where you are so far 
 above the world and so near heaven, where the air is so pure 
 and bracing, and the landscape swells off into infinity, you feel 
 like a Christian Pilgrim compelled to descend from the Mount 
 of Transfiguration, where he has been spending a season with
 
 PASS OF TUE COL BONHOMifE. 
 
 ■^ 
 
 \^ 
 
 -41 
 
 Moses and Elias, aud Peter and James and John, beholding 
 the glory of the Saviour. It takes a long time and much 
 spiritual discipline, much prayer and toiling up\tards, to reacli 
 such a height, and many get discouraged and go down without 
 reaching it, and without entering into the glory that is around 
 its summit. When you are there, you think with Peter, Let 
 us build here three tabernacles ; here would we stay the rem- 
 nant of our days, and go no more down amidst the cares and 
 temptations of a world so dangerous, so full of care and sin. 
 But you cannot always be upon the Mount ; your duties are in 
 the world, though your delight may be with Moses and Elias 
 in glory. Meanwhile, even one such view ought to be of such 
 invigorating, animating, refreshment and encouragement, that 
 \n the strength of it you might go for many days and nights 
 of your weary pilgrimage. 
 
 Upon the Spiritual Moimt you are never in danger of a storm, 
 and the way upward is the safest of all ways, and you have no 
 need to seek a shelter, for it is never night. But upon this 
 earthly mountain elevation, you are in the situation of all 
 others the most exposed to storms. This view on the Col de 
 Bonhomme is one which you are compelled to leave, however 
 unwilling, having no time to lose in admiration, if you would 
 get to a resting place in good season. 
 
 It was this passage, so perillous in bad weather, across Avhich 
 the brave Henri Arnaud passed in the 17th century, with his 800 
 Waldenses, on that wonderful, heaven-directed enterprise of re- 
 peopling their native valleys with the Church of Christ's wit- 
 nesses. They passed, strange to say, without loss, though in 
 the midst of a torrent of rain, with the snow at the same time 
 knee-deep upon the mountain. The same Divine Hand guided 
 them on this occasion, that afterward covered them with the 
 cloud, that they might escape from their enemies. No expedi- 
 tion recorded in the annals of history, except the flight of the 
 Hebrews from Egypt, and their passage of the Red Sea, is to 
 be compared with this, for its marvellous greatness and success. 
 The descent from the Col de Bonhomme to Nant Bourant Is 
 over many partial glaciers, amidst wild and appalling preci- 
 pices ; and just below Nant Bourant, the torrent, which you 
 
 ^t^^
 
 <9'ANDERINGS OF 
 
 cross l)y a Lrulge tlirown over a gulf of great depth, falls Into 
 a fearful, contorted gorge in the mountains, torn and twisted 
 with split crags, against which the cataract in its fall crashes, 
 roars, and i-ebouuds from one side to the other with terrific din 
 and fury. The passage is so overhung with thick black firs, 
 and the gulf is so deep, that though the road passes within a 
 few feet of it, it is with the utmost difficulty and danger that 
 you get a fair view down into the roaring hell of waters. 
 
 From the chalets, pasturages, and cataract of Nant Bourant 
 you follow the furious torrent down by a steep and rocky path 
 into a deep dell at the village of Notre Dame de la Gorge, at 
 the base of the Mount Joli. Here a church is set ; indeed the 
 church and its appendages constitute almost the whole village; 
 it must be a place of pilgrimage, and for some distance down 
 the valley, which begins to be very beautiful, a series of Roman 
 Catholic " Stations" extends at short intervals, with niches for 
 pictures, representing the life and sufferings of Christ, to the 
 number of some twenty-four. It forms a sort of sacra via such 
 as they had of old in Thebes, but without the Sphinxes. Far- 
 ther down toward Contamines, you pass chapels in honour of 
 the Virgin, where the inscriptions indicate the idolatrous vene- 
 ration which the misguided people are taught to pay her. For 
 example, on one of these chapels, in connection with the rude 
 image of the Virgin, you may find these ruder lines : 
 
 Quand la Mort fermera nos yeux 
 Accordcz nous, Reine de Cieux, 
 La Scjour de bienhcureux. 
 Jesus et Maria ayez pitio de nous. 
 
 When grim Death shall close our eyes, 
 Accord to us, Queen of the skies, 
 A dwelling jdace in Paradise. 
 Jesus and Maria have mercy on us ! 
 
 On another altar or chapel erected in the same way in honour 
 of the Virgin, you may find the following inscription, which 
 imitates, in a manner approaching very near to blasphemy, tho 
 language appropriated in Scripture to God and the Saviour. 
 
 Qui invenerit Mariam, 
 Inveniet vitam. 
 
 lie who findetli ]\?;-.ry, 
 Fiudoth life. 
 
 I
 
 -4( 
 
 PASS OF TnE COL BONHOMME. 
 
 Alas! tlie influence and the end of these things is death! For 
 ■who, of all the crowds that are taught this idolatrous trust in 
 and worship of the Virgin, can be supposed to have any true 
 sense of the nature of faith in Christ, or any true knowledge 
 of Him as the soul's only Saviour! 
 
 " Our Mother who art in heaven (says this great system of 
 Marianism, instead of Christianity), Mary, blessed be thy 
 name for ever! let thy love come to all our hearts ; let thy de- 
 sires be accomplished on earth as in heaven ; give us this day 
 grace and mercy, give us the pardon of our faults, as we hope 
 from thine unbounded goodness, and let us no more sink under 
 temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen." 
 
 Passing from this valley through the village of Contamines 
 and some other hamlets, through scenery which sometimes is 
 of great beauty, and sometimes combined with very grand views 
 of Mont Blanc, we at length reached the village of Gervais. I 
 had before visited its celebrated baths, and the singular wild 
 valley at the end of which they are situated, and now, after 
 gaining, with a good deal of difficulty, a view of the cataract 
 from above the falls, in the savage rift throuo-h which it thun- 
 ders, I proceeded on my way for Chamouny through Servoz. 
 We had but arrived at the last village, when there came on a 
 tremendous thunder-storm, and it being evening, it was in vain 
 to think of advancing; farther that nis;ht. A bed was made for 
 me in the salle a manger, the inn being completely full, and so 
 I fell asleep listening to the rain, and hoping for fine weather 
 in the morning. And in the early morning it was indeed fine, 
 perfectly clear, so that we set out with the expectation of a fair 
 day for our six hours' walk to Chamouny. 
 
 Scarcely had we been an hour on our way when the thunder 
 began again to reverberate, and as we reached the height be- 
 tween Servoz and the entrance upon the vale of Chamouny, the 
 rain came down in torrents driven by the wind as in a tempest. 
 Should we keep on in the 'storm ? Why, thought we, it Avill 
 doubtless rain all day, so that there is no use in turning aside 
 for a shelter. So we persevered, but by the time one could get 
 comfortably wetted, the clouds, rain, and wind once more pass- 
 ed over, and the sun came out bright and warm, so that with 
 
 T^^
 
 ^^LC Jfl L^ .l i^ ^i^ JL 
 
 C^. 
 
 WANDE1UNG3 OF A I'lLGHlM. 
 
 the exercise of wulkiiig wc were dry again -without danger of 
 taking cold. 
 
 On arriving at our Hotel do I'Uniou, the rain set in again 
 and continued without interruption into the evening. The 
 weather proved that I was wise in not stopping at the springs 
 among the mountains. Take Time hy the forelock, is a good 
 proverh. Had I been a day later from Courmayeur, it would 
 have been well nigh impossible to have crossed the Col deBon- 
 homme, and I must either have turned back, or waited nearly 
 a week for available weather. As it was, I was happy in en- 
 countering only one storm, and this was an experience which, 
 considering that I was something of an invalid, might perhaps 
 with propriety be regarded as an instance of the water-cure. 
 It is true that I was not wrapped up in blankets, nor put to 
 bed in my wet clothes, but I was wetted and dried the same 
 day; and the question may be submitted, if a thorough wet- 
 ting in a soaking rain, and an immediate consecutive drying 
 by exercise in a warm sun, the patient being accustomed to 
 wear flannel, may not constitute a more natural and effective 
 water-cure than the artificial soaking and drying within doors. 
 
 I tried it again partially the very next da}^ and with equal 
 success, having travelled in snow and water over our shoes, and 
 of course walking some hours with cold and wet feet, till we 
 walked ourselves dry again, without the least injury. We were 
 ascending the Breven, right opposite Mont Blanc. The day 
 looked promising for nothing but mist and rain ; nevertheless 
 Ave started, four in all, in the hope that by the time we reached 
 the summit, the clouds might clear aM-ay, and reveal to us the 
 glorious prospect, which in fine weather is enjoyed so perfectly 
 from that height. One of our party was the lamented Mr. 
 Bacon of Connecticut, a noble-hearted and cheerful traveller, 
 but not being well, he gave out about a third of the way up, 
 and amused himself with toppling down the loose rocks into 
 the savage ravines below us. We left him in that agreeable 
 occupation, and went on -with our guide. 
 
 After some two hours' clean climbing over heiglits and 
 depths, crags, rock-fields, and terraces of green sward inter- 
 spersed, we entered upon the last ascent just below what is 
 
 /^^
 
 ASCENT OF THE CHIMNEY. 
 
 called " the chimney," which is said to be (for I did not suc- 
 ceed in reaching it,) a hollow perpendicular tunnel or groove, 
 
 ^ up which you climb (like a bear or tree-toad, in the hollow of a 
 dead knotty pine or oak), and on coming out of the top find 
 yourself on the summit of the Breven, some 10,000 feet in the 
 air, looking Mont Blanc in the eye, and tracing the perillous 
 crevasses, precipices, inaccessible savage ravines, bottomless 
 glaciers, ice-slides, and snow-fields, with the avalanchian scars 
 and abysses deep entrenched on the face and shoulders of th» 
 mountain. The yesterday's storm of rain in the valleys had 
 been a deep fall of snow on the mountain-heights, which was 
 now about the consistency of a fresh-water ice, or of ice-cream 
 made out of blue milk. After making our way for some time 
 in this penetrating sposh, we found ourselves quite too hungry 
 and exhausted to attempt the chimney without dining ; so our 
 load of provisions was unslung from the guide's shoulders, and 
 we stood and ate and drank what had been intended for the 
 whole party, as it had been Peter's sheet, with an appetite keen 
 as the air we were breathing, not at all diminished by being 
 obliged to keep stamping all the while with our feet in the 
 snow to avoid freezing. 
 
 In proportion as my hunger was allayed, my Avet feet grew 
 cold, and my ardour for the chimney cooled also ; and as the 
 mist was round about us like a blanket, though now and then 
 bursting open and revealing at a glimpse both the snowy heights 
 above and the depths below, Mont Blanc flashing before us, 
 and the peaceful vale shining and smoking beneath, I therefore 
 concluded for once to play the better part of valour, and leav- 
 ing my more resolute friend and the guide to report concerning 
 the chimney and the mist above, turned and ran down the snow- 
 
 pj sheeted rocks with incredible velocity, somewhat like Timorous 
 and Mistrust running down the hill of DiflSculty. However, I 
 was leaving no "celestial city " behind me, nor could I even 
 have got a glimpse from the " Delectable Moimtains ;" as my 
 friend afterwards confessed that he got nothing but a prodigi- 
 ous deal of fatigue, and a more sublime experience of the infi- 
 nitude of mist, for his pains, when he rose from the craggy 
 tunnel, like a chimney-sweeper in the smoke. I got back quito 
 12 L 
 
 1^ 
 
 "l^
 
 dry, and without any cold, to the vale of Chamoiiny, and this 
 „roa my second successful experiment of the water-cure. 
 
 was 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 OHAMOUNY TO GENEVA. — THE BISHOP OF CASHEL PREACHING IN 
 THE DINING-HALL. 
 
 Having once more visited the beautiful Cascade des Pelerines, 
 we started for Geneva at five in the morning in what is called 
 the diligence, being, until you get to St. Martin's, a simple 
 char-a-hanc for three. The most beautiful sight in the excur- 
 sion, after the magnificent view of Mont Blanc from the bridge 
 at St. Martin's was that of the miniature Staubach cascades, 
 which fall softly, like a long vail of wrought lace, over the 
 precipices by the road-side, many hundred feet high. You 
 eatch them now before, now behind, now sideways, now in 
 front, now beneath, where they seem dropping on you out of 
 heaven, now among the trees, glancing in fairy jets of foam, 
 so light that it seems as if the air would suspend them. They 
 are like — what are they like ? — like beautiful maidens timidly 
 entering the gay world — like Raphael's or Murillo's pictures of 
 the Virgin and Child — like the light of unexpected truth upon 
 the mind — like a 'morrice band' of daisies greeting a ' travel- 
 ler in the lane ' — like a flock of sheep among lilies — like the 
 white doe of Rylstonc — like the frost-work on the window — 
 like an apple-tree in blossom — like the first new moon. How 
 patiently, modestly, unconsciously, they throw themselves over 
 the cliff, to be gazed at They are like fairies dancing in the 
 moonlight ; like the wings of angels coming down Jacob's 
 ladder into the world. 
 
 The saddest and most dismal sight in this excursion (for 
 where does the shadow of Mont Blanc fall without meeting 
 some sorrow ?) was the burned town of Cluses, with the inha- 
 bitants like melancholy ghosts among the ruins. A whole 
 village of industrious peasants devoured by fire, and only one 
 whole house left ! All their property, all their means of sub- 
 
 
 X
 
 y 
 
 
 \ 
 
 sisteiice gone ! A substantial, thriving village it was, the 
 key of the valley, at the mouth of a romantic gorge, where 
 there was room for only one street and the bridge, all anni- 
 hilated. Just so the town of Thusis, near the pass of the 
 Splugen, has been burned entirely within a short period ; and 
 just so, nearly the whole town of Sallenches, a few miles from 
 Cluses, was not long ago laid in ashes. This terrible calamity 
 desolates the Swiss villages more frequently than the over- 
 whelming avalanche, or the tempest-driven torrents from the 
 glaciers. Benevolence was busy sending in her supplies from 
 every direction, but the sight was a very sad one ; the people 
 literally sitting in sackcloth and ashes. Had the calamity 
 fallen in the winter, the suffering would have been terrible. 
 
 After this beautiful day's ride amidst the grandeur of the 
 gorges, valleys, and castellated ridges of mountains between 
 Chamouny and Lake Leman, we arrived for a quiet, pleasant 
 Sabbath, at the Hotel de I'Ecu, from which we had departed. 
 
 The change from Chamouny to Geneva is from the extreme 
 of sublimity to the highest degree of beauty. 
 
 " Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake. 
 With the wide world I dwell in, is a thing 
 That warns me, by its stillness, to forsake 
 Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.' 
 
 If Byron had but tasted of that spring — if he had kuoAvn 
 ■who it was, and what better impulse, that was whispering to 
 him when he wrote these lines, he would have asked, and Christ 
 would have given him of that living Fountain which would 
 have been in him a well of water springing up to everlasting 
 life. And then he would not have again returned to "earth's 
 troubled waters ;" instead of descending from the elevation of 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage to the degradation of Don Juan, 
 he would have gone up, excelsior ; he would have shaken off 
 the baser passions of humanity, and his poetry would have 
 breathed the air of heaven. 
 
 Alas ! this sweet stanza of the Poet's thoughts on the lake 
 of Geneva recalls to my mind the image of the noble-hearted 
 companion before mentioned, of some of my rambles among the 
 mountains (Mr, Bacon, of Connecticut,) with whom I parted, 
 
 ^K T^ ^ ^ ^^ ^
 
 
 Hit 
 
 164 
 
 WANDEraXGS OF A riLGUIM. 
 
 one bright morning, on the lake, repeating tliat very stanza. 
 He was just setting out on his way through the north of Swit- 
 zerland, and by the Rhine, for England. There was a me- 
 lancholy upon his mind, produced in part, no doubt, by illness; 
 but he had spoken of a beloved father, of the delight to which 
 he looked forward in rejoining him in America, of his only 
 earthly wish to make the declining years of his parent happy, 
 and of the strife in his mind between the desire to spend a few 
 months more in Euro2)e, and his impatience to be again with 
 those who seemed so dependent on him for enjoyment. 
 
 The Sabbath evening before we parted Mr. Bacon had gone 
 with mc to hear the Bishop of Cashel. The service was in the 
 dining hall of the Hotel de Bergues, a fashionable resort, where 
 there were gathered as many of the votaries of rank and wealth 
 from England as ordinarily are to be found in Geneva on any 
 Sabbath. It was an unusual step for a Bishop of the English 
 Church ; — a regular conventicle — a Sabbath evening extem- 
 pore sermon from a Bishop in the dining-hall of the Hotel. I 
 love to record it as a pleasant example of a dignitary of the 
 Establishment using the influence of his rank to do good, to 
 gather an assembly for hearing God's word, in circumstances 
 where no one else could have commanded an audience of half a 
 dozen persons, where, indeed, the use of the room for such a 
 purpose would hardly have been granted to any other indivi- 
 dual. 
 
 The hall was perfectly crowded. The preacher's sermon 
 was a most simple, faithful, practical, affectionate exhibition of 
 divine truth. It was on the subject of Paul's conversion, its 
 steps, its marks, its i-esults, especially the blessed temper, 
 Lo7-d, what wilt thou have me to do ? He showed that every 
 creature who would be a Christian must be converted Jms^ lilie 
 Paul ; that the change in Paul was no extraordinary case, as 
 it is sometimes viewed, but a case of conversion ; and that they 
 must every one be converted, and become as little children, in 
 like manner, saying. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? 
 
 A second Sabbath evening, the good Bishop having been 
 unexpectedly detained in Geneva, appointed a second service of 
 the same kind. Acain the hall was crowded. He took forhi.s
 
 BISHOP OF CASIIEL. 
 
 v^ 
 
 I 
 
 ^1* 
 
 Buljject, tins time, the conversion of that siurul woman who 
 loved much, because much was forgiven ; and again it was a 
 most unostentatious, straight-forward, practical exhibition of 
 the truth, plain, convincing, humbling, direct to the conscience 
 and the heart. Every person, he told his hearers, needed con- 
 version by the grace of Christ, just as much as this woman. 
 Without that grace, be you ever so refined, so amiable, so up- 
 right, so pure, you are just as certainly unfit for heaven, and 
 in the way to perdition, as she was. And you must come to 
 Christ just as she did, be as penitent for your sins as she was, 
 and love your Saviour, like her, with all your heart. 
 
 Indeed it was pleasant, it was delightful, it was heart-cheer- 
 ing to hear a Bishop of the Church of England, in the midst 
 of the prevalence of Oxfordism, the resurrection of a religion 
 of forms, baptisms, crossings, and not of faith and conversion, 
 take these simple themes, and go with Christ's bare truth 
 straight to the hearts of his hearers. He must have had a 
 unity of design in taking Paul for the first evening, and the 
 sinful woman for the second; two extremes of society, two great 
 sinners, high and low; and the grace of Christ equally necessary 
 for both, and for all intermediate characters ; and the grace of 
 Christ just the same with both, and with all sinful hearts under 
 whatever exterior ; grace, divine grace, and not form ; conver- 
 sion, and not baptism. 
 
 Among others present at these meetings, we noticed the youth- 
 ful and extremely beautiful wife of M. Bodisco, the Russian 
 Ambassador to America, oui- fair countrywoman. What can 
 console her amidst the trials of her rank and expatriation, but 
 that same grace which the Bishop of Cashel commended with 
 such affectionate earnestness to the heart of every one of us ? 
 Probably many a sermon of the same nature had she listened 
 to in her own dear native land. May she find the pearl of 
 great price ! There were others there who perhaps never be- 
 fore in all their lives listened to such plain truth. The good 
 Bishop may reap a great reward from these two Sabbath even- 
 ings of simple labours. 
 
 He had just been made Bishop of Cashel in Ireland; before, 
 he was plain Rev. R. Daly. A Scottish clergyman of 
 
 w-
 
 ^ 6 ^ -" ^4 
 
 16G 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 quaintance, who luid formerly knowMi him well, called on him 
 in Geneva. "I hope," said he, when allusion was made to his 
 recent elevation, " that you will find me Robert Daly still." 
 
 Mr. Bacon was much struck with the simplicity and direct- 
 ness of the preaching. " Pretty^ well for a bishop," said he; 
 " this is like our good New England practical theology." We 
 conversed on the subject, and the next morning, when we part- 
 ed, I handed him a letter, pursuing the same train of thought, 
 knowing well that he woidd read it with kindness and affection. 
 
 I often thought of him. WTiere was he, while I was wan- 
 dering ? Then I heard of his sudden death in Spain, in the 
 lovely region of Seville, but in a land of strangers, with only 
 the image of distant childless parents in his heart ! What a 
 destruction of the fondest hopes, on the one side and on the 
 other ! And what a vail there is between the traveller and the 
 future ! I had crossed seas, passed through the severest trial 
 and sorrow I ever encountered, in the death of a younger bro- 
 ther unutterably dear, and indescribably lovely in his charac- 
 ter ; but yet I was on my way home, had been preserved in 
 mercy amidst all dangers, and on my way took up a newspaper 
 in my native land, to behold the record of his death in Spain, 
 from whom I parted that bright morning on the lake of Ge- 
 neva ! I thought of the desolation of his home, its flower gone 
 for ever. "V^Tiat a blow was that ! An only son ! an affection 
 far deeper than the mere elastic energies of our humanity can 
 bear up under. But there is One who bindeth up the broken 
 in heart, and healeth all their wounds. He alone, who inflicts 
 such a blow, can mingle consolation with it ; he only can sup- 
 port the soul beneath it. 
 
 The shadow of Mont Blanc falls upon sickness, trial, and 
 suffering, as well as upon elastic frames, gay hearts, buoyant 
 hopes and joyous spirits. And sometimes it falls upon those 
 whose own shadow, as they stand unawares on the brink of 
 the grave, falls already from Time into Eternity. Would that 
 the pilgrimage of all, who tread from year to year that won- 
 drous circle of sublimity and glory, sometimes in shadow, 
 sometimes in sunshine, sometimes in storm and danger, might 
 terminate in the Lie;ht of Heaven ! 

 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 IN TDE
 
 ^ ¥'^itfr-.'\£=^>^
 
 PllEF^CE. 
 
 I WISH all my readers a merry Christmas aud a happy New 
 . Year. May their holidays be graced with good cheer, and 
 
 "*vll/ what is infinitely better, may the grace of Him whose love 
 gives us our true holidays, make every heart a temple of gra- 
 titude and holy joy. A Pilgrim may wander all over the earth, 
 and find no spot in the world where men are bound to God by 
 so many ties of mercy as we are in our own dear native coun- 
 try, or where old and young, rich and poor, have so much cause 
 for heartfelt rejoicing. 
 
 Therefore an American, wherever he goes in the world, should 
 go with the feeling that his own country is the best in the 
 world. Not as a proud feeling let him carry it, but a gentle 
 one, a quiet feeling behind all other moods and varieties of 
 thought, like the sense of domestic happiness, which makes a 
 man sure that his own home is the sweetest of all homes. So, 
 wherever an American goes, the image of his country, like a 
 lake among the mountains, should, as a mirror, receive and 
 * reflect the world's surrounding imagery. He should see all 
 
 liV Sr other countries in the light of his own. 
 
 The first time I left America for Eui-opc, the last word said 
 to me by Mr. Dana was this : See all that you can see. A 
 good rule for a traveller, to whom things that he has neglected 
 seeing always seem very important to him after he has got be- 
 
 "^'/^ yond their reach, though while ho was by them they seemed 
 unimportant. But a man should not look upon external shows 
 or ostentations merely, but at men's habits of thought and 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 ^
 
 ^£^ ^' ^'? ! ^ h5 ^ ^yf^4^ 
 
 ^4® i 
 
 clxx 
 
 rilEFACE. 
 
 actiou, as they have grown in the atmosphere of surrounding 
 institutions. So Mr. Dana AYOuld doubtless add to his advice 
 the maxim that a man should say just what he thinks of what 
 he sees, and not be frightened by the weird sisters of criticism. 
 Among all classes there will be found here and there a frank, 
 free, gentle-hearted critic, with the milk of human kindness 
 and indulgence for another's prejudices ; though there be some 
 who will accuse a man of bigotry whenever he says any thing 
 that does not square exactly with their own religious views. 
 But if a man tries to please everybody, there is a fable waiting 
 for him, of which it is a sorry thing to experience the moral in- 
 stead of being warned by it. We do love the good old New 
 England privilege of speaking one's mind. 
 
 As this book of the Jungfrau will probably be bound up, if 
 any think it worthy of a binding, with the other of Mont Blanc, 
 I may say of both that, if I had been intending to make a 
 regular book of travel, with statistical information, political 
 speculation, records of men's Babel-towers, and all the ambi- 
 tious shows of cities, I should have made a very different work 
 indeed. But there are so many more books in the world of 
 that sort than of this pilgrimage kind, that I have preferred to 
 go quietly, as far as posssible, hand in hand with Nature, 
 finding quiet lessons. So, if you choose, you may call the 
 book a collection of Sea-weed ; and if there were a single page 
 into which there had drifted something worthy of preservation, 
 according to that fine poem of Longfellow, I should be very 
 glad ; — any thing, whether from my own mind or the minds 
 of others, that otherwise would still have floated at random. 
 There are many such things ungathered, for the waves are 
 always detaching them from the hidden reefs of thought in our 
 immortal being, and tossing them over the ocean. 
 
 " Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, 
 
 On the shifting 
 Currents of the restless heart ; 
 Till at length in books recorded. 
 
 They, like hoarded 
 Uousehold words, no more depart. 
 
 /•
 
 rUJSFACE. 
 
 y 
 
 
 The reader will find, in our two pilgrimages, a rehearsal, if 
 I may so speak, of most of the noted passes of Switzerland, 
 and of the Avonders of some that are not usually threaded by 
 travellers. We have passed amidst the magnificence and subli- 
 mity of Chamouny in the face of Mont Blanc, have crossed the 
 Col de Balme with its sights of glory, and the pass of the Tete 
 Noire, with the hospitable Grand St. Bernard, the sunset 
 splendours of the Vale of Courmayeur, the stormy Col de Bon- 
 homme, and the glittering icebergs of the Allee Blanche. Now 
 Ave climb the wondrous Gemmi, and in the face of the Jung- 
 frau march across the sublime pass of the Wengern Alp, by 
 the thunder of the avalanches, then over the Grand Scheideck, 
 the gloomy and terrible Grimsel, the pass of the Furca, the 
 romantic St. Gothard, the sky -gazing brow of the Righi, the 
 Wallenstadt passes, and last and grandest of all, the amaz ■ 
 ing pass of the Splugen. And as we go, we visit the great 
 glaciers and cataracts, shining and roaring, and the infant 
 cradles of some of the largest rivers in Europe, and the most 
 romantic lakes in the world, and many a wondrous scene be- 
 sides. We go moralizing all the way, not at all unwillino- to 
 be accused, sometimes, of discourses upon our icy texts, and 
 Avishing to make a volume more of thoughts than things. I 
 beg those Avho do not like them to remember, that there may 
 be those also Avho Avill think they are the best parts of the 
 book. 
 
 I somewhat regret not having incorporated into this volume 
 my early visit to Italy through the Pass of the Simplon, but 
 this deficiency will be more than made up in the excellent book 
 of Mr. Headley on the Alps and Rhine, to which I heartily 
 commend the reader. 
 
 W^
 
 SHADOW OF THE JUNGFRAU ALP 
 
 WANDERmGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 ^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. — TIIE SERIOUS SIDE OF TRAVEL. 
 
 HAIL to the Oberland Al^js ! As Mont Blanc is the Monarch 
 of Mountains in all Switzerland, so the Jungfrau is the Mai- 
 den Queen, with her dazzling coronet of shy-piercing crystal 
 crags for ever dropping from their setting, and her icy sceptre, 
 and her robe of glaciers, with its fathomless fringe of snow. She 
 too is "Earth's rosy Star," so beautiful, so glorious, that to 
 have seen her light, if a man had leisure, would be worth a 
 pilgrimage round the world. To have heard her voice, deep 
 thunder without cloud, breaking the eternal stillness in the 
 clear serene of heaven, and to have beheld her, shaking from 
 her brow its restless battlements of avalanches, were an event 
 in one's life, from which to calculate the longitudes of years. 
 
 But how can any man who has seen this describe it ? To 
 think of doing this perfectly is indeed perfectly hopeless; and 
 yet any man may tell how it affected him. A celebrated trea- 
 tise on self-knowledge has the following curious intellectual 
 recipe: "Accustom yourself to speak naturally, pertinently, 
 and rationally on all subjects and you will soon learn to think 
 so on the best." This is somewhat as if a man should say. 
 Learn to float well in all seas, and you will be able to swim in 
 fi-esh-watcr rivers. But a man may both have learned to think 
 and to speak, naturally, pertinently, and rationally, if not on 
 
 m
 
 WANDERINGS OF A TILGKIM. 
 
 all subjects, 3'ct on some, and still may find himself put to 
 shame by a snow-covered mountain in the setting day, or be- 
 neath " the keen full moon." 
 
 In attempting to paint scenery by words, you arc conscious 
 of the imperfection of language, which, being a creation of the 
 mind, is by no means of so easy use, skilfully and accurately, 
 in delineating form, as in conveying thought. I am reminded 
 of the curious experience related by Coleridge. " Some folk," 
 he says, " apply epithets as boys do in making Latin verses. 
 When I first looked upon the Falls of the Clyde, I was unable 
 to find a word to express my feelings. At last a man, a stran- 
 ger to me, Avho arrived about the same time, said — ' How ma- 
 jestic!' It was the precise term, and I turned round and was 
 saying — ' Thank you, sir, that is the exact word for it,' when 
 he added in the same breath, ' Yes, how vcrj pretti/ ! ' " 
 
 It is easier to tell how nature affects the heart and mind 
 than to describe nature worthily; and the passages in our fa- 
 vourite poets which go down deepest into the heart, and are 
 kept as odorous gums or bits of musk about our common 
 thoughts, are those which express, not the features so much 
 as the voice of nature, and the feelings wakened by it, and the 
 answering tones from the Harp of Immortality within our own 
 souls. It is much easier for the Imagination to cj-eate a fine 
 picture, than for the mind to draw a ?eal picture with power 
 of Imagination; for the soul works more feelingly and intensely 
 in the Ideal than the actual senses report ideally in the actual, 
 What an exquisite picture has the sensitive, sad genius of 
 Henry Kirke White drawn of a Gothic tomb! Had he been 
 to copy it from some fine old church-yard or cathedral, it would 
 not have been half so afi"ecting, so powerful. 
 
 " L.ny mo in the Gothic tomb, 
 In whose solemn fretted gloom 
 I may lie in mouldering state, 
 With all the grandeur of the great: 
 Over me, magnificent, 
 Carve a stately monument, 
 , Tlien thereon my statue lay, 
 
 With hands in attitude to pray. 
 And angels serve to hold my lioad, 
 Weeping o'er the marble dead." 
 
 \^
 
 ?^ 
 
 THE SOUL IN NATDRE. 
 
 175 
 
 How then, says the authoress of some very beautiful letters 
 to a Mother from abroad, speaking of the land of Tell, over 
 which we are about to wander, " How then can I describe, for 
 there I could only/eeZ? And in truth, the country is so beau- 
 tiful and subhme, that I beheve had Schiller seen it, he would 
 have feared endeavouring to embody it in his immortal play. 
 ^fA How courageous is imagination! And is it not well that it is 
 so, for how much should we lose, even of the real, if the Poet 
 drew only from reality!" 
 
 There is profound truth in this. And hence one of those 
 homely and admirable observations, which, amidst gems of poe- 
 try, Coleridge was always dropping in conversation, as fast as 
 a musician scatters sounds out of an instrument. "A poet," 
 said he, " ought not to pick Nature's pocket: let him borrow, 
 and so borroAV as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Ex- 
 amine nature accurately, but write from recollection; and trust 
 more to your imagination than to your memory." 
 
 And yet, how many are the books of Travellers, who have 
 gone among the finest scenes of nature, and given us free and 
 careless pictures and incidents, lively stories, anecdotes, the 
 talk of men, the wayward etchings of wild life and manners, 
 but have made no attempt whatever to connect with nature the 
 eternal feeling and conscience of the soul. Perhaps they would 
 call this sermonizing; as Charles Lamb once playfully trans- 
 lated one of Coleridge's mottos, sermoni propriora, properer for 
 a sermon! But unless we travel with something in our hearts 
 higher than the forms of earth, and a voice to speak of it, to 
 report it, "little do we see in nature that is ours.'' And wc 
 brins: ourselves under the Poet's condemnation: 
 
 " Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes, 
 lie is a slave the meanest wo can meet." 
 
 Therefore, if any reader thinketh that he finds things "more 
 proper for a sermon " in our little picture of a pilgrimage, we 
 pray him to remember that the sermons in stones are precisely 
 the things in nature most generally overlooked; and we only 
 wish that we had more of them and better reported. For mere 
 pictures, ever so beautiful, arc scarcely worth travelling so far 

 
 176 
 
 WAXDEllINGS OF A PILGIUM. 
 
 to sec, unless we link their sacred lessons to our inner selves. 
 Many of Wordsworth's sonnets are gems beyond all price, be- 
 cause they embalm rich moral sentiments, like apples of gold 
 in baskets of silver; and in his own words, 
 
 " The Grove, the sky-built Temple, and the Dome, 
 Though clad in colours beautiful and pure, 
 Find in tlie heart of man no natural liomc : 
 The immortal mind craves objects that endure." 
 
 And it ought to have them, it ought to be accustomed to them; 
 every man ought to endeavour to present them to his fellow- 
 man. And indeed how can a man go about the whole circle 
 of our humanity, copying everywhere the hieroglyphics on its 
 external temple, and yet elude all serious reference to our Im- 
 mortality and Accountability? Say that these things will 
 make his book less popular; why wish to make it popular, and 
 not endeavour at the same time to make it useful? "Whole 
 centuries," says Schiller, "have shown philosophers as well 
 as artists busied in immersing truth and beauty in the depths 
 of a vulgar humanity; the former sink, but the latter struggles 
 up victoriously, in her own indestructible energy." 
 
 How noble is that maxim of Schiller, how worthy of all en- 
 deavour to fulfil it : — " Live with your centurj', but be not its 
 creature ; bestow upon your contemporaries not what they 
 praise, but what they need.^' 
 
 The tendency of travel, in our day, is strong tovrarda habits 
 of outwardness, and forgetfulness of that which is inward. 
 The world is in two great moving currents, each looking at 
 the other as its spectacle, its show, its theatrical amusement. 
 A book must be a comedy; there is scarcely such a thing possi- 
 ble as serious meditation. The world are divided between liv- 
 ing for what other people will say of them, and living to see 
 how other people live. Certes, this is an evil habit, and every 
 record of external shows that does not lead the mind to better 
 things tends to consolidate and fasten the Avorld's incurable 
 worldliness. Thus, the more a man knows of other things, 
 the less he may know of his own being; and the more he lives 
 upon the food of amusement, the less power will the Word of 
 God, and those trains of thought that spring from it, and di-
 
 
 1^ 
 
 THE SOUL IN NATURE. 
 
 rect the ruind to it, have over him. "We know ourselves least," 
 Bays Dr. Donne, 
 
 " We know ourselves least; mere outward shows 
 
 Our minds so store 
 That our souls, no more than oar eyes, disclose 
 But form and colour. Only he who knows 
 
 Himself knows more." 
 
 So then we wt7/ remember, while wandering amidst form and 
 colour, that we ourselves are not mere form and colour ; that 
 while all we look on and admire is transitory and changing, we 
 ourselves are eternal; and we are gathering an eternal hue, even 
 from the colours that are temporal. Amidst the wreck of is 
 and was, we will he mindful that "His finger is upon us, who 
 is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 
 
 Most strikingly does John Foster remark that " A man may 
 have lived almost an age, and traversed a continent, minutely 
 examining its curiosities, and interpreting the half obliterated 
 characters on its monuments, unconscious the while of a pro- 
 cess operating on his own mind to impress or to erase charac- 
 teristics of much more importance to him than all the figured 
 brass or marble that Europe contains. After having explored 
 many a cavern, or dark ruinous avenue, he may have left un- 
 detected a darker recess in his character. He may have con- 
 versed with many people, in different languages, on numberless 
 subjects ; but having neglected those conversations with him- 
 self, by which his whole moral being should have been contin- 
 ually disclosed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to des- 
 cribe the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress of a 
 foreign trader — to represent the manners of the Italians or the 
 Turks — to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits or the adven- 
 tures of the gypsies — than to write the history of his own 
 mind." 
 
 I have no need of an apology for this quotation, and I may 
 add one short word more, from the same great writer, before 
 we take our Alpen-stock in hand, as a prelude, or grand open- 
 ing symphony, to the solemn beauty of which sound we may 
 step across the threshold of tho great Temple we are entering. 
 12 M 
 
 |f»^
 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 " This fair display of the Creator's works and resources will 
 be gratifying, the most and the latest, to the soul animated 
 with the love of God, and the confidence of soon entering on a 
 nobler scene. Let me, he may say, look once more at what 
 my Divine Father has diffused even hither, as a faint intima- 
 tion of what he has somewhere else. I am pleased with this, 
 as a distant outskirt, as it were, of the Paradise toward which 
 I am going." 
 
 Yes ! the Paradise towards which we are going! The trees 
 of Life, the River of the Water of Life, the City of God, the 
 streets of gold, the walls of jasper, the gates of pearl, and the 
 Lord God Almighty and the Lamb for the Temple of it ; no 
 night, nor storm, nor darkness, nor need of sun nor moon, for 
 the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the Light 
 thereof. 
 
 Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn. 
 
 LAKE LEMAN. ENTRANCE ON THE VALLEY OF THE RHGNE. 
 
 [t must be of a Monday morning, in August, in delightful 
 weather, that you set out with me from Geneva, on a pedes- 
 trian tour through the Oberland Alps, which may perhaps be 
 closed with the grass of the Splugen, and a march through 
 the North of Italy, into the secluded valleys of the Waldenses. 
 But as we cannot walk across the Lake, our pedestrian! zing 
 begins by sailing in a crowded steamer, on board which we pro- 
 bably find a number of just such travellers as ourselves, accou- 
 tred with knapsacks and stout iron-soled shoes, and perhaps a 
 blouse and an Alpen-stock, determined on meeting dangers, and 
 discovering wild scenes, such as no other traveller has en- 
 countered. I was happy in having for a companion and friend 
 an English gentleman and a Christian. For this cause, our 
 communion had no undercurrent of distrust or difference, and 
 we could sympathize in each other's most sacred feelings, al- 
 though he was a Churchman and a Monarchist, while I belong- 

 
 eil to the Cliurcb with the primitive Bishop, and the Stnte 
 ■nithout a King. 
 
 Bj the way, that word Churchman is a singular appellation 
 for a Christian. It seems to be taking the species instead of 
 Ihe genus for designation, and it reminds me of the saying, 
 " Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth Temples." It 
 is a pity to put the less for the greater. We are all Church- 
 men, of course, if we be Christ's men, but we may be furious 
 Churchmen, in any denomination, without being Christ's men 
 at all. 
 
 We started at half past eight for Villeneuve, at the other end 
 of the Lake, and the day being very lovely, we had a most en- 
 chanting sail. A conversation with some Romish priests on 
 board was productive of some little interest. They defended 
 their Church with great earnestness against the charge of saint 
 and image worship, which we dwelt upon. Then we compared 
 our different pronunciation of Latin, repeating the Quadrvpe- 
 dante puirem, et cetera, for illustration. They knew nothing 
 about Greek, and of course had never examined the New Test- 
 ament in the original. 
 
 The end of Lake Leman near Vevay and Villeneuve can 
 scarcely be exceeded in beauty by any of the lakes in Switzer- 
 land. It very much resembles the Lake of Lucerne. The finest 
 portion of Lake George looks like it, except that the mountains 
 which enclose and border the Lake of Geneva beyond Vevay 
 are vastly higher and more sublime than any in the neighbour- 
 hood of the American lakes. To see the full beauty of the 
 Lake of Geneva, the traveller must be upon the summit of the 
 Jura mountains in a clear day ; then he sees it in its grand 
 and mighty setting, as a sea of pearl amidst crags of dia- 
 monds ; coming from France, the scene bursts upon him like 
 a world in heaven. But if in fine weather sailing toward Vil- 
 leneuve, he have a view, as we did, of the Grand St. Bernard, 
 magnificently robed with snow, he will think also that the sub- 
 limity and beauty of this scene, and of the Lake itself, can 
 scarcely be exceeded. 
 
 The Lake, you are aware, is the largest in Switzerland, be- 
 ing at least fifty miles in length, a magnificent crystal mirror
 
 ,gg> > ^4E^^^>, ^^Sg^-Vr^A. 
 
 TVANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 for tlic stars and mountains, -where even Mont Elanc, though 
 sixty miles away, can see his broad glittering diadem of snow 
 and ice reflected in clear weather. How beautifully Lord By- 
 ron has described the lake in its various moods, and the lovely 
 scenery, connected with a sense of its moral lessons calling him 
 away from evil, like a sister's voice, Brother, come home ! Ah, 
 if the Poet had but followed those better impulses, which sweet 
 Nature sometimes with her simple sermons awoke in his soul ! 
 
 " Clear placid Lcman! thy contrasted lake, 
 "With the wild world I dwelt in is a thing 
 Which warns me with its stillness to forsake 
 Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring! 
 This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
 To waft me from destruction ; once I loved 
 Torn ocean's roar ; but thy soft murmuring 
 Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved 
 That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved." 
 
 The lesson of the quiet sail is lost on board the anxious 
 steamer with her noisy paddles ; but any traveller may enjoy 
 it, if he will take the time, and few things in nature can be 
 more lovely than a sail or a walk along the Lake of Geneva in 
 some of its exquisite sunsets. Meditation there "may think 
 down hours to moments," and there is something both solemn 
 and melancholy in the fall of the curtain of evening over such 
 a scene, which quickens the inward sense of one's immortality 
 and accountability, and irresistibly carries the heart up to God 
 in prayer. 
 
 Our boat lands her passengers in small lighters at Villeneuvc, 
 where we take a diligence for St. Maurice, some three hours' 
 drive up the Valley of the Rhone. The river runs into the 
 Lake at Villeneuve, and out of it at Geneva ; though why the 
 radiant sparkling stream, that issues with such swiftness and 
 beauty, should bear the same name with the torrent of mud 
 that rolls into it, it is difficult to say. Nevertheless, a Chris- 
 tian bears the same name after his conversion that he did be- 
 fore ; and the new and beautiful characteristics of this river, 
 when it rushes from the lake at the republican and Protestant 
 end of it, might well remind you of the change which takes 
 place between the character of a depraved man, and a regenera- 
 
 A
 
 
 y 
 
 TIIE RHONE IN THE LAKE 
 
 ted child of God. Our hearts come down wild and ferocious from 
 the mountains, hearing with them rocks and mud, casting up, 
 as the Word of God saith, mire and dirt. So are we in our 
 native, graceless depravity. It is only by flowing into the 
 crystal Lake of Divine Love that we leave our native impuri- 
 ties all behind us, on the shore of the world, and then when we 
 reappear, when we flow forth again from this blessed Baptism, 
 we are like the azure, arrowy Rhone, reflecting the hues of 
 heaven. Then again the muddy Arve from the mountains falls 
 into us, and other worldly streams join us, so that before we 
 f-et to the sea we have, alas, too often, deep stains still of the 
 mud of our old depravity. The first Adam goes with us to the 
 pea, though much vailed and hidden ; but the last Adam is to 
 have the victory. Some streams there are, however, that flow 
 all the way from the Lake to the Sea, quite clear and un- ^J-glP^ 
 mingled. The course of such a regenerated stream through 
 the world is the most beautiful sight this side Heaven. 
 
 The immense alluvial deposit from the Rhone, where it pours 
 into the Lake, makes the valley for some distance from Ville- 
 ' neuve a dreary bog, which every year is usurping something 
 more of dominion; but you soon get into wilder scenery, 
 which becomes extremely beautiful before reaching St. Maurice. 
 Here Mr. Roger's "key unlocks a kingdom," for the mountains 
 on either side so nearly shut together, that there is only the 
 width of the river and the narrow street between them. You 
 cross a bridge upon a single arch, and find yourself wondering 
 at the great strength of the pass, and entering a village, which 
 is like a stone basket hanging to a perpendicular wall. Far- 
 ther on, an old hermitage high up overhangs the road, like a 
 gray wasp's nest, under the eaves of the mountain. Hereabouts 
 you cross a vast mound of rock-rubbish, made up of the ruins 
 of one of the various avalanches which from time to time bury 
 whole fields of the verdant Alpine Valleys, and sometimes whole 
 villages. This was an avalanche of mud, glacier, granite, and 
 gravel, which came down from the lofty summit of the Dent 
 du Midi in 1835, not swiftly, but like thick glowing lava, and 
 covered the valley for a length of nine hundred feet. /^i|^ 
 
 At St. Maurice you pass from the Canton de Vaud to the
 
 J 82 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIJI 
 
 Romish Canton of tlie Valals, a transition perceptible at onco 
 in the degradation of the inhabitants. Wc took a char-a-banc 
 from St. Maurice to Martigny, about eleven miles, arriving at 
 seven o'clock in the evening, having visited the superb cascade 
 formerly called the Pissevache, on our way. It only wants a 
 double volume of water to make it sublime, for it rolls out of 
 a fissure in the mountain three hundred feet high, and makes 
 a graceful spring, clear of all the crags, for more than a hun- 
 dred and twenty feet, and then, when it has recovered, so to 
 speak from the fright of such a fall, runs off in a clear little 
 river to join the muddy Rhone. So, sometimes, a youth from 
 the country, who had, at first, all the freshness and purity of 
 home and of a mother's love about him, gets lost in the cor- 
 ruption of a great city. 
 
 Our pedestrianizing this day, you perceive, was accomplished 
 first in the steamer, second in the diligence, third in the char- 
 a- banc. For myself, having got wet with a furious cloud 
 of spray, which the wind blew over me as I advanced too near 
 under the water -fall, I did really walk the greater part of the 
 way from thence to Martigny, about four miles, leaving my 
 friend to enjoy the char-a-banc alone, and to order our supper 
 when he arrived at the inn. This char-a-banc, so much used 
 in Switzerland, is a hard leathern sofa for two, or at most three, 
 in which you are placed as in the stocks, and trundled sideways 
 upon wheels. It is a droll machine, somewhat as if a very 
 short Broadway omnibus, being split in two lengthwise, each 
 half provided with an additional pair of wheels, should set up 
 for itself. It was in this conveyance that Ave rode, Avhile tra- 
 velling in the Canton du Valais, for no one would dream of 
 pedestrianizing here, unless indeed along the sublime pass of 
 the Simplon between Briegg and Domodossola. I had more- 
 over passed through the Valley of the Rhone before into Italy, 
 and deferred my pedestrianizing till I should come upon a new 
 route over mountains so rough, that my companion Avith his 
 mule could go no faster than I on foot. He preferi'ed to rido 
 ahvays ; I chose to Avalk, Avhenever the scenery A\'as sublime 
 enough to justify it, and the road rough enough to make it 
 afirreeable. 
 
 (Tf^^M^'^^^-
 
 
 I 
 
 y 
 
 TOWEU AT MARTIGNY. 
 
 The evening at Martigny was transcendently beautiful, the 
 weather being fine, the atmosphere wildly, spiritually bright, 
 and the moon within one night of her fulness; "the moon 
 above the tops of the snow-shining mountains." We ascend- 
 ed the hill near Martigny to the picturesque old Feudal Tower 
 by this moonlight, and rarely in my wanderings have I wit- 
 nessed a scene to be compared with this. Looking down the 
 valley, the outline is bounded by a snowy ridge of great beauty, 
 but in the direction of the Grand St. Bernard mountains of 
 dark verdure rise into the air like pyramidal black wedges 
 cleaving the heavens. We are high above the village, and on 
 one side can look down sheer into the roaring torrent, many 
 hundred feet ; it makes you dizzy to look. The ruins of the 
 castle, the verdure around it, the village below, the silence of 
 night, the summer softness of the air, combined with an almost 
 autumnal brightness, the mountains in their grandeur sleeping 
 in such awful, such solemn repose, the distant landscape, so 
 indistinctly beautiful, the white rays of the moon falling in 
 such sheets of misty transparence over it, and the glittering 
 snowy peaks which lift themselves before you like gray pro- 
 phets of a thousand years, yea, like messengers from Eternity, 
 — is there anything needed to make this one of the most mag- 
 nificent scenes, and most impressive too, that we shall be likely 
 to find in all Switzerland? 
 
 " A deep 
 
 And solema harmony pervades 
 The hollow vale from steep to steep, 
 And penetrates the glades." 
 
 The night is so beautiful that it is difficult to intrude upon 
 it by going to bed ; and yet, if travellers would be up betimes 
 in the morning, they must sleep at night. But all night long 
 methinks one could walk by such a moon, amidst such glorious 
 mountains, and not be wearied. Some years ago we passed 
 this same valley in a very different season, when a great part 
 of the Swiss world was covered deep with snow, and the frost 
 was so sharp that the trodden path creaked under our feet, 
 and our breath almost frose into little snow-clouds in the air. 
 The scenery then was of a savage sublimity, but now, how 
 beautiful !
 
 IS'i 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIUM. 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL DESPOTISM IN TILE VALAIS. — MEASURES OP 
 THE JESUITS. 
 
 We started at six in the morning, again in a char-a-batic, for 
 Sion and Sierre, twenty-seven miles. A party of lads from 
 the Jesuit Seminary at Fribom-g were at the door, under tho 
 care of their instructors, accoutred for the day's pedestrian 
 excursion. They spend some weeks in this manner, attended 
 by the priests ; but learning lessons of freedom from wild na- 
 ture, drinking in the pure mountain air, and gaining elasticity 
 of body and spirit by vigorous exercise. They were going to 
 Chamouny. Between Martigny and Sion, our man of the c/m?- 
 (Viawc pointed out to us the scene of a recent desperate conflict 
 between the liberalists and despotists of the Canton, part of 
 which ille fuit, and the whole of which he saw, being on tho 
 Sion side when they burned the beautiful bridge which the fu- 
 rious torrent had so long respected. The matter has ended in 
 the establishment of a pnesta/ republican despotism, under which 
 the protestant religion is proscribed, its exercise forbidden even 
 in private, the protestant schools are broken up, and intolerance 
 to the heart's content of Romanism forms the political and re- 
 ligious regime of the Canton. The Bishop or Archbishop of 
 Sion, which is the chief town of the Canton du Valais, presides 
 over the general assembly. 
 
 Here is an opportunity of instruction for impartial observers, 
 which they ought not to let pass. It is always interesting to 
 see a fair experiment, on a questioned subject, either in che- 
 mistry or morals. You must have a large laboratory, good 
 retorts, furnaces, crucibles, blowpipes, and so forth, and let 
 the chemical agents work without hindrance. This Canton in 
 Switzerland is a grand laboratory, where the Jesuits, unimpeded, 
 have just demonstrated the nature of their system. They have 
 played out the play, and all who please may satisfy themselves 
 as to the residuum. In point of oppression, it is remarked 
 abroad, they have run bevond all that can be imagined of the 
 
 l^;
 
 
 4f 
 
 
 iLOst exorbitant despotism, not stopping contented with the 
 laws of Louis XIV, but dragging from the mould of ages the 
 legislation even of Louis IX. 
 
 I shall draw a description of their freaks from a Parisian 
 Journal before me, ^ which answers the question. How the Jes- 
 uits govern the Canton du Valais. The Grand Council of the 
 Canton, under direction of Jesuit Priests, have adopted a law 
 respecting illegal assemblies, and condemnable discussions and con- 
 versations, of which the first article runs as follows : Those who 
 hold conversations tending to scandalize the Holy Catholic 
 Apostolic and Roman religion, or contrary to good morals, shall 
 be punished with a fine of from 20 to 200 francs, and imprison- 
 ment from a month to two years. Also those who introduce, 
 affix, expose, lend, distribute, or keep secretly and without au- 
 thorization, writings or bad books, or caricatures which attack 
 directly or indirectly the Holy Religion of the State and its 
 Ministers. The objects designated shall be confiscated, and in 
 case of a second ofience, the highest amount of fine and im- 
 prisonment shall be doubled. Blasphemers are to be punished 
 according to the criminal laws. 
 
 Here are two classes of crime noted ; scandalous and blas- 
 phemous conversations, and having bad books in your library. 
 A Valaisan may chance to say that such or such a miracle 
 published, by the Reverend Fathers, appears to him somewhat 
 Apocryphal ; the opinion is scandalous against the Holy Ca- 
 thoUc Apostolic and Romish religion, and he shall undergo 
 fine and imprisonment for his enormous crime. He dares to 
 pretend that certain priests do not set the best possible example ; 
 the opinion is thrice scandalous, for which he shall sufier the 
 highest amount of fine and imprisonment. He goes even a httle 
 farther ; possibly he discusses the claim of the Virgin Mary to 
 the adoration of the faithful, and maintains that on this point 
 the Romish Church is contrary to the New Testament. This 
 is worse than a mere scandalous opinion or proposition ; it is 
 blasphemy; and blasphemy is a crime for criminal law to pun- 
 ish. If the hardy Valaisan shall dare affirm that the morality 
 
 * The Semeur. 
 
 A
 
 ^^A^ 
 
 186 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIlIM. 
 
 of the Jesuits is possibly very imrsioral, this is blasphemy in the 
 first degree, and must be punished with the highest infamy. 
 
 It is almost incredible that a law of this nature can have been 
 promulgated in 1845, upon the frontiers of France and Italy, 
 under notice of the public press, when the Jesuits have so many 
 reasons for making men believe that their system is not incom- 
 patible with some degree of liberty. But it is a fair experiment 
 fully played out. It would scarcely have been believed tliat 
 they would have dared offer to Europe a spectacle of such drunk- 
 enness of despotism. In France, the people were full of indig- 
 nation against the law of sacrilege in that nation, and after the 
 Revolution of July, they utterly abolished it. But that law, 
 in comparison with this of the Canton du Valais, concerning 
 scandalous opinions and propositions, was sweetness and benevo- 
 lence itself. It was necessary at least to have actually com- 
 mitted the offence in some place of worship, during the religious 
 exercises, or to have directly attacked some minister of the 
 church. But in the Canton du Valais it is enough to have 
 simply expressed a scandalous opinion, in the street, or the 
 tavern, or in one's own house in presence of a neighbour ! Did 
 the Inquisition ever go farther than this ? 
 
 We should have thought that the laws of the eleventh century- 
 commanding to pierce the tongues of blasphemers and heretics 
 with a liot iron, existed now only in history, as monuments of 
 an atrocious barbarity. But it is a great mistake. The Je- 
 suits suffer nothing of cruelty and infamy to perish. They keep 
 it concealed for a season ; they shut up their arsenal when the 
 popular storm thunders ; but so soon as the sun shines, they 
 bring up again their chains, their pitiless axes and instruments 
 of torture. 
 
 Again by this law men shall be fined and imprisoned, not 
 only for having written bad books, or drawn wicked caricatures 
 against the holy religion of the State, not only for having in- 
 troduced into the Canton, or exposed, or distributed, or lent, 
 such books or writings, but even for having knowingly or with- 
 out authorization kept them in their libraries. An inhabitant 
 of the Valais, for example, has among his books the works, of 
 Voltan-e, Rousseau, Montesquieu, or even the new writings pru- 
 
 n 
 
 (i 

 
 -«3 
 
 
 LAWS OF THE VALAIS. 
 
 187 
 
 scribed in the Index of the Romish Congregation, such as the 
 hooks of Guizot, Cousin, Dupin, Jouffroy, Thierry, in a Avord, 
 whatever Avork may have been published in France for half a 
 century except the nauseous productions of the Jesuitical schooL 
 Well ! the bare fact of having kept these volumes constitutes a 
 crime, unless the authorization of the Company of Ignatius shall 
 have been obtained, a thing which cannot be, except for its 
 most devoted creatures. Certainly, this is new, original, un- 
 heard of. We have heard of certain ordnances of our ancient 
 kings punishing the readers of a bad book, after having con- 
 demned the author ; but we never heard of a law pronouncing 
 a luiiversal sentence against the proprietors and keepers of works 
 contrary to the Holy Catholic Apostohc and Romish rehgiou. 
 But how can the law be executed ? Will they make domi- 
 ciliary visits, to examine, one after another, the books belong- 
 ing to each individual ? Will they ferret for them in the secret 
 corners of the household, in order to be sure that the proscribed 
 writings are not shut up in some hiding-place ? When a poor 
 inhabitant of the Canton comes under the suspicions of the 
 Clergy because he has not regularly kept the fasts, or taken his 
 note of confession at canonical times, will they break upon his 
 bureaus, his furniture, to discover the unhappy volumes, Avhich 
 have inspii-ed him with such infidelity ? We shoidd not be at 
 all surprised at this. Where there is a will, there is a way. 
 If they would not shrink from publishing such a monstrous law, 
 neither will they quail before the measure necessary to carry it 
 into execution. It will be a permanent inquisition, wliich will 
 always possess the means of oppressing and breaking down those 
 who will not humbly bow beneath its yoke of bondage. 
 
 Talk to us after this of the generous principles of the Jesuits 
 and the Romish Priests ! Tell us, ye propagandists of the Rom- 
 ish faith, your love of liberty ! Tell us for the millionth time 
 that you, and you only, know how to respect the rights of the 
 people and the progress of humanity ! Pretend your loving 
 democracy in your sermons and your journals I Go to, we know 
 you of old, and soon there will not be a reasonable man in the 
 world who will not discover under your mask the deep imprints 
 of your insatiable instinct of tyranny ! If there were the least 
 
 w 
 
 l\ . .^
 
 ^hav ^i 
 
 188 
 
 WANDERINGS OV A I'lLGUlM. 
 
 particle of sincerity in your liberal maxiuis aud pretences, you 
 would at least express your indignation against such monstrous 
 laws promulgated In the Canton du Valais ; you would attack 
 these abominable enterprises of the Jesuits ; but what one of 
 your journals is there, that would have the frankness and sin- 
 cerity to do this ? Every Ecclesiastical Gazette is silent, and 
 yet to-morrow these same despotic journals will dare tell their 
 adversaries that t/iei/ are the enemies of liberty. 
 
 Comedians, comedians ! the execrable farce you are playing 
 will have to be finished, and then beware of the conclusion ! 
 
 This is an energetic strain of criticism, appeal, and invec- 
 tive, before which, if there be much of it, such detestable mea- 
 sures cannot stand. The Jesuits are the Mamelukes of the 
 Romish Church; neither king nor people can be independent 
 or free where such a body of tyrants, the worse for being se- 
 cret, bear sway. Note the expression directly or indirectly in 
 the law against writings and propositions tending to bring into 
 disrepute the Holy Romish religion of State. What traps ana 
 caverns of tyranny are here ! What room for more than in- 
 quisitorial acuteness and cruelty, in searching out and detect- 
 ing the indirect tendencies of pubhcations, which the Priests 
 see fit to proscribe. The most innocent writing may thus be 
 made the ground of a severe imprisonment; and as to all in- 
 vestigation or discussion of the truth, it becomes impossible. 
 
 But we have more pleasant footsteps to follow than those of 
 the Jesuits; so farewell to their trail for the present. We shall 
 meet them again in Switzerland. 
 
 % 
 
 4\ 
 2> 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PHYSICAL PLAGUES OP THE CANTON DU VALAIS AND OF SWITZER- 
 LAND. HOSPITAL FOR THE CRETINS. 
 
 Approaching Sion from Martigny the view is exceedingly pic- 
 turesque and romantic, by reason of several extensive old cas- 
 tles on successive craggy peaks, that rise in commanding gran- 
 deur, like the Acropolis at Athens, aud seem, as you advance 
 
 ^"^r^
 
 PLAGUE OF CRETINISM. 
 
 189 
 
 upwards, to fill the whole valley. One of the highest summits 
 is crowned with a church or convent, a most imposing object, 
 seen against the sky long before you arrive at the base of the 
 village. The view from this church in every direction, or from 
 the crags on which it is perched, is so extensive, so rich, and 
 BO picturesque, as abundantly to recompense even a tired tra- 
 veller for the toil of the ascent. Besides, there is on this hill 
 an exceedingly aged old rocky edifice of worship, that looks 
 as if it might have existed before the Roman Catholic Church 
 itself began to have a being. Of the village below, wooden 
 shoes and woollen stockings seemed to be the staple commodity, 
 while a knot of industrious women, washing clothes around the 
 fountain in the centre of the street, were, when we passed, the 
 most striking object in view. 
 
 Age, disease, uncleanly cottages, hard labour, penury, scanty 
 and unwholesome food, will transform beauty into ugliness, 
 anywhere in the world, even under the most delicious climate. 
 What a change! Could any being, unacquainted with the 
 progress of our race from elastic youth to that colourless, tooth- 
 less time, when the grasshopper is a burden, believe that these 
 forms, which seem now a company of the personified genii of 
 wrinkles, were once as fair as the Virgin Mother of their invo; 
 cations? They may have been. Youth itself is beauty, and 
 the most secret, black, and midnight hags were once young. 
 But Shakspere need not have gone upon the Continent, nor 
 Wordsworth among the fish-women of Calais, to find good 
 types of witches. I think I have seen in Edinburgh as fair 
 examples of tough, old, furrowed ugliness, as in Switzerland, 
 or Turkey, or Italy, or Spain, or Egypt. Old age is beautiful, 
 when gentleness goes with it, and it has filial tenderness and 
 care to lean upon; the Christian's hope within, and the reve- 
 rential fond pride and honour of gray hairs in the household, 
 make up a picture almost as beautiful as that of a babe in the 
 cradle, or a girl at play. But where, from infancy to three- 
 score years and ten, there are only the hardest, wrinkle-making 
 realities of life, its tasks without its compensations, and its 
 witherino" superstitions without its consolations, there can be 
 nothing left of beauty; humanity stands like a blasted pine in 
 the desert. 
 
 ^
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGHlJJ. 
 
 " 'Tis said, fantastic Ocean doth unfold 
 The Hkcncss ol'whate'er on land is seen ; 
 But, if the Nereid Sisters and their Queen, 
 Above whose heads the tide so long hath rolled, 
 The dames resemble vphom vre here behold. 
 How terrible beneath the opening waves 
 To sink, and meet thum in their fretted caves, 
 Withered, gi-otesque, immeasurably old." 
 
 Your attention in the Valley of the Rhone is painfully turned 
 10 the miserahle cretins or idiots, and those unfortunate heings, 
 whose necks are distended with the excrescences of the goitre, 
 as if hung round with swollen bladders of flesh. The poor 
 creatures so afflicted did always seem to me to have an exceed- 
 ing weight of sadness in their countenances, though they went 
 about labouring like others. These frightful diseases prevail 
 among the population of the Valais to a greater extent than 
 anywhere else in Switzerland. The number of inhabitants in 
 Sion is about 2500. Poverty, disease, and filth mark the 
 whole valley; and so long as the people are shut up to the su- 
 perstitions of Romanism, so long they must remain shut out 
 from the only consolations that could be some support amidst 
 their miseries, and debarred from the only refining and eleva- 
 ting influences, that could soften and bless a condition so sad 
 as theirs. 
 
 Of the two physical plagues that infest the beautiful valleys 
 of Switzerland, cretinism is by far the worst. It is the most 
 repulsive and painful form of idiocy I have ever witnessed. It 
 makes the human being look less intelligent than the brute. 
 A hooting cry between a howl and a burst of laughter some- 
 times breaks from the staring and gibbering object before you, 
 a creature that haunts the villages, you cannot say like a spec- 
 tre, for these miserable beings seemed always in good flesh, but 
 like the personification of the twin bi'other of madness, and 
 far more fearful. It creates a solemn awe in the soul, to look 
 upon one of these beings, in whom the mind does not seem so 
 much deranged, as departed, gone utterly, not a gleam of the 
 spirit left, the household dog looking incomparably more hu- 
 man. It is a dreadful sight. The cretin will sometimes hob- 
 ble after you with open hand, grinning for charity, with a cha-
 
 y 
 
 otic laugh, like a gust of wind clattering through the hall of a 
 ruined castle. 
 
 lu the midst of poverty this calamity is doubled, and none of 
 its salient points of grim, disgusting misery can be concealed. 
 The families and villages ^vhere it is developed are for the most 
 part miserably poor. Filth, squalid corners for sleep, and im- 
 pure nourishment, help on the disease, like fuel for the plague. 
 No moral causes are set in motion, no more than physical, to 
 combat or hinder its progress, or ameliorate the condition of its 
 victim ; the family and the village bear the burden in silent 
 hopeless despair, as a condemned criminal wears his chains. 
 The only milder feature of the wretchedness that you can think 
 of is this, that the poor cretin himself is not in pain, and is per- 
 fectly insensible to his condition. 
 
 But perhaps you are asking if there are no benevolent efforts 
 to remedy this great evil, no asylums or hospitals for the poor 
 creatures so stricken. I know of only one, and that of recent 
 establishment, though there was never a more suitable field for 
 philanthropy to work in. The celebrated philosopher Saussure 
 conceived that this disease of cretinism must be owing to a vi- 
 cious atmosphere, wanting in some of the elements necessary 
 to the healthful development of the human system. Meditating 
 on this point, a philanthropic physician among the Oberland 
 Alps not long since conceived the happy idea of combating this 
 evil at its commencement, by taking the children in their in- 
 fancy from the fearful influence darting upon them, and carr}^- 
 ing them away to be nourished and strengthened by the pure 
 air of the mountains. 
 
 The name of this excellent man was Doctor Guggenbilhl. 
 He had been called one day to examine a case of some malig- 
 nant disease, which for ages fi'om time to time had ravaged the 
 beautiful valleys of the higher Alps, when his attention was 
 fixed by an old Cretin, who was idiotically Mating a half-for- 
 gotten prayer before an image of the Virgin at Seedorf in the 
 Canton Uri. IIow melancholy that the only religion learned 
 by the poor idiot Avas that of an Ave Maria before a wooden 
 image! But the sight deeply agitated the sensibilities of the 
 physician on behalf of those unfortunate creatures, and, as he 
 
 H
 
 J^^ 
 
 192 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGIUM. 
 
 says, "fixeil his vocation." A being susceptible of the least 
 idea of God seemed to him worthy of every care and every sac- 
 rifice. " These stricken individuals of our race," said he, "these 
 brethren hcaten down, are they not more worthy of our eiforts 
 than those races of animals which men strive to bring to per- 
 fection ? It is not in vain formulas, but in charitable efforts 
 that we must find that divine love which Jesus Christ has 
 taught us." 
 
 Dr. Guggenbiihl went immediately to work. The attempt 
 had never heen tried, of which the idea had come to him, hut 
 he found encouragement and sympathy. He fixed upon a 
 ^Mountain in the Obcrland called the Abendberg, elevated about 
 three thousand feet ahove the level of the sea, and seeming to 
 him to combine all the requisites for the foundation of his es- 
 tablishment. Having issued his appeals and subscriptions, he 
 soon received funds sufiicient for the support of some twenty 
 children, and consecrated all his efi"orts to the moral and phy- 
 sical development of his interesting family. He placed them 
 in the circle of a simple hut comfortable domestic life, so dis- 
 tant from the world as not to he distracted hy its noise, so near 
 to it as to be accessible to all the good resources of a civilized 
 society. 
 
 The mountain air was pure and sweet for themtohreathein. 
 The mountain streams gave them pure running water for drink- 
 ing, hathing, and washing. The forests afforded wood for the 
 construction of their asylum, around which the land was laid 
 out in gardens. The farm gave them plenty of hutter and 
 milk, eggs and poultry. Regular means of communication 
 were established with Unterseen, Interlachen, and other subja- 
 cent villages. 
 
 The first medical efibrts of Dr. Guggenbiihl with his interest- 
 ing patients were applied to the education, and, in a manner, 
 the regeneration, of the physical organs attacked first by the 
 malady, which plays such frightful ravages afterwards upon 
 the mind. The sensitive form is first to he restored to its na- 
 tural strength and delicacy, and then the conscience and the 
 wandering faculties shall he won hack, as it were, to ahide 
 within it. Tlie change from the hot, damp, and stagnant at- 
 
 fih'^
 
 ^^^^^ 
 
 1 
 
 (f p 
 
 rf 
 
 
 ilOUXTAIX HOSPITAL. 
 
 mospliere of poor filtliy liovels in narrow valleys, to the clear, 
 cool, bracing air of the mountain summits, is itself enough to 
 create a gradual regeneration in the Avhole physical being. The 
 patient breathes the principle of a new life, and this is poAver- 
 fuUy aided by a simple, healthful nourishment, exercise in the 
 open air, varied and encreasing in proportion as strength is re- 
 gained. Cold bathing, frictions, and various games adapted 
 to fix the attention, and inspire quick voluntary movement, are 
 added to this routine of discipline. 
 
 When thus he has succeeded in modifying the physical or- 
 gans, and giving them a direction towards health and activity, t 
 Dr. Guggenbiihl begins upon the mental faculties. Probably \ 
 the degrees of idiocy, towards which the disease has advanced, 
 are various sometimes, but the commencement sometimes sad- 
 ly confirmed. The report from which I draw these particu- 
 lars states that Dr. Guggenbiihl possesses an admirable assis- 
 tant in his labours of instruction. I have watched this person 
 descending, says the writer, with the sweetest patient benevo- 
 lence, to the level of these little idiots, and there striking M'ith 
 perseverance upon the hard stone within, till some little sparkle 
 of fire shall be elicited, some sparkling indication of intelli- 
 gence. And when he has once succeeded in seizing the least 
 end of the thread of thought, with what infinite precautions 
 does he unroll it, lest it be broken. Then at length are multi- 
 plied in the depths of the previous intellectual obscurity a series 
 of fruitful, thought-awakening images. 
 
 How delightful is this ! It is almost worth the suffering of 
 the calamity, to have so truly benevolent an institution sprung 
 from it. This indeed, if not one of the final causes of calamity 
 in this world, is one of its compensating blessings, to give men 
 opportunity for the growth and discipline of charity and love. 
 For the benefit of this ^fountain Hospital contributions have 
 been made at Geneva, at Bale, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Lon- 
 don. The King of Prussia witli many foreigners of distinction 
 have interested themselves in it. Its successful and benig- 
 nant influence is but a type of what would wait upon the whole 
 Valley if all its families could be blest Avith a truly Christian /^ 
 education. Indeed, if all the ignorant and degraded children 
 12 . N 
 
 o
 
 10-i 
 
 \VAND£Ri:!faS OF A riLGRlM. 
 
 of tlic Canloii du Valais could be taken to the moimtaina and 
 freely and fully educated, tLe Canton itself would speedily be 
 free; all Uie Jesuitism in Uurope could not bring back tbe peo- 
 ple to their old bondage of ignorance and superstition. 
 
 hkS) 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 \: 
 
 GORGE OF THE DALA. 
 
 At Slerre, a few miles bej^ond Sion, we were to leave the val- 
 lev of the Rhone for the wonderful pass of the Gemmi, and 
 here commenced my pedestrianizing in good earnest. It is al- 
 ways a singularly interesting excursion to go by a side pass 
 from one valley, across an apparently impregnable barrier of 
 mountains, over into another. To cross the Gemmi from the 
 valley of the Rhone, you may start from the village of Leuk, 
 or turn off as we did from Sierre by a path of incomparable 
 beauty, winding gradually within the mountains, and rising 
 rapidly by a precipitous ascent, where at every step your view 
 up and down the valley you are leaving becomes more inimit- 
 ably grand and vast. You clamber over the little village of 
 Varen, which at first was hanging above you, leaving it far 
 below, as well as that of Leuk, which you see farther up the 
 valley, and thus you are toiling on, thinking perhaps that you 
 are Avitnessing some of the wildest, most picturesque and ex- 
 tensive views to be enjoyed on this excursion, when all at once 
 there bursts upon you a scene, surpassing all previous experi- 
 ence and anticipation. You rise to the summit of a steep as- 
 cent, step upon a space of table land, advance a few feet, and 
 suddenly find yawning before you a fearful gulf of some nine 
 hundred feet deep, into which the ridge on which you stand 
 seems beetling over, ready to fall with your own weight. It is 
 the gulf of the Dala, a torrent Avhich rolls at the bottom, but 
 almost too far down for you to see the swift glance of the M-ater, 
 or hear the roar, for even the thunder of the cataract of Nia- 
 gara would be well nigh buried in its depths. 
 
 Advancing a few steps in the direction of this gulf, and turn- 
 
 •j!
 
 ^ 
 
 v«0 
 
 GORGE OF THE EALA. 
 
 ing a natural bastion of the mountain, there comes sweeping 
 down upon you from above a gorge of overwhelming grandeur, 
 overwhelming both by the surprise and the deep sublimity of 
 the scene. You tremble to enter it, and stand fixed in silent 
 awe and admiration. Below you is that fearful gulf down 
 plunging in a sheet perpendicular of almost a thousand feet, 
 while above you is a tremendous overhanging precipice of near 
 an equal height, adown and across the face of which runs, cut 
 out, the zig-zag perillous gallery, by which you are to pass. 
 Whole strata of this perpendicular face of the mountain seem 
 loosened above, and ready to bury you in their fall, and the 
 loose stones come thundering down now and then with the ter- 
 ror of an avalanche. You step carefidly down the gallery or 
 shelf, till perhaps you are near the centre of the pass ; now 
 look up to heaven along the perpendicular height above you, 
 if you can do it without falling, and see those bare pines that 
 seem bending over the edge ; they look as if blanched with 
 terror. What a steep gigantic mountain brow they fringe ! 
 You feel as if the gallery where you are treading were a peril- 
 lous position, and yet you cannot resist going back and gazing 
 again down into the measm-eless gulf, and enjoying again the 
 sudden sweep of this sublime gorge upon your vision. Towards 
 the pass of the Gemmi it is closed by a vast ridge of frowning 
 castellated mountains, and still beyond that loftier snowy moun- 
 tains are shining, such pyramids of pure snow that they seem 
 as if they would fling the hues of sunset that flash upon them 
 down into the farthest recesses of the valley as it darkens in 
 the evening. 
 
 It was such a sight as this that suggested that beautifid son- 
 net of Wordsworth, closing with so fine an image. 
 
 " Glory to God ! and to the Power who came 
 
 In filial duty, clothed with love divine ; 
 
 That made his human tabernacle shine 
 
 I>ike Ocean burning with purpureal flame ; 
 
 Or like the Alpine Mount, that takes its name 
 
 From roseate hues, far kenn'd at morn and even, 
 
 Intimc3 of peace, or when the storm is driven 
 
 Along tlie nether i-cgion's rugged frame ! 
 
 Earth prompts — Heaven urges ; let us seek the light, 
 
 Studious of that pure intcrcourae begun
 
 i^ 
 
 When first our infant brows their lustre won ; 
 So like the Mountain may wc grow more bright, 
 From unimiioded comnicree wiili tlie Sun, 
 At the approach of all-involving night !" 
 
 But what is it that arrests your eye ou the other side of the 
 gulf, overhung, in hke manner, with a sheer perpendicular 
 mountain ? There seems to he something in motion along the 
 smooth face of the precipice, hut it is not possihlc. You look 
 again steadily ; it is actually a line of mules and travellers, 
 creeping like flies along the face of a wall, and you find there 
 is a road there also, cut along this fearful gulf out of the solid 
 rock ; hut it is so far across that tlie passing caravans of tra- 
 vellers seem like moving insects. You watch them a few 
 moments, as they perhaps are watching you ; and now they 
 pass from the cliff, and enter on the winding fir-covered path, 
 that takes them along the thundering torrent of the Dala down 
 to the village of Leuk. 
 
 The view of this gorge might not perhaps have appeared to 
 us quite so suhlime, had we heen prepared for it, or had we 
 come gradually upon it ; hut the solemn, sudden, overwhelm- 
 ing grandeur of the view makes it one of the finest passes in all 
 Switzerland. It stirs the very depths of your soul within you, 
 and it seems as if you could remain motionless hefore it, and 
 not wishing to move, from daylight to sunset, and from sunset 
 to the moon, Avhosc pale, soft, silver light steeps the vales and 
 crags and glaciers with such romantic beauty. 
 
 i^ 
 n 
 
 l>- 
 
 •| 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF THE LANDSCAPE. ALPINE FLOWEUS. JONATDAN 
 
 EDWARDS. 
 
 Passing out from this wonderful scene, through a forest of 
 larches, Avhose dark verdure is peculiarly appropriate to it, and 
 going up towards the haths of Leuk, the interest of the land- 
 scape does not at all diminish. What a concentration and 
 congregation of all elements of sublimity and beauty are be- 
 fore you ! what surprising contrasts of light and shade, of form 
 
 X
 
 
 ^% 
 
 « 
 
 ^ 
 
 and colour, of softness and ruggeclness ! Here are vast heights 
 
 ahove you, and vast depths belosv, villages hanging to the 
 mountain sides, green pasturages and -winding paths, chalets 
 dotting the mountains, lovely meadow slopes enamelled with 
 flowers, deep immeasurable ravines, torrents thundering down 
 them, colossal, overhanging, castellated reefs of granite, snowy 
 peaks with the setting sun upon them. You command a view 
 far down over the valley of the Rhone with its villages and 
 castles, and its mixture of rich farms and vast beds and heaps 
 of mountain fragments, deposited by furious torrents. What 
 aifects the mind very powerfully on first entering upon these 
 scenes is the deep dark blue, so intensely deep and oversha- 
 dowing, of the gorge at its upper end, and the magnificent 
 proud sweep of the granite barrier which there shuts it in, 
 apparently without a passage. The mountains rise like vast 
 supernatural intelligencies taking a material shape, and draw- 
 ing around themselves a drapery of awful grandeur ; there is 
 a forehead of power and majesty, and the likeness of a kingly 
 crown above it. 
 
 Amidst all the grandeur of this scenery, I remember to have 
 been in no place more delighted with the profuse richness, de- 
 licacy, and beauty of the Alpine flowers. The grass of the 
 meadow slopes in the gorge of the Dala had a depth and power 
 of verdure, a clear, delicious greenness, that in its efiect upon 
 the mind was like that of the atmosphere in the brightest au- 
 tumnal morning of the year, or rather perhaps like the colours 
 of the sky at sunset. There is no such grass-colour in the 
 world as that of these mountain meadows. It is just the same 
 at the verge of the ice oceans of Mont Blanc. It makes you 
 think of one of the points chosen by the Sacred Poet to illus- 
 trate the divine benevolence (and I had almost said, no man 
 can truly understand why it was chosen, who has not travelled 
 in Switzerland), " Who maketh the grass to grow upon the moiin- 
 tains. 
 
 And then the flowers, so modest, so lovely, yet of such deep 
 exquisite hue, enamelled in the grass, sparkling amidst it, " a 
 starry multitude," underneath such awful brooding mountain 
 forms, and icy precipices, how beautiful ! All that the Pocta 
 
 ]fr- 
 
 (*
 
 ./==^^A.^^J^.^^k^^^^^?^r^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 S4S3 
 
 WAN'DEniNGS OF A PILGHIM, 
 
 have ever said or sung of daisies, violets, snow-drojis, Iving-cup?, 
 primroses, and all modest flowers, is here outdone by the mute 
 poetry of the denizens of these wild pastures. Such a meadow 
 slope as this, watered with pure rlii5 from the glaciers, would 
 have set the mind of Edwards at work in contemplation on the 
 beauty of holiness. He has connected these meek and lowly 
 flowers with an image, which none of the poets of this world 
 have ever thought of. To him the divine beauty of holiness 
 ** made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner 
 of pleasant flowers ; all pleasant, delightful, and undisturbed ; 
 enjoying a sweet calm, and the gentle, vivifying beams of the 
 Sun. The soul of a true Christian appears like such a littL> 
 white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and hum- 
 ble on the ground ; opening its bosom to receive the pleasant 
 beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing, as it Avere, in a calm rap- 
 ture ; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy ; standing peacefully 
 and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers roimd about ; all in 
 like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the 
 sun." 
 
 Very likely such a jiassage as this, coming from the soid of 
 the great theologian (for this is the poetry of the soul, and not 
 of artificial sentiment, nor of the mere worship of nature, will 
 seem to many persons like violets in the bosom of a glacier. 
 But no poet ever described the meek, modest flowers, so beau- 
 tifully rejoicing in a calm rapture. Jonathan Edwards himself, 
 with his 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 per- 
 petual streams," that are then the deepest when all the foun- 
 tains 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 pure and bracing atmosphere ; like again in this, that 
 it requires much spiritual labour and discipline to surmount 
 the heights, and some care not to fall into the c7-evasses ; 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 se- 
 parate and piecemeal. 
 
 m 
 
 ti:i-> 
 
 M.
 
 ^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^ 
 
 TIIE MOON AND THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 H 
 
 & 
 
 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 res- 
 pects most beautiful. No language can describe the extraor- 
 dinary effect of the light falling on the mighty perpendicular 
 crags and ridges of the Gemmi on the other side, while the vil- 
 lage 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 vail 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 in- 
 tense 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 colour should have so 
 peculiarly 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 irre- 
 sistibly to God and eternity, making the devout heart adoro
 
 ^^^A-^^^hm^^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A nr.GUIM. 
 
 him with praiso and awe, and conipcHIng cveu the careless heart 
 into an unusual sense of his power and glory. Sometimes the 
 mountains seem as if shouting to one another, God ! Some- 
 times they seem repeating in a low, deep, stilly murmur of 
 adoration, God! Sometimes they seem to stand and gaze si- 
 lently 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 hlasphemy ; 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 par- 
 allel. 
 
 This heautiful 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 moon- 
 light and solitude in so grand a scene. As I passed down from 
 the village through the meadow slopes toward the hlack depths 
 of the ravine, one or two peasants were busied, though it was 
 near midnight, silently mowing the grass ; I suppose both be- 
 cause of the coolness of the night, and to secure their hay dur- 
 ing the pleasant weather. A beautiful gray 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 per- 
 fect stillness of the atmosphere, save the distant subterranean 
 thunder of the falls of tbe Dala, bm-ied 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 moun- 
 tain, 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 T ? Considering the fatigues of the day, and those to bo 
 
 P',! 
 
 Al 
 
 i
 
 i^a%^'i*3^'^^ 4 
 
 v^ 
 
 KIOET AND TKE STARS. 
 
 encountered on the morrow, tlierc was great wisdom in tlie act 
 of sleeping. But then again it is to be considered that any 
 nio-ht is good for sleeping, while such a night as this for wak- 
 ino- mio-ht not again he enjoyed, with all its accessories, in a 
 man's lifetime. 
 
 These labourers, that were but making hay, could toil all 
 night, and the day after go to their -work as usual. But all 
 the hay in Switzerland AYOuld not be worth the impulse that 
 might be gained from such a night as this, were the soul only 
 prepared for it. Night and stars ! Silence and voices deep, 
 calling the soul to hear them, not the sense ! What music were 
 it, if those living lights, waxing in splendour, would let us hear, 
 as Dante saith, " the chiming of their angelic bells." 
 
 " One sun by day, by night ton thousand shino, 
 
 And light us deep into the Deity : 
 
 now 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 lusti'cs, with innumerable lights. 
 
 That shed i-eligion 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 enquire.— What hand behind the sconr-, 
 AVhat arm almighty put these wheeling globes 
 In motion, and wound up the vast machine ? 
 Who rounded in his pahn these spacious orbs ? 
 Wlio 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 Mght on fire ?"' 
 
 What grand lines arc these ! The sublimity of Young }-Ises 
 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
 
 w 
 
 202 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 exceeded. It is like tlio image of the same great Poet, of OKI 
 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 hest demonstrations in our 
 language of the ahsurdity of that strange idea of Dr. Johnson, 
 that devotion is not a fit subject for poetry ! Let the Christian 
 stand at midnight hcneath the stars, with mountains round 
 ahout him, and if the influences of the scene are rightly ap- 
 preciated, thougli he may be no Poet, he will feel that Prayei', 
 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 I 
 And what a God must dwell in such a Fane !" 
 
 NioiiT Tiioucnis IX. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 BATHS OF LEUK. 
 
 The village or hamlet of the baths is a place of about three 
 hundred inhabitants, whose clusters of wooden nests hang: to 
 the mountains at an elevation of more than 4500 feet above the 
 level of the sea. The bathing houses and inns are spacious, 
 crowded for some six weeks in July and August, deserted almost 
 all the rest of the year, and shut up and abandoned from October 
 to May. Three times since their establishment in the sixteenth 
 century they have been overwhelmed by avalanches, though to 
 the eye of a stranger in the summer, their position does not seem 
 to be of imminent peril. But the sceneiy is of an extreme 
 grandeur, a glorious region, where the sublimities of nature 
 combine to elevate the mind, at the same time that the body 
 comes to be healed of its infirmities. These healing springs, 
 wherever they occur, are proofs of the Divine benevolence ; 
 may they not be regarded as peculiarly so, when placed in the 
 midst of scenes so adapted to raise the thoughts to heaven ? 
 ' But what invalid bore ever thinks of tlic scenery who has to
 
 _«^'?>. 
 
 ^ 
 
 BATHS OF LEUK. 
 
 203 
 
 spend eight liom-s a day immersed and steaming in hot water ? 
 The grand spring hm-sts forth like a little river close to the 
 bath-house, of as great heat as 124 Fahrenheit, and supplies the 
 great baths, -which are divided into wooden tanks, about twenty 
 feet square, four in each building, where men, women, and child- 
 ren bathe indiscriminately, clad in long woollen gowns. There 
 they sit for hours in the water, some two or three weeks together, 
 four hours at breakfast and four hours after dinner. It is very 
 droll and very disgusting to look at them, floating about, such 
 a motley crew, in such a vulgar mixture, some fifteen or twenty 
 in each tank. It is surprising that persons of either sex, with 
 any refinement of feeling, can submit to such a process, so 
 coarse, so public, so indelicate ; but they say that this social 
 system is resorted to, because of the tedium of being obliged to 
 spend six or eight hours a day in the water ; so they make a 
 regular soiree of it, a sort of Fourier affair, having all things 
 common, and entertaining each other as much as possible. 
 
 The traveller stands on a wooden bridge, and gazes at the 
 watery community in amazement, looking narrowly for fins i 
 but he sees nothing but groups of human heads, emerging and 
 bobbing about like the large corks to a fishing net, among 
 which are floating a score of little wooden tables with books, 
 newspapers, and so forth, for the occupation of said heads, or 
 tea and coffee with toast, or a breakfast a la fourchette, for the 
 supply of the bodies belonging to them. Some are reading, 
 others amphibiously lounging, others coquetting at leisure with 
 a capricious appetite, others playing chess, all up to the chin 
 in hot water. Inveterate chess-players would make excellent 
 patients in these baths. Without some occupation x)f that na- 
 ture, one would think there must be no little danger of falling 
 asleep and getting drowned. One of the bathing-houses is for 
 the poor, who are admitted free of expence ; and here it is not 
 so surprising to sec them all parboiling together; but that the 
 better rank should suffer such a system of vulgarity and pub- 
 licity seems incredible. 
 
 It is principally from France and Switzerland that the visi- 
 tors come, and they have to be steeped three weeks in the water 
 for cure. Eight hours daily in the baths and two in bed, to- 
 
 ^^
 
 204 
 
 y ^ ^i^^^ ^i jig'^ 
 
 ^YANDERINGS OP A riLGRIM, 
 
 getlier Avitli the ciglit or ten spent in sleep, nearly finish the 
 twenty-four of our diurnal existence. There are no provisions 
 for private haths, so that the necessity of making a ttte-a-tcte 
 of some fifteen or twenty together is inexorable. And, after all, 
 there may he no more want for refinement in a social Neptun- 
 ian pic-nic of this sort tlian there is in tripping over the white 
 sands at Brighton, or floating in the surf on the beach at New- 
 port, Naiad-like in companies. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 PASS OF THE GEMMI. TRIALS OF FAITH. 
 
 l' 
 
 From the baths we set our faces, and my companion the face 
 of his mule, to traverse the pass of the Gemmi, in many res- 
 pects the grandest and most extraordinary pass in all Switzer- 
 land. If the builders of Babel had discovered this mountain, 
 methinks they would have abandoned their work, and set them- 
 selves to blast a corkscrew gallery in the rock, by which to 
 reacli heaven. No language can describe the sublime impres- 
 sion of its frowning circular ridges, its rocky, diademic spher- 
 oids, if I may so speak, sweeping up, one after another, into 
 the skies. The whole valley is surrounded by ranges of regal 
 crags, but the mountain of the Gemmi, apparently, absolutely 
 inaccessible, is the last point to which you would turn for an 
 outlet. A side gorge that sweeps up to the glaciers and snowy 
 pyramids flashing upon you in the opposite direction, is the 
 route Mdiich you suppose your guide is going to take, and visions 
 of pedestrians perillously scaling icy precij)iccs, or struggling 
 up to the middle through ridges of snow, begin to surround 
 you, as the prospects of your own experience in this day's ex- 
 pedition. So convinced was I that the path tmtst go out in 
 that direction, that I took a short cut, which I conceived would 
 bring me again into the mide-path at a point under the gla- 
 ciers, but after scaling precipices, and getting lost in a wood 
 of firs in the valley, I was glad to rejoin my friend with tho 
 
 *i^' 
 
 ^►s 
 
 A 
 
 1
 
 ■*I ]• 
 
 guide, and to clamber on in pure ignorance and wonder. The 
 valley is what is called a perfect cul-de-sac, having no opening 
 except where you entered from the Valley of the Rhone, and 
 Vimniiig up blunt, a little beyond the Baths of Leulc, against 
 one of the loftiest perpendicular barriers of rock in all the Al- 
 pine recesses. It was therefore not possible to imagine where 
 we should emerge, and not being able to understand clearly 
 the dialect of our guide, we began to think that he did not him. 
 self know the way. 
 
 Now what a striking symbol is this, of things that some- 
 times take place in our spiritual pilgrimage. We are often 
 brought to a stand, hedged up and hemmed in by the provi- 
 dence of God, so that there seems no way out. A man is some- 
 times thrown into difficulties, in which he sits down beginning 
 to despair, and says to himself, Well, this time it is all over 
 with me; like Sterne's Starling, or worse, like Bunyan's Man 
 in the Cage, he says, I can't get out. Then, when God has 
 driven him from all self-confidence and self-resource, a door 
 opens in the wall, and he rises up and walks at liberty, prais- 
 *\ng God. 
 
 Sometimes he says within himself, " This cannot be the path 
 of duty; the mountain is too high, too inaccessible; there is no 
 possibility of scaling it; the undertaking. Sir Conscience, that 
 you point out to me by God's Word, is desperate. The path 
 must go this other way; I am sure it must." Alas, poor pil- 
 grim, try it, if you dare ! Leave the Guide, whose dialect you 
 think you can't understand, though Conscience all the while 
 understands it, and too soon you will get lost amidst woods 
 and precipices; and well for you it will be, if you do not fall 
 over some fearful crag, or wander so far and so irretrievably, 
 that no longer the voice of your Guide can be heard, and you 
 stumble upon the dark mountains, till you are lost in the con- 
 gregation of the dead. Remember By-Path Meadow, and Gi- 
 ant Despair's Castle, and come back, yea, haste back, if you 
 are going M'herc the Woid of God does not go before you. Let 
 your feet be towards the King's highway, and the mountain 
 you will find is accessible, and the Lions arc chained. 
 
 Shall I pursue the simile any farther? T will; for it makes mo 
 
 ^kp^
 
 206 
 
 WANDEUIKGS OF A riLGUIM. 
 
 iliink of the course of some men, -wliowill not suffer tliemsclves 
 to Le led across the great mysteries of God's Word, hut endea- 
 vour to wind their Avay out of the gulf without scaliug the 
 mountain. They say it is utterly impossihle, it is irrational, 
 it cannot he, there must he some other mode of explaining these 
 passages than that of admitting the stupendous, inexplicable 
 mystery and miracle v>'hich they hear upon the face of them. 
 So they would caiTy you round by side galleries, across drifts 
 of snowy reasoning, as cold and as deceitful as the crusts of 
 glittering ice, that among the Alps cover great fissures, where, 
 if you step, you sink and are out of sight forever. Keep to 
 the appointed path, over the mountain, for there alone are you 
 safe. It is the path of Faith, faith in God's Word, faith in 
 God's mysteries, faith in God's Spirit, faith in God's Son. 
 Sometimes it is the path of Faith without reasoning, and you 
 must take it, because God says so; indeed that great Word, 
 God Saitii, is the highest of all reasoning, and if your reason- 
 ing goes against it, your reasoning is a lie. 
 
 Now have you tried your own way, and found it deceitful 
 and ruinous? And are you ready to follow your Guide, as an 
 ignorant little child, in all simplicity? This is well, and Go(\ 
 sometimes suffers us to have our own way, to take it for a while, 
 that we may find by sore experience that his way is the best. 
 Your path seems to be shut up, but if he points it out, you may 
 be sure that he will open it. As to the children of Israel, when 
 brought to a stand at the verge of the Red Sea, so he says to 
 you, Go forward! 
 
 The mysteries in God's Woi-d, and the practical difficulties 
 in our Pilgrimage, are like these mouritain-passes. If you re- 
 fuse to clamber, j'ou must stay in the gulf, or go, by apostacy, 
 backward, for there is no other way out. And if you will not 
 accept the path, walking by Faith, not Sight, then you will 
 never see the glory that is to be enjoyed on the summit. The 
 great fundamental truths of God's Word, the Resurrection, the 
 Atonement, the Triune Mysteries of the Godhead, the Eternity 
 and Providence of God, the Deity and Grace of Christ, the 
 Work of the Holy Spirit, — these are all mountain passes, to 
 be crossed only by Faith; but when you so cross them, then 
 
 'ISjr-
 
 what glory ! what glory ! So you rise to Heaven; while they 
 who deny them, are creeping and feeling their way as dull ma- 
 terialists hlindfold groping in the gulf helow. 
 
 Well ! let us go on, after om- digression, in the strange path 
 of the Gemmi. My steady companion, in this case, answered 
 to the principle of Faith, and I, of self-willed Reason. But I 
 came back, before I got beyond reach of his powerful voice 
 shouting to me, and we advanced together. 
 
 ^«4^ I 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 PASS OF THE GEMMI. SUCCESSIVE SPLENDOURS OF THE VIEW. 
 
 It is a scene as singular as it is sublime. You march up to- 
 wards the base of the mountain ; you look above you, around 
 you, but there is no way ; you are utterly at a loss. You still 
 advance to within three or four feet of the smooth perpendicular 
 rock, and still there is no outlet. Is there any cave or subter- 
 ranean passage, or are you to be hoisted, mules and all, by 
 some invisible machinery, over the crags ? Thus musing, your 
 guide suddenly turns to the left, and begins a zig-zag ascent, 
 where you never dreamed it was possible, over a steep slope of 
 crumbling rocky fragments, that are constantly falling from 
 above, by which at length you reach a ridgy winding shelf or 
 wrinkle on the face of the mountain, not visible from belovf. 
 Here you might have seen from the valley parties of travellers 
 circling the rocky wall, as if they were clinging to it sideways 
 by some supernatural power, and you may see others far above 
 you coming down. Sometimes sick persons are borne on lit- 
 ters down these precipices to visit the baths, having their eyes 
 blindfolded to avoid seeing the perils of the way. 
 
 It is a lovely day, most lovely. Far and near you can see 
 with dazzling distinctness ; trees and crags, streams, towns, 
 meadow-slopes, mountain outlines, and snowy summits. And 
 now every step upwards increases your wonder and admiration. 
 You rise from point to point, commanding a wider view at every 
 turn. You overhang the most terrible precipices. You scale 
 
 ^w 
 
 Y<3^^
 
 
 y 
 
 208 
 
 WANDEUINGS OF A I'lLGIUAI. 
 
 the face of crags, where narrow galleries have been Llasted liko 
 grooves, leaving the mountain arching and beetling over you 
 above, while there is no sort of barrier between jou and the 
 almost immeasurable gulf below. It is a passage which tries 
 a man's nerves. My companion did not dare to ride, but dis- 
 mounted, and placing the guide oiltside between him and the 
 ^4(j^j/^ outer edge of the grooves, crept along, leaning against tlie 
 mountains, and steadying himself with his hands. The ti-e- 
 mcudous depths, without fence or protection, made him sick 
 and dizzy. Once or twice I had the same sensation, but gene- 
 rally enjoyed the sense of danger, which adds so greatly to the 
 clement of sublimity. 
 
 This ascent, so perpendicular, yet by its zig-zags so gradual, 
 affords a constant change and enlargement of view. The little 
 village and baths of Leuk look like a parcel of children's toys 
 in wax, it is so far below you. Now you can see clear across 
 the Dala valley with its villages and mountains, clear down in- 
 to the valley of the SimjDlon. Now the vast snov^y range of 
 mountains on the Italian side begins to be visible. Now you 
 can distinctly count their summits, you may tell all their names, 
 you gaze at them as a Chaldean shepherd at the beauty of the 
 stars, you can follow their ranges from Monte Rosa and the 
 Velan even to the Grand St. Bernard, Avhere the hoary giant 
 keeps guard over the lovely Val d'Aoste, and locks the king- 
 dom of Italy. IIow dazzling, how beautiful are their forms ! 
 verily, you could sit and watch them all day, if the sun would 
 stay with them, and not tire of their study. 
 
 But now a ziz-zag takes you again in the opposite direction, 
 and again you enter a tremendous gorge, by a blasted hanging 
 . gallery, where the mountains on either side frown like two black 
 y^ thunder-clouds about to discharge their artillery. On the other 
 side of this awful gulf the daring chamois hunters liaA'e perch- 
 ed a wooden box for a sort of watch-tower beneath a shelf in 
 the precipice, utterly inaccessible except by a long pole from 
 beneath, with a few pegs running through it, in imitation of a 
 dead pine. An inexpei-ienced chamois might take it for an 
 eagle's nest, and here a man may lie concealed with his mus- 
 ket till he has opportunity to mark his prey. How majesti- 
 
 
 \^
 
 REMARKABLE ECHO. 
 
 B- 
 
 h 
 
 w 
 
 cally that bird below us cleaves the air, and comes sailing up 
 the gorge, and now circles the gigantic cliffs of the Gemmi, 
 and sweeps away from us into the sky ! Would it not be a 
 glorious privilege to be able in like manner ourselves to sail off 
 into liquid air, and mount up to heaven ? Oh that I had wings 
 like a dove, then would I fly away and be at rest. So Ave 
 shall be able to soar, from glorious peak to peak, from one part 
 of God's universe to another, when clothed upon with our spi- 
 ritual body, our house which is from heaven. 
 
 Where we stand now there is a remarkable echo from the 
 depths of the gorge and the opposite face of the mountain. 
 You hear the sound of your footsteps and your voices, as if 
 another party were travelling on the other side. You shout, 
 and your words are twice distinctly reverberated and repeated. 
 In some places this echo is as if there were a subterranean con- 
 cert, muffled and deep, of strange beings, creatures of wild 
 dreams, the Seven Sleepers awakened, or people talking in a 
 madhouse. The travellers shout, then hold their breath, and 
 look at one another, and listen with a sense of childish wonder 
 to the strange, clear, hold answers, out-spoken across the grim 
 black gorge in the mountain. The poet Wordsworth seems to 
 have heard the full cry of a hunting pack, rebellowing to the 
 bark of a little dog, that took it into its head to wake the echo. 
 Thence came that fine sonnet from his tour on the Continent. 
 
 " What beast of chase hath broken from the cover ? 
 Stern Gemmi listens to as full a cry, 
 As multitudinous a harmony 
 As o'er did ring the heights of Latmos over, 
 When, from the soft couch of her sleeping lover. 
 Upstarting, Cynthia skimmed the mountain dew 
 In keen pursuit, and gave, where'er she Hew, 
 Impetuous motion to the stars above her. 
 A solitary wolf-dog, ranging on 
 
 Through the bleak concave, wakes this wondrous chime 
 Of aery voices locked in unison, — 
 Faint — far off— near— deep— solemn and sublime ! 
 So from the body of a single deed 
 A thousand ghostly fears and haunting thoughts proceed !" 
 
 This last comparison imexpcctedly reveals one of the most 
 impressive thoughts ever bodied forthby Wordsworth's imagi- 
 12 O 

 
 ^^^^^^^^ 
 
 
 -<ti 
 
 210 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGULU. 
 
 nation. There is an eternal eclio both to the evil and the 
 good of our actions. The universe is as a gallery, to take up 
 the report and send it hack upon us, in music sweet as the 
 celestial harmonies, or in crashing thunder of wrath upon the 
 soul. Evil deeds, above all, have their echo. The man may 
 be quiet for a season, and hear no voice, but conscience is yet 
 to he roused, and he is to stand as in the centre of eternity, 
 and hear the reverberation coming back upon him, in remorse, 
 judgment, retribution. The reproduction of liimself upon him- 
 self would alone be retribution, the reverberation of his evil 
 character and actions. Every man is to meet this, whose evil 
 is not pvirged away by Christ ; whose life is not pardoned, 
 whose soul is not cleansed, whose heart is not penitent and 
 made new by divine grace. 
 
 So neither the evil nor the good that men do is ever interred 
 with their bones, but lives after them. There is always going 
 on this process of reverberation, reproduction, resurrection. 
 Wherefore let the wicked man remember, when he speaks or 
 acts an evil thing, though in present secrecy and silence, that 
 he is yet to hear the echo from eternity. 
 
 " Now ! It is gone ! Our brief hours travel post ; 
 Eacli with its thought or deed, its why or liow. 
 But know, each parting liour gives up a ghost, 
 To dwell within thee, an eternal Now," 
 
 You continue your zigzag ascent, wondering where it can at 
 length end. Your mule treads with the utmost unconcern on 
 the very brink of the outjutting crags, with her head and neck 
 projecting over into the gulf, which is so deep and so sheer a 
 perpendicular, that in some places a plumb line might be thrown 
 into the valley below, nearly 1600 feet, almost without touching 
 the rock. It makes you dizzy to look down into the valley 
 from a much less height than this, but still you ascend, and 
 still command a wider and more magnificent view of the snowy 
 Alps on the Italian side of the Canton du Valais. You are 
 now on a level with those hanging lines of misty light, so dis- 
 tant and so beautiful, floating over the valley of the Simplon, 
 where the vapour is suspended in lazy layers, just beneath the 
 limit of perpetual snow. Above are the snow-shining moun-
 
 SUMMIT OF THE 
 
 w 
 
 
 i 
 
 r-^ 
 
 ■?l'i 
 
 
 tains, below the gray crags, forests of fii-, pasturages, chalets, 
 farms, castles, and villages. 
 
 '•' Fancy hath flung for me an airy bridge 
 Across thy long deep valley, furious Rhone ! 
 Arcli, that here rests upon the granite ridge 
 Of Monte Rosa— ^Acre on frailer stone 
 Of secondary birth— the Jungfrau's cone ; 
 And from that arcli, down looking on the vale. 
 The aspect I behold of every zone : 
 A sea of foliage tossing with the gale. 
 Blithe Autumn's purple crown and Winter's icy mail." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 And now at length you have accomplished the ascent and 
 reached the highest point of the pass of the Gemmi. You turn 
 with reluctance from one of the grandest views in Switzerland, 
 though you have been enjoying it for hours; but it is always a 
 grief to quit a chain of snowy Alps in the landscape, for they 
 are like a wide view of the ocean ; it thrills you with delight 
 when you come upon them. You emerge from the gorge, pass 
 the little shed, which would be somewhat better than an um- 
 brella in a storm, walk a few steps, and what a contrast! What 
 a scene of winter and of savage wildness and desolation ! You 
 are 7200 feet above the level of the sea. Stupendous walls and 
 needles of bare rock are shooting into the sky, adown whose 
 slopes vast fields of ever-changing snow sweep resistlessly, 
 feeding a black lake in the centre of storm-beaten ridges of 
 naked limestone. A vast pyramid of pure white snow rises so 
 near you on the right, from behind these intervening ridges of 
 bare rock, that it seems as if a few minutes' walk might plunge 
 you into the midst of it. If you were to undertake it, you 
 would find it a day's work, across frightful ravines, and over 
 mountains. The desolation encreases as you descend, till you 
 come to the solitary aiiberge built upon the ruins of an ava- 
 lanche, the scene, it is said, of one of the German poet Wer- 
 ner's tragedies. 
 
 You are suspicious here, though glad enough to have come 
 to a place of refreshment, because Mr. Murray, whose Guide- 
 book is the Bible of most Englishmen on tlie continent, has put 
 into his pages the warning that tlie landlord of this inn is not
 
 ^ 
 
 '# 
 
 212 WANDERINGS OF A riLOUnf. fj}l 
 
 well spoken of. You naturally expect to meet a surly, ill-look- 
 ing fellow, who is going to cheat you, and Avho might on occa- 
 sion murder you; hut you find a pleasant looking man, who 
 speaks pleasantly, treats you kindly, and charges no more for 
 your faro than it is fairly Avorth ; and you pass from the place 
 exclaiming against the extreme injustice which has thus, upon 
 the chance report 2)erhaps of some solitary, well-fed, English 
 grumhler, affixed a lihel to the name of this landlord, which is 
 sure to prejudice every traveller against him beforehand. 
 
 Well it is for the poor man, that travellers who liave passed 
 the Gcmmi have a sharp appetite, and cannot cat fossils, and 
 that there is no other inn but his in the desolate pass of the 
 mountain. This being the case, they eat, and afterwards sur- 
 vey the character of the landlord in better humour, and then 
 having got ready to be cheated, it is a most agreeable surprise 
 to find that there is no cheat at all, though 7000 feet above the 
 level of the sea might almost justify it, for who could be ex- 
 pected to keep such an inn without some inordinate compensa- 
 tion? There is nothing that travellers ought to pay more 
 cheerfully than high charges in such places; but from the 
 manner in which John Bull sometimes complains, you would 
 think he was a very poor man, close upon the verge of his last 
 farthing. I have seen an Enghshman in a storm of rage for 
 a charge in Switzerland which would have been three times as 
 high in his own country, besides that there he would have been 
 obliged to pay the servants in addition, no little proportion of 
 what here the meal itself cost him. 
 
 
 mo- 
 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 CANTON BERNE. SCRIPTURE ON THE HOUSES. 
 
 TRUTH A GOOD TALISMAN. 
 
 Soon after quitting the inn, the pasturage vegetation com- 
 mences, and you cross from the Roman Catholic Canton du 
 Valais into the Protestant Canton Berne ; it is impossible not 
 to be struck with the great contrast between the two regions, 
 
 
 1^- 

 
 cf^k^ 
 
 ;^?— '-^^T''.^^ 
 
 w 
 
 ^l 
 
 CANTON BER^E 
 
 when you enter tlie villages. From the poverty, filth, and 
 Ignorance in the Valley of the Rhone you pass to abodes of 
 comfort, neatness, and intelligence. A traveller cannot shut 
 his eyes against this contrast. He may have heard it describ- 
 ed, and may have set it down to the score of religious prejudice 
 exaggerating the facts; but he finds the contrast to be an un- 
 deniable reality. Neither can he tell how much of this differ- 
 ence arises from physical causes, the Valley of the Rhone being 
 subject to calamities and diseases from which the Canton Berne 
 is happily free ; nor how much is owing to the contrasted sys- 
 tem of religion and education. The fact is quite beyond con- 
 troversy, that the population of the Canton Berne are far su- 
 perior in thrift, intelligence, and prosperity to that of the Canton 
 du Valais. 
 
 I cannot say that Protestant grass is any greener than Ro- 
 mish, or that heretical cattle are any fatter than those on the 
 Pope's side of the mountain ; but the vegetation began speedily 
 to luxuriate as we descended, large firs began to clothe the 
 crags, herds of cows and oxen were pasturing, and the ridges 
 of rock so bare and perpendicular on the other side the pass, 
 on this were hidden under thick forests. The mountains are 
 split asunder in deep ravines, immense jagged chasms, which 
 are fringed with rich verdure, and the shade into which you en- 
 ter is so deep, that it looks like evening, though the sun has 
 not much passed the meridian. The side views of the Oesch- 
 inen and Gasteren valleys, one on your right, the other on your 
 left, as you descend towards Kandersteg, are exceedingly im- 
 pressive, both for their savage grandeur and beauty. On one 
 side you seem to look through the torn rock-rifts of the pass, 
 and over forest-crowned projections of the mountains, into the 
 icy palace of Winter where he reigns alone; frosted sparkling 
 peaks, and icy-sheeted crags, and masses of pure white snow, 
 seen through the firs, make a singular wild contrast with the 
 verdant scenery, that rises immediately around you, and is 
 spread out below you. On the other side, the path that takes 
 you into the Oeschinen valley winds over green grassy slopes 
 to introduce you to a lovely lake encircled by precipices and 
 glaciers, at the foot of the Blumlis Alps. 
 
 •t 
 
 'I
 
 And now you arrive .at Kandersteg, a scattered village in the 
 midst of a smooth grassy expanse of table land at the foot of 
 the Gemmi, about 3300 feet above the level of the sea. The 
 change in the aspect of the hamlets, from the region where you 
 have been travelling, attracts your notice. Some of the villages 
 look like New England. Nature is more kindly than in the 
 Valley of the Rhone, and the people have cndcavoui-cd to keep 
 pace with her more equally. They are certainly better to do 
 in the world, and under the Canton Berne, in a freer, more 
 cheerful, less repressing government. 
 
 In place of the symbol of the cross, or the statue of the Vir- 
 gin in her niche, or the picture of the Mother and Child, the 
 traveller may see, as in some of the old houses in Edinburgh, 
 sentences from the Scriptures piously inscribed over the doors, 
 or across the outside walls of the cottages. It has a most pleasing- 
 effect upon the mind, although doubtless many of the inhabi- 
 tants think no more of their meaning than the Jews did of 
 that of the scriptural inscriptions on their broad phylacteries. 
 Yet it is pleasant to see a rim of sentences from the Word of 
 God running round the hamlet, and sometimes a stray thought 
 may be caught by it and made devotional. If there could be 
 an outward talisman, making the house secure from evil, for- 
 bidding the entrance of bad spirits, 
 
 " Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt," 
 
 sweetly reminding intelligent beings of duty, and making sa- 
 cred things inanimate, this were it. Girt round about with 
 Truth, what defence could equal it? No sprinkling with holy 
 Avater, no spittle of priests, no anointing with oil, no forms of 
 exorcism, could so frighten the wandering imps of darkness. 
 Then, too, there is no superstition connected with it; it is 
 justified by, and in perfect accordance with, the injunctions 
 given to the Hebrews, Thou shalt write them upon the door- 
 posts of thine house, thou shalt teach them to thy children. 
 
 It is a curious indication, that the religion of superstition 
 and will worship resort to all other talismans and symbols save 
 the Word of God. The Romanists, so profuse of signs and 
 rites and things pretended holy, are very sparing and cautious 
 
 W 
 
 
 A 1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ajy 
 
 ^
 
 of tbia. On the other hand, the Mohammedans apply them- 
 selves to sentences from the Koran. The palace of the Alham- 
 bra in Spain is covered all over with leaves from the sayings 
 of their prophet. The religion of the Mohammedans is not 
 afraid of its professed books of inspiration ; it never enacted a 
 law forbidding them to read in the vernacular tongue, or by the 
 common people. The religion of the Romanists is afraid of the 
 Word, and instead of teaching it, conceals it and uses all other 
 things but that as symbols. Here is matter for reflection 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 riCTURESQUE COTTAGES. — A PICTURESQUE LAXGUAGE. RIGHT 
 
 AND UNRI6HT INNOVATION. 
 
 Some of the Swiss cottages are extremely picturesque, espe- 
 cially here in the Oberland Alps, with their galleries running 
 round them outside, their rows of checkered windows, and their 
 low-dropping, sheltering, hospitable roofs. Sometimes the 
 shingles are curiously wrought with much pains-taking, and 
 fitted like the scales of some sea-creature. But in general 
 there is not the care for clustering shrubbery outside, which 
 might add so much to their beauty, and which makes many a 
 poor cot in England, when Spring has thrown its blossoming 
 warp over them, for Summer to fill up, so rich with mossy 
 greenness. The rows of yellow golden corn, hanging under 
 the eaves of the Swiss cottages, might suggest to an imagina- 
 tive mind a new order of architecture, 
 
 I see not why this quality of picturesqueness is not quite as 
 desirable in buildings as it is in scenery, and also in language, 
 in opinions, in literature, in the whole of life. There is much 
 more of it in every way in the Old World than in America, and 
 hence in part the romantic charm, which everything wears to 
 the eye of a Transatlantic. Why should there be so much 
 monotony with us ? Why not more originality and variety ? 
 Is it because of the irresistible despotism of associations, which 
 are so much and so usefully the type of modern society, break-
 
 Vi'ANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 ing dowu and reprcssiug, or rather hindering the development 
 of individuality ? 
 
 The desire to produce uniformity, when unaccompanied with 
 the idea and the love of the free and the beautiful, and un- 
 checked by a regard to the rights of others, produces despot- 
 ism and monotony in the whole domain of life, as well as in 
 the Church. Some men would push it even into the syllabic 
 constitution of our language, which they would reduce to a 
 monotonous regularity, quite undesirable, even if it could bo 
 accomplished. Why should wc desire to do it, any more than 
 wc should wish to put the stars in strait jackets of squares or 
 triangles, or all the trees into the form of quincunxes? There 
 are men, Mr. Dana once said, who, if they could have had the 
 making of the universe, instead of the fair vault of azure hung 
 with its drapery of gorgeous cloud, and by night studded with 
 innumerable wild stars, would have covered the sky with one 
 vast field of dead, cold blue. 
 
 There are just such men in literature and spelling, for ever 
 thrusting their dry, bare, sapless formulas of utility before the 
 mind, telling you that nothing must be done without some 
 reason, that everything must have its place, and its place for 
 everything, and in fine, with a multitude of wise old saws and 
 modern instances,, they come to the conclusion that the world, 
 which has gone wild and crazy in freedom and beauty, wild 
 above rule or art, is now to be constructed over again, according 
 to the precepts and analyses of their utilitarianism. Wo be to a 
 supei-fluous letter, if these men catch it caracoling and playing 
 its pranks in a word, which, though it may be none the better 
 for its presence, yet, being accustomed to it, is none the worse; 
 away it goes to the Lexicographer's watch-house, till it can be 
 tried for vagrancy. Instead of the good old word height, these 
 men would have us drop the e and spell highl, but to be consis- 
 tent, both the g and the h should be dropped, and the word 
 written hyt. That would be sti'ict utilitarianism. The word 
 pretence they would change into pretense, and so with others of 
 that family. The word theatre they would print theater, and 
 others of the same clan in like manner. The expressive word 
 haggard they would change into hagard, because, forsooth, two 
 
 k\ 
 
 Z^>
 
 INNOVATIONS. 
 
 b/ 
 
 are superfluous. In this attempt at change they are going 
 contrary to good usage, which must ever be the prevaihng Law 
 of language, and instead of producing uniformity in the lan- 
 guage itself (in which irregularities are of little consequence, 
 nay, sometimes add to its beauty), they are causing one of the 
 greatest evils of language, irregularity, uncertainty, and law- 
 lessness in the mode of using it. 
 
 This is owing in a great measure to Dr. Webster's unfortu- 
 nate orthographical eccentricities, which have set so many 
 spellers and journeymen printers agog to imitate him. It is 
 vexatious to think of the 2)rospect of our becoming provincial- 
 ized, and as obnoxious to the charge of dialects as any county 
 in England, when heretofore we have been, as a people, so mucli 
 more pure and classical in our use of the English language 
 than the English people themselves. These innovations should 
 be resisted, nor should any mei'e Lexicographer, nor University, 
 nor knot of critics, have it in their power to make them preva- 
 lent. A great and powerful writer, like John Foster or Edmund 
 Burke, a great Poet, like Shakspere or Milton, is a great 
 king and creator in language; his sway is legitimate, for he 
 enlarges the capacity of his native tongue, and encreases its 
 richness and imaginative power, and when the soul of genius 
 innovates, it has some right so to do. And such innovations 
 will inevitably pass into the soul of language, and become a 
 part of its law. But the mere critic and lexicographer has no 
 right to innovate; he is to take the language as he finds it, and 
 declare and set forth its forms according to good usage ; he is 
 out of his province, and becomes an usurper when he attempts 
 to alter it. 
 
 These surveyors of the King's English are going about to 
 prune the old oaks of the language of all supernumerary knots, 
 leaves, and branches. If there is any question as to the pro- 
 priety of their course, whist, they whip you out of their pocket 
 the great American Lexicographer's measuring line, and tell 
 you exactly how far the tree ought to grow, and that every part 
 not sanctioned by his authority must be lopped off. It were 
 well if these gentlemen were compelled to practise the same 
 rules and attempt the same innovations with the bonnets of 
 
 ' h|>
 
 their wives, that they are attemj^ting with the King's English. 
 Let them cut off every supernumerary rihhon, and shape the 
 head-dress of the ladies hy square and compass, and not by the 
 varieties of taste, and in this enterprise they would find some- 
 what more of difficulty in carrying out their utilitarian maxims. 
 
 The sacred word Bible our coterie of critics must needs spell 
 with a small b. This is worse than mere innovation. There 
 is a dignity and sacredness of personification connected with 
 the word Bible, whicli appropriately manifests itself in making 
 the term a proper name. It partakes of the sacredness of the 
 name of God, and ought always to be written with a capital B, 
 for the usage has obtained, as a matter of i-eligious reverence, 
 and a good and venerable usage it is. 
 
 We shall have a grand Avorld by and by, when it is all a 
 dead level. Every mountain is to come down, and every valley 
 to be raised, and a utilitarian railroad is to run straight across 
 the world ; an embargo is to be laid on all winding ways ; 
 the trees are to have just so many leaves, and no more; the 
 oaks are not to be suffered to sport any more knots ; the rose- 
 bushes are to put forth no more buds than the essence-makers 
 declare to be wanted ; our prayers are to have only so many 
 words, and if any minister appears in the pulpit without a 
 white neck-cloth, or a surplice so many inches long, he is to 
 be suspended and excommunicated. All our hymns are to 
 undergo a revision, and to be cleansed of all hard and naughty 
 words, and pruned of all supernumerary stanzas, and a fine is to 
 be laid on every clergyman who shall give out more than four. 
 
 The corps of revisers would do well for awhile to let other 
 men's productions alone, and to leave the English language iu 
 the hands of Addison and Goldsmith, Shakspei-e, Cowper, and 
 our Translation of the Bible. Some poet-pedlars are especially 
 fond of tinkering with old hymns, thinking they can solder up 
 the rents in Watts and Cowper. Walker's Rhyming Diction- 
 ary and Webster's great Lexicon might constitute their whole 
 stock in trade. Methinks we can hear them bawling from the 
 wooden seat of their cart, "Any old hymns to mend, old hymns 
 to mend?" This tinkered ware will not last. We should 
 almost as soon think of adopting wooden nutmegs, at the in-
 
 INNOVATIONS. 
 
 219 
 
 stigations of tlie pedlars "down east," instead of tlie old-fa- 
 shioned genuine spices of Morgenland. But alas, the fictitious 
 and the genuine have got so mingled up by generation after 
 generation of menders, that poets like Cowper and Watts would 
 find it difficult themselves, in some cases, to say which was 
 their own version. The same is the case with some of the best 
 old tunes in music, ground down to suit the barrel organs of 
 new composers. that men would leave some of the old stones 
 with mosses on them ! 
 
 What has all this to do, you are asking, with Kandersteg 
 and the Swiss hamlets? We have made a digression, it must 
 be acknowledged, but the way back is not difficult. It is clearly 
 manifest that picturesqueness is as desirable a quality in lan- 
 o-uao-e and literature as it is in trees and houses. And let us 
 
 o o 
 
 remember that the utmost simplicity is perfectly consistent witli 
 this quality of picturesqueness. If we must change our lan- 
 guage, let it not be by making it more bare, but richer and 
 more simple. Men often mistake barrenness for simplicity, but 
 there is no necessary relationship between the two. A bare 
 naked man, we take it, has no more simplicity than a decently 
 dressed gentleman. The bald, staring, red front of a brick 
 house on a dusty street is not half so simple an object, as a 
 pretty cottage with verandahs and honeysuckles. It is not the 
 things which are omitted, but those which are wisely retained, 
 that constitute true simplicity. The simplicity of words is not 
 to be judged by the equilibrium of syllables, or the balance of 
 vowels and consonants, nor is language to be judged as the 
 shopkeepers would measure tape by the yard, or carpets by the 
 fio-ures. It must grow as the trees do, with the same variety 
 and freedom, under the same law of picturesque and not im- 
 mutable vitality. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 KANDERSTEG. FRUTIGEN. THE BLUMLIS ALP. LAKE AND 
 
 VILLAGE OF TIIUN. 
 
 \ 
 
 It was early enough in the afternoon to reach TJiun, by taking a!j
 
 -<Jl;!/ 
 
 a char, the same evening, and I was sufficiently tired for tliQ 
 day, and quite well disposed for a ride through the lovely val- 
 ley of Frutigen, still far hclow us. A few miles from Kander- 
 stcg we found ourselves on the outer edge of the spreading farms 
 of that village, a most sudden and romantic contrast, to one 
 stepping down from the icy top and rough sides of the Gemmi. 
 
 " Who loves to lie with mo, 
 Under the greenwood tree, 
 Come hitlior, come hither, come hither 
 Here shall he see 
 No enemy 
 But winter and rough weather." 
 
 Here shall you see Summer and Winter conversing together, 
 with hut a wall between them, as a fair girl on an errand of 
 mercy, might stand in the sweet open air outside a prison, and 
 converse, through the grated black window, with a savage, shut 
 up criminal, with wild eyes and matted hair. By and by the 
 savage will break prison, and come down into the grassy plains, 
 but this is not his season of liberty. You can talk with him, 
 and hear his fierce voice, and look at his icy fingers, without 
 his touching you. 
 
 Turning from Kandersteg and the Gemmi, you overlook at 
 once the long descending vale, all the way to where it ends at 
 Frutigen, with the spires and white houses of that village shin- 
 ing in the distant evening sun. Is not the view quite enchant- 
 ing ? Nearly at right angles with the gorge down which you 
 are descending, lies the now concealed valley of Frutigen, one 
 of the richest deep inclosures of the Alps. And now it opens 
 upon us. We lose the Gemmi and the woods and roaring 
 brooks of Kandersteg, and turn down towards the more open 
 face of a world so beautiful. 
 
 Our drive through the vale brought us full upon the view of 
 the snowy Blumlis Alp at sunset. What a form of majesty 
 and glory ! How he flings the flaming mantle of the evening 
 sun down upon us, as if he were himself about to ascend in fire 
 from earth to heaven ! 
 
 " So like the Mountain, may wo gi'ow more bright, 
 From unimpeded commerce with the Sun, 
 At tT.<j approach of all-involving night," 
 
 WORDSWORXH. 
 
 4
 
 
 Mi 
 
 Nothing earthly can be more glorious than such a revelation. 
 Meantime, as we rode into the twilight of the Vale, there came 
 and went, between the trees and the mountains, through which 
 we loohed into the western heavens, a sky, that seemed for a 
 season to be growing brighter, as we were getting darker, a 
 sky, as the same Poet describes it, 
 
 " Bright as the glimpses of Eternity, 
 To saints accorded in their dying hour." 
 
 So shone the Blumlis Alp. But we had hardly done admiring 
 the crimson tints on that grand and mighty range, when turn- 
 ing from this valley and passing the lovely entrance of the Sim- 
 menthal, we came upon the borders of the Lake of Thun, and 
 beheld suddenly the full moon rising behind the snowy ranges 
 of the Bernese Alps, and gilding them with such mild, cloud- 
 less effulgence, that nothing could be more beautiful. They 
 were distinct and shining, and so soft and white, so grand and 
 varied in their outlines, that the sudden vision beneath the sail- 
 ing moon seemed like a trance or dream of some eternal scenery. 
 For the horizon, and the deep air above it, glowed like a pale 
 liquid flame, and in this atmosphere the mountains were set, like 
 the foundations of the Celestial City. Then we had the Lake, 
 with the moonlight reflected from it in a long line of brightness, 
 and amidst the beauty of this scenery, our day's excursion was 
 ended by our entrance into Thun. 
 
 Now it would scarcely be possible in all Switzerland to fill a 
 day with a succession of scenes of more extraordinary grandeur 
 and sublimity, softness and loveliness. God's goodness has 
 protected us from danger, and shielded us from harm in the 
 midst of danger, unworthy that we are of his love. IIow have 
 we wished for the dear ones at home to be with us, enjoying 
 these glories ! And is not the goodness of God peculiarly dis- 
 played, in giving us materials and forms of such exciting sub- 
 limity and beauty to gaze upon in the very walls of our earthly 
 habitation ? What a grand discipline for the mind, in these 
 mighty forms of nature, and for the heart too, if rightly im- 
 proved, with its afi'cctions. These mountains arc a great page 
 m our natural theology : they speak to us of the power and
 
 222 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGHIM. 
 
 glory of our Maker. And for the food and enkindling of tlio 
 imagination they are in the world-creation what such a work 
 as the Paradise Lost is in the domain of poetry; they are what 
 a book of great and suggestive thoughts is to a sensitive mind ; 
 they waken it up and make it thrill with great impulses ; and 
 as a strain of grand unearthly music, a thunder-hurst of sound, 
 or as the ringing of the bells of the New Jerusalem permitted 
 to become audible, they put the soul itself in motion like an 
 inward organ, and set it to singing in the choral university har- 
 mony. 
 
 The next day after this memorable excursion opened with a 
 morning cloudy and misty, but it was clear again at ten. AVe 
 are at the Pension Baumgarten, in the picturesque town of 
 Thun, under the shadow of a green mountain, with the Lake 
 to the right, the town before us, and the clear rapid Aar shoot- 
 ing like an arrow from the Lake, under old bridges, and past 
 houses and battlements, as the crystal Rhone from the Lake at 
 Geneva. There are about 5000 inhabitants, with a noble old 
 JFeudal Castle of the twelfth century towering on a steep, house- 
 clad hill in the centre of the village, and an antique venerable 
 church nearly as lofty. From the church-yard tower and ter- 
 race, where I am jotting a few dim sketches in words, you have 
 a magnificent view of the Lake and the Alps. Parties of visi- 
 tors, most of them English, are constantly coming and going 
 at this spot. The Lake stretches before you about ten miles long, 
 between lovely green gardens and mountain-ranges fringing it, 
 with the flashing snowy summits and glaciers of the Jungfrau, 
 Finster-Aarhorn, Eigher, and Monch filling the view at its 
 extremity. On the plains of Thun the troops from the various 
 Swiss Cantons are at this moment encamped for review', and 
 passing through a variety of evolutions. 
 
 How like the garden are the delicious vales and lakes hidden 
 among the mountains! The Poet Cowley observes, as indicat- 
 ing to us a lesson of happiness, that the first gift of God to 
 man was a garden, even before a wife; gardens first, the gift 
 of God's love, cities afterwards, the work of man's ambition. 
 
 ' For well ho knew what place would best agree 
 ^Vitll innocence and with felicity;
 
 And we elsewhere still seek for them in vain, 
 
 If any part of either yet remain: 
 
 If any part of either we expect, 
 
 This may our judgment in the search direct, 
 
 God the first Garden made, and the first city, Cain." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THUN TO INTEKLACnEN. — INTERLACHEN TO LAUTERBRUNNEN. 
 
 BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. 
 
 Seeing that I am to be a solitary pedestrian from Thun tlirough 
 the Oberland Alps as far as Lucerne, my friend being bound 
 homewards through Berne for England, I must make the most 
 of this continued lovely weather ; and since there is nothing in 
 Thun to detain me, unless I were fond of looking at the crowds 
 of gay and care-defying visitors, coming and going, in whom, 
 being strangers, I feel no personal interest, and they none in 
 me, I must even start to-day in the little iron steamer of the 
 lake for Neuhaus. I could not persuade my friend to go far- 
 ther, f(3r he was continually thinking of his wife and children, 
 looking towards home in just the state to have become a pillar 
 of salt. Inwardly mourning, he dragged at each remove a 
 lengthening chain. Besides, a careless herdsman on the moun- 
 tains had struck him on the leg with a stone intended for one 
 of his unruly cattle, and he remembered, years ago, how one 
 of his classmates with whom he was then travelUng in Switzer- 
 land, was laid on a sick bed for weeks, in consequence of a 
 similar hurt not attended to. So between the sweet domestic 
 fire side, and the lame leg, he was compelled to turn his face 
 homewards. I parted from him with great regret, and resumed 
 my pilgrimage alone. 
 
 The sail from Thun to Neuhaus, at the other end of the 
 Lake, needs the sun upon the mountains, if you would have 
 the full glory of the landscape. For us it shone upon the Lake 
 and on its borders, but on the distant Alps the clouds rested 
 in such fleecy volumes, like a troop of maidens hiding the bride, 
 that it was only at intervals the mountains were revealed to us. 
 
 ^ ^ K Xt^-^^ 3
 
 -^ I 
 
 Landing at Neuliaus, you may go iu a diligence, omnibus, hack- 
 ney coach, mail carriage, or any way you please that is possi- 
 ble, a couple of miles to Unterseehen, a brown old primitive 
 village ; and a little farther to Interlachen, which is a large 
 Jilnglish boarding house, with streets running through it, shad- 
 ed with great walnut trees, and paraded by troops of dawdling 
 loungers and lodgers, with here and there a sprinkling of Swiss 
 natives. It is beautifull}' situated in the midst of a large plain, 
 about mid-way between the Lakes of Thun and Brientz, both 
 these Lakes being visible from a hill amidst the meadow behind 
 Interlachen, with all the lovely intei'vening scenery and villages. 
 Going from Neuhaus to Interlachen, you are reminded of the 
 passage from Lake George to Lake Champlain. The verdure 
 and foliage of the valley, to where it passes from meadow to 
 raoimtain, is rich beyond description. It becomes really mag- 
 nificent as it robes the stupendous mountain masses in such 
 dark rich hues. 
 
 From Interlachen the way to Lauterbrunncn lies througli 
 one of the most beautiful valleys in Switzerland. Entering it 
 from the jilain we had a noble view of the Jungfrau rising Avith 
 its eternal snows behind ridges of the most beautiful verdure, 
 now vailed and now revealed from its misty shroud. The 
 mountain torrent Lutschinen thunders down a savage gorge 
 between forest-clad slopes and precipices, along which you pass 
 from the villages of Wylderschwyl and Muhlinen for about two 
 miles, when the valley opens into two deep ravines, one on the 
 left, running to Grindlcwald, the other on the right to Lauter- 
 brunncn, each traversed by a roaring stream that falls into the 
 Lutschinen. You may go either to Lauterbrunncn or Grindlc- 
 wald and back again to Interlachen in a few hours, having 
 witnessed some of the sublimest scenery in Switzerland ; but 
 the grand route is through Lauterbrunncn across the Wengern 
 Alps, down into the valley of Grindlcwald, and thence across 
 the Grand Scheideck down into Meyringen, from whence you 
 may go to the Lake Brientz on one side, or across the pass of 
 the Grimsel on the other. 
 
 My German guide from Intei'iachen was very intelligent, 
 and being an inhabitant of the' village of Muhlinen, he commu-
 
 "f 
 
 w 
 
 r 
 
 nicated to us many interesting particulars. He told us of the 
 Bcliools of his native village, and among other things hor/ each 
 parent pays five batz, or fifteen cents., in the ■winter, and three 
 in the summer, for each child's schooling, and how in the win- 
 ter the children go to school in the morning from eight to 
 twelve, then home to dinner, then in the afternoon from one to 
 three; but in the summer only from eight to eleven in the morn- 
 ing at school, and then the rest of the day to work. He told 
 us also how the school had two masters and one mistress, he- 
 sides the clergyman of the parish^ who takes the children for 
 religious instruction two hours a-day. 
 
 Upon my word (the traveller may say to himself) here is a 
 good, wise, time-honoured provision. These primitive people 
 are old-fashioned and Biblical enough to think that religious 
 instruction ought to be as much an clement of education, and 
 as constant and uniutermitted, as secular. They are right, 
 they are laying foundations for stability, prosperity, and happi- 
 ness in their little community. The world is wrong side up 
 in this matter of education when it administers its own medi- 
 cines only, its own beggarly elements, its own food, and nothing 
 higher, its own smatterings of knowledge, without the celestial 
 life of knowledge. Power it gives, without guidance, without 
 principles. It is just as if the art of ship-building should be 
 conducted without helms, and all ships should be set afloat to 
 be guided by the winds only. For such are the immortal ships 
 on the sea of human life without the Bible ; its knowledge, its 
 principles, ought from the first to be as much a part of the 
 educated intelligent constitution, as the keel or rudder is part 
 and parcel of a well built ship. 
 
 Religious instruction, therefore, and the breath of the sacred 
 Scriptures, ought to be breathed into the child's daily life of 
 knowledge, not put off to the Sabbath, when grown children 
 only are addressed from the pulpit, or left to parents at home, 
 who perhaps themselves, in too many cases, never open the 
 Bible. H in their daily schools children were educated for 
 Eternity as well as Time, there would be more good citizens, a 
 deeper piety in life, a more sacred order and heaven-like beauty 
 in the Republic, a better understanding of law, a more patient 

 
 226 
 
 WAMDERINGS OF A riLGRUf. 
 
 obedience to it, nay, a production of it, and a conformable orga- 
 nization to it, and an assimilation with its spirit beforeliand. 
 
 It is by celestial observations alone, said Coleridge (and it 
 M'as a great and profound remark), that terrestrial charts can 
 be constructed. If our education would ba one that states can 
 live by and flourish, it must be ordered in the Scriptures. What 
 suicidal, heterogeneous, Roman madness, in the attempt to ex- 
 clude the Bible from our public schools ! May its authors bite 
 themselves ! 
 
 Our guide told us moreover a very curious regulation of the 
 internal police of the school at Muhlinen, intended to keep the 
 children from playing truant, which they accomplish eflcctually 
 by working not upon the child's fear of the rod, or love of his 
 studies, but upon the parent's love of his money. That is to 
 say, if the childi'en are absent, and as often as they are absent, 
 a cross is put against the parent's name, and he is made ac- 
 countable, and is fined, if he does not give satisfactory reason 
 for the child's absence. Of course all the whippings for play- 
 ing truant ara administered by the parent, and therefore it be- 
 ing very sure, if there is a fine for the parent to pay, that the 
 amount of it will be fully endorsed upon the child with a birch 
 rod, the pupils take good care to keep punctual at school. No 
 delinquent can escape, for no false excuse can be mauufactui*ed. 
 It is a system which might perhaps be very useful in other arts 
 besides that of school-keeping 
 
 Coming up the valley to Lautcrbrunnen, you cannot cease 
 admiring the splendid verdure that clothes the mountains ou 
 each side, as well as the romantic depth and wildness of the 
 gorge, above which your road passes. Just before you enter 
 the village or hamlet, the cascade of the iStaubach, at some 
 distance beyond it, comes suddenly into view, poured from the 
 very summit of the mountain, as if out of heaven, and stream- 
 ing, or rather waving, in a long line of foam, like Una's hair 
 as described by Spenser, or like the comet Ophiuncus in Mil- 
 ton ; sweeping down the perpendicular face of the mountain with 
 indescribable grace and beauty. 
 
 The rising of the moon upon this scene was beyond expres- 
 sion lovely. The clouds had gone, and the snowy summit of 
 
 >r3*-
 
 MOUNTAIN SOLITUDES. 
 
 the Jungfrau seemed hanging over into the valley, and the 
 moon rose with a single star by her side, lending to the glaciers 
 a rich but transitory brilliancy, and shining with her solemn 
 light, so still, so solemn, down into the depths of the broad ra- 
 vine, upon meadow, rock, and torrent. From the window of my 
 room in our hotel I could see in one view this moon, the glit- 
 tering Jungfrau, and the foaming Staubach on the other side. 
 The night was very beautiful, but soon the mists rose, filling 
 the valley, and taking away from a tired traveller all apology 
 for not going immediately to bed. ^Ve had had a charming 
 day, and were once more out of the world of artificial and 
 dawdling idlers, and in the deep heart of nature's most soli- 
 tary and sublime recesses. How great, how pure, how exqui- 
 site, is the enjoyment of the traveller in these mountain soli- 
 tudes ! He scarcely feels fatigue, but only excitement ; it is a 
 species of mental intozication, a joyous, elevated, elastic state, 
 which is as natural an atmosphere for the mind, in these cir- 
 cumstances, as the pure, bracing mountain air is for the body. 
 
 Iji^N 
 
 l-t^ 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 STAUBACH CASCADE AND VALE OF LAUTERERUNNEN. 
 
 8 
 
 The first sound I heard on waking in the morning, indeed the 
 sound that waked me, was the echoing Alpine Horn, breaking 
 the stillness of the valley with its long drawn far off melody. 
 I threw open my window towards the east ; the sun was already 
 on the snowy summit of the Jungfrau, the air sparkling and 
 frosty, giving a sharj), decisive promise of a clear day; and 
 the Staubach, which was such a dim and misty line of waving 
 silver in the moonlight of the evening, was clearly revealed, 
 almost like a bird of paradise throwing itself into the air from 
 the brow of the mountain. 
 
 It is the most exquisitely beautiful of waterfalls, though 
 there are miniatures of it in the Valley of the Arve almost as 
 beautiful. You have no conception of the volume of water, nor 
 of the grandeur of the fall, until you come near it, almost be- 
 
 'U»-
 
 i'l 
 
 neath it ; but Its extreme beauty is better seen and felt at a 
 little distance ; indeed we thought it looked more beautiful 
 than ever when we saw it, about ten o'clock, from the moun- 
 tain ridge on the opposite side of the valley. It is between 
 eight and nine hundi'cd feet in height, over the perpendicular 
 precipice, so that the eye traces its course so long, and its 
 movement is so checked by the resistance of the air and the 
 roughness of the mountain, that it seems rather to float than 
 to fall, and before it reaches the bottom, dances down in ten 
 thousand little jets of white foam, Avhich all alight together, 
 as softly as a white-winged albatross on the bosom of the 
 ocean. It is as if a million of rockets were shot off in 
 one shaft into the air, and then descended together, some of 
 them breaking at every point in the descent, and all stream- 
 ing down in a combination of meteors. So the streams in this 
 fall, where it springs into the air, separate and hold their own 
 as long as possible, and then burst into rockets of foam, drop- 
 ping down at first heavily, as if determined to reach the ground 
 unbroken, and then dissolving into showers of mist, so grace- 
 fully, so beautifully, like snow-dust on the bosom of the air, 
 that it seems like a spiritual creation rather than a thing in- 
 ert, material. 
 
 " Time cannot thin tby flowing hair, 
 
 Nor take one ray of light from thee, 
 For in our fancy thou dost share 
 
 The gift of Immortality. 
 
 Its literal name is Dust-fall, and to use a ver}- homely illus- 
 tration, but one which may give a man, who has never seen 
 any-thing like it, some quaint idea of its appearance in part, it 
 is as if Dame Nature had poured over the precipice from her 
 horn of plenty a great torrent of dry white meal ! One should 
 be more mealy-mouthed in his figures, but if you are not satis- 
 fied with this extraordinary comparison, take the more com- 
 mon one of a long lace vail waving down the mountain ; or 
 better still, the uncommon one of the Tail of the Pale Horse 
 streaming in the wind, as painted so beautifully in Lord By- 
 ron's Manfred. 
 
 " It is not noon — the sunbow's rays still arch 
 The torrent with the many hues of heaven. 
 
 i9^
 
 And roll tlie sheeted silver's waving column 
 O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, 
 And tling its lines of foaming light along. 
 And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, 
 The giant steed to bo bestrode by Death, 
 As told in the Apocalj'pse." 
 
 It makes jou tliink of many things, tliis beautiful fall, 
 springing so fearlessly into tlie gulf. It is like tlie faith of a 
 Christian, it is like a poet's fancies, it is like a philosopher's 
 conjectures, plunging at first into uncertainty, but afterwards 
 flowing on in a stream of knowledge through the world. For 
 so does this fall, when it reaches the earth in a mere shower 
 of mist, gather itself up again in a refreshing, gurgling stream, 
 for the meadows and the plains to drink of. It may make 
 you think of Wordsworth's Helvetian Maid, the blithe paragon 
 of Alpine grace : — 
 
 " Her beauty dazzles the thick wood ; 
 Her courage animates the flood ; 
 Her step the elastic green sward meets, 
 Returning unreluctant sweets, 
 The mountains, as ye heard, rejoice 
 Aloud, saluted by her voice." 
 
 Or of the " sweet Highland Girl," with her " very shower of 
 beauty;" or of a Peri from Paradise weeping ; or of a saint 
 into Paradise entering," having shot the gulf of death;" or of 
 the feet upon the mountains of them that bring the news of 
 gladness : 
 
 " Or of some bird or star, 
 
 Fluttering in woods, or lifted far." 
 
 When the poet Wordsworth approached this celebrated cas- 
 cade, he seems to have been assailed with a young troop of tat- 
 tered mendicants, singing in a sort of Alpine whoop of wel- 
 come, in notes shrill and wild like those intertwined by some 
 caverned witch chaunting a love-spell. His mind was so taken 
 up, and his thoughts enthralled by this musical tribe haunting 
 the place with regret and useless pity, that his Muse left hira 
 with but just one line for 
 
 " This bold, this pure, this sky-born Waterfall." 
 
 The traveller should see it with its rainbows, and may, if ho 
 
 '!§>» 
 
 k 
 
 !^^^>vvl
 
 choose, read Ilenry Yauglian's lines before it, which may set 
 forth an image of the arches both of light and Avater. 
 
 " When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair; 
 Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air ; 
 llain gently spreads his honey-drops, and pours 
 Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers. 
 Bright pledge of peace and sunshine ! the siu'e tie 
 Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye ! 
 When I behold thee, though my light bo dim, 
 Distant and low, I can in ihine see Ilim, 
 Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne, 
 And minds the covenant betwixt All and One.' 
 
 There are some thirty cascades like this pouring over the 
 ■■feliA cliffs in this remarkable valley, hanging like long tassels or 
 skeins of silver thread adown the perpendicular face of the 
 crags, and seeming to dangle from the clouds when the mist is 
 suspended over the valley. Some of them spring directly from 
 the icy glaciers, but others come from streams, which in the 
 course of the summer are quite dried up. The name of the 
 valley, Lauterbrunnen, is literally nothing hut fountains, derived 
 from the multitude of little streams which, after careering for 
 some time out of sight on the higher mountain summits, spring 
 over the vast abrupt wall of this deep ravine, and reach the 
 bottom in so many rainboAV showers of spray. Between these 
 prodigious rock-barriers the vale is sunk so deep that the sun 
 in the winter does not get down into it before twelve o'clock, 
 and then speedily disappears. In the summer he stays some 
 hours earlier and longer. The inhabitants of the village are 
 about 1350, in houses sprinkled up and down along the borders 
 of the torrent, that swiftly courses through the bottom of tho 
 valley, about 1500 feet above the level of the sea. 
 
 fi 
 
 CHAPTER XLI, 
 
 THE WEXGERX ALP AND MORNING LANDSCAPE AND MUSIC. 
 
 raterfall, ar
 
 -«llf 
 
 si. 
 
 pecf atlon, but the scene ou setting out is so intlescribaLly beau- 
 tiful, that even if dark clouds should settle on all the rest of 
 the day, and shut out the glorious Jungfrau from our view, it 
 would have been well worth coming thus far to soe only the 
 beginning of the glory. As we wind our way up the steep side 
 of the mountain, the mists are slowly and gracefully rising from 
 the depths of the valley along the face of the outjutting crags. 
 It seems as if the genius of nature were drawing a white soft 
 vail around her bosom. 
 
 But now as we rise still farther, the sun, pouring his fiery 
 rays against the opposite mountain, makes it seem like a smok- 
 ino- fire beo-irt with clouds. You think of Mount Sinai all in 
 a blaze with the glory of the steps of Deity. The very rocks 
 are burning and the green forests also. Then there are the 
 Avhite glittering masses of the Breithorn and the Mittachshorn in 
 the distance, and a cascade shooting directly out from the gla- 
 cier. Upwards the mists are still curling and hanging to the 
 mountains, while below there are the clumps of trees in the sun- 
 light, the deep exquisite green of spots of unvailed meadow, 
 the winding stream, now hid and now revealed, the gray mist 
 sleeping on the tender grass, the chalets shining, the broohs 
 murmuring, the birds singing, the sky above and the earth 
 beneath, in this " incense breathing morn" uniting in a uni- 
 versal harmony of beauty and melody of praise. 
 
 " In such a season of calm weather, 
 
 Though inland far we bo, 
 Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
 
 Which brought us hither ; 
 
 Can in a moment travel thither, — 
 And see the children sport upon the shore, 
 And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore !" 
 
 And in such a season, on such a height as this, in such a 
 morning, away from home, as well as in the woodbine walk at 
 eve, that " dear tranquil time when the sweet sense of home is 
 sweetest," may not the sensitive mind experience the feeling 
 spoken of by John Foster as the sentiment of intent and de- 
 vout observers of the material world, " that there is through 
 all nature some mysterious element like soul, which comes, 
 
 l^
 
 1 
 
 with a t!cep significance, to mingle itself with their own con- 
 scious heing?" May not such ohservers find in nature *' a 
 scene marked all over with mystical figures, the prints and 
 traces, as it were, of the frequentation and agency of superior 
 spirits ? They find it sometimes concentrating their faculties 
 to curious and minute inspection, sometimes dilating them to 
 the expansion of vast and magnificent forms ; sometimes be- 
 guiling them out of all precise recognition of material realities, 
 Avhether small or great, into visionary musings, and habitually 
 and in all ways conveying into the mind trains and masses of 
 ideas of an order not to be acquired in the schools, and exert- 
 Ino- a mo>difying and assimilating influence on the whole men- 
 tal economy." A clear intellectual illustration of all this, 
 Foster v,-ell remarks, would be the true Philosophy of Nature. 
 A philosophy like this is yet but little known and less ac- 
 knowledged. It cannot but be truth, and truth which finds 
 utterance in the highest strains of poetic inspiration, in a quiet, 
 meditative mind like Cowper's, quiet, but not visionary, religi- 
 ous, not vaguely and mystically sentimental, that 
 
 " One Spirit Ills 
 Who wore the platted crown ^Tith bleeding brows 
 
 Rules universal nature. 
 
 The soul that sees Him, or receives, sublimed, 
 
 New faculties, or loarns at least to employ 
 
 More worthily the powers she owned before ; 
 
 Discerns in all things, what with stupid gazo 
 
 Of ignorance, till then she overlooked. 
 
 A ray of heavenly light gilding all forms 
 
 Terrcstrial in the vast and the minute ; 
 
 The unambiguous footsteps of the God 
 
 Who gives its lustre to an insect's "wing. 
 
 And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds I" 
 
 And how can an immortal being in God's world avoid ac- 
 knowledging and feeling this? Can the soul of man be the 
 only thing that does not praise God in such a scene ? Alas, 
 it may, if divine grace be not there. 27*6 landscape has its 
 praise, but not its Author. Nay, you may sometimes hear the 
 most tremendous oaths of admiration, where God's sacred name 
 drops from the lips in blistering impiety, while meek uncon- 
 scious nature, all undisturbed and quiet, singeth her matin
 
 -■s*^ 
 
 JUNGFRAU ALP. 
 
 233 
 
 k 
 
 
 -ii 
 
 hymn of gratitude and love. But again, you may see tlie eye 
 of the gazer suiiused with tears of ecstacy, and if you could 
 look into the heart, you would see the whole heing ascending 
 with the choral harmony of nature, in a worship still more 
 sacred and holy than her own, God be praised for the gift of 
 his Spirit ! What insensible, stupid, impious stones we should 
 be without divine grace. But let us go on ; we are not tho 
 only mixture of good and evil that hath flitted across this 
 mountain. 
 
 We pass now the Wengern village, a few very neat chalets 
 hanging to the mountain amidst plenty of verdure. Then wo 
 sweep round the circular base of a craggy perpendicular moun- 
 tain-ridge, which encloses us on one side, while the deep valley 
 of Lauterbrunnen is hid out of sight on the other. Here we 
 stop to listen to the Alpine Horn, with its clear and beautiful 
 echoes. It is nothing but a straight wooden trumpet, about 
 six feet long, requiring no small quantity of breath to give it 
 utterance. The Old Man of the Mountains, that old musician, 
 coeval with the first noise in creation, takes up the melody with 
 his mighty reverberating concave wall of granite, and sends it 
 back with a prolonged, undulating, ringing, clear, distinct 
 tone, the effect of which is indescribably charming. Our lad 
 of the horn has also a little cannon, which he fires off at the 
 instance of the traveller, and the mountain sends it back with 
 a thousand thunders, that roll in grand bursts of sound from 
 the distant crags, and again, from still more distant ridges, 
 reverberate magnificently. 
 
 " The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ;• 
 I hear the echoes through the mountains throng I'' 
 
 And now we pass on, and enter a silent sea of pines, how 
 beautiful! silent, still, solemn, religious; dark against the en- 
 ormous snowy masses and peaks before us. How near their 
 glittering glaciers seem upon us ! How clear the atmosphere! 
 How our voices ring out upon it, and the very hum of the in- 
 sects in the air is distinctly sonorous. We have now ascended 
 to such a height that we can look across the vales and moun- 
 tains, down into Unterseen and Intcrlachen. And now before 
 
 V
 
 us rises the Jungfrau Al^), liow sublimely! But at tliis mo- 
 ment of the view the Silberhorii is far more lovely with its 
 fields of dazzling suow, than the Jungfrau, which here presents 
 a savage perpendicular steep, a wall of rock, scarred and seam- 
 ed indeed, but so steep that the snow and ice cannot cling to 
 its jagged points. Higher up commence the tremendous gla- 
 ciers, presenting a chaos of enormous ravines of snow and ice, 
 just ready to topple down the ridge of the mountain. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE JUNGFRAU ALP AND ITS AVALANCHES. 
 
 When we come to the inn upon the ^yengern Alp we are 
 nearly 5500 feet above the level of the sea. We are directly 
 in face of the Jungfrau upon whose masses of perpetual snow 
 we have been gazing with so much interest. They seem close 
 to us, so great is the deception in clear air, but a deep, vast 
 ravine (I know not but a league across from where we are) sep- 
 arates the Wengern Alp from tlie Jungfrau, which rises in an 
 abrupt sheer precipice, of many thousand feet, somewhat bro- 
 ken into terraces, down which the Avalanches, from the higher 
 beds of untrodden everlasting snow, plunge thundering into the 
 uninhabitable abyss. Perhaps there is not another mountain 
 so high in all Switzerland, which you can look at so near and 
 so fall in the face. Out of this ravine the Jungfrau rises 
 eleven thousand feet, down Avhich vast height the Avalanches 
 sometimes sweep with their incalculable masses of ice from the 
 very topmost summit. 
 
 The idea of a mass of ice so gigantic that it might overwhelm 
 whole hamlets, or sweep away a forest in its course, being shot 
 down, with only one or two interruptions, a distance of eleven 
 thousand feet, is astounding. But it is those very interruptions 
 that go to produce the overpowering sublimity of the scene. 
 Were there no concussion intervening between the loosening of 
 the mountain ridge of ice and snow, and its fall into the valley, 
 if it shot sheer off into the air, and came down in one solid
 
 JaNGFRAU AVALANCHEg. 
 
 mass unbroken, it would be as if a mountain bad fallen at noon- 
 day out of heaven. And this would certainly be sublime in th-e 
 highest degree, but it would not have the awful slowness and 
 deep prolonged roar of the Jungfrau avalanche in mid air, nor 
 the repetition of sublimity with each interval of thousands of 
 feet, in which it strikes and thunders, 
 
 I think that without any exception it was the grandest sight 
 I ever beheld, not even the cataract of Niagara having impres- 
 sed me with such thrilling sublimity. Ordinarily, in a sunny 
 day at noon, the avalanches are falling on the Jungfrau about 
 every ten minutes, with the roar of thunder, but they are much 
 more seldom visible, and sometimes the traveller crosses the 
 Wengern Alps without witnessing them at all. But we were 
 so very highly favoured as to see two of the grandest avalanches 
 possible in the course of about an hour, between twelve o'clock 
 and two. One cannot command any language to convey an 
 adequate idea of their magnificence. 
 
 You are standing far below, gazing up to where the great 
 disc of the glittering Alp cuts the heavens, and drinking in 
 the influence of the silent scene around. Suddenly an enor- 
 mous mass of snow and ice, in itself a mountain, seems to move; 
 it breaks from the toppling outmost mountain ridge of snow, 
 where it is hundreds of feet in depth, and in its first fall of per- 
 haps two thousand feet is broken into millions of fragments. 
 As you first see the flash of distant artillery by night, then hear 
 the roar, so here you may see the white flashing mass majesti- 
 cally bowing, then hear the astounding din. A cloud of dusty, 
 misty, dry snow rises into the air from the concussion, form- 
 ing a white volume of fleecy smoke, or misty light, from the 
 bosom of which thunders forth the icy torrent in its second pro- 
 digious fall over the rocky battlements. The eye follows it 
 delighted, as it ploughs through the path which preceding ava- 
 lanches have worn, till it coincs to the brink of a vast ridge of 
 bare rock, perhaps more than two thousand feet perpendicular. 
 Then pours the whole cataract over the gulf, with a still louder 
 roar of echoing thunder, to which nothing but the noise of Nia- 
 gara in its sublimity is comparable. 
 
 Nevertheless, you may thiuk of the tramp of an army of elc- 
 
 m
 
 /^ 
 
 •* 
 
 ' ^■g^ .i i^ -^^ 4. 
 
 236 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 pliants, of tlio roar of uiultitudinous cavalry marching to battle, 
 of the whirlwiud tread of ten thousand bisons sweeping across 
 the prairie, of the tempest surf of ocean beating and shaking 
 the continent, of the sound of torrent floods or of a numerous host, 
 or of the voice of the Trumpet on Sinai, exceeding loud, and 
 waxing louder and louder, so that all the people in the camp 
 trembled, or of the rolling orbs of that fierce Chariot described 
 by Milton, 
 
 " Under whose burning wheels. 
 The steadfast cmpvrcan shook throughout." 
 
 It is with such a mighty shaking tramp that the avalanche 
 tliundo'S down. 
 
 Another fall of still greater depth ensues, over a second simi- 
 lar castellated ridge or reef in the face of the mountain, with 
 an awful, majestic slowness, and a tremendous crash in its con- 
 cussion, awakening again the reverberating peals of thunder. 
 Then the torrent roars on to another smaller fall, tiU at length 
 it reaches a mighty groove of snow and ice, like the slide down 
 the Filatus, of which Playfair has given so powerfully graphic 
 a description. Here its progress is slower, and last of all you 
 listen to the roar of the falling fragments, as they drop, out of 
 sight, with a dead Aveight into the botton of the gulf, to rest 
 there for ever. 
 
 Now figure to yourself a cataract like that of Niagara (for I 
 should judge the volume of one of these avalanches to be pro- 
 bably every way superior in bulk to the whole of the Horse- 
 shoe fall), poured in foaming grandeur, not merely over one 
 great precipice of 200 feet, but over the successive ridgy preci- 
 pices of two or three thousand, in the face of a mountain eleven 
 thousand feet high, and tumbling, crashing, thundering down, 
 with a continuous din of far greater sublimity than the sound 
 of the grandest cataract. Placed on the slope of the Wengern 
 Alp, right opposite the whole visible side of the Jungfrau, we 
 have enjoyed two of these mighty spectacles, at about half an 
 hour's interval between them. The first was the most sublime, 
 the second the most beautiful. The roar of the falling mass 
 begins to be heard the moment it is loosened from the moun-
 
 ^ 
 
 AVALASCHE TDUI^DER, 
 
 tain; it pours on with the sound of a vast body of rushing 
 ■water; then comes the first great concussion, a booming crash 
 of thunders, breaking on the still air of mid heaven; your breath 
 is suspended, as you listen and look ; the mighty glittering masa 
 shoots headlong over the main precipice, and the fall is so great, 
 that it produces to the eye that impression of dread majestic 
 slowness, of which I have spoken, though it is doubtless more 
 rapid than Niagara. But if you should see the cataract of 
 Niagara itself coming down five thousand feet above you in 
 the air, there would be the same impression. The image re- 
 mains in the mind, and can never fade from it ; it is as if you 
 had seen an alabaster cataract from heaven. 
 
 The sound is far more sublime than that of Niagara, because 
 of the preceding stillness in those awful Alpine solitudes. In 
 the midst of such silence and solemnity, from out the bosom of ^l 
 those glorious glittering forms of nature, comes that rushing, 
 crashing thunder-burst of sound ! If it were not that your 
 soul, through the eye, is as filled and fixed with the sublimity 
 of the vision, as through the sense of hearing Avith that of the 
 audible report, methinks you would wish to bury your face in 
 your hands, and fall prostrate, as at the voice of the Eternal! 
 But it is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the com- 
 bined impression made upon the soul by these rushing masses 
 and rolling thunders. When you see the smaller avalanch- 
 es, they are of the very extreme of beauty, like jets of white 
 powder, or heavy white mist or smoke, poured from crag to 
 crag, like as if the Staubach itself were shot from the top of the 
 Jungfrau. Travellers do more frequently see only smaller cat- 
 aracts, in which the beautiful predominates over the sublime ; 
 and at the inn they told us it was very rare to witness so mighty 
 an avalanche as that of which we had enjoyed the spectacle. 
 Lord Byron must have seen something like it when he and 
 Ilobhousc were on the mountain together. His powerful de- 
 scriptions in Manfred could have been drawn from nothing but 
 the reality. 
 
 " Yu toppliiig crags of ice, 
 Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down, 
 In mountainous overwhelming, come and crush mc \ 
 
 ^f^^?:x^nr^^:
 
 ^ 
 
 WANDEniXGS OF A I'lLORnr. 
 
 I hcnr ye momently, above, beneath, 
 Crush with a frequent conflict : but yc pass, 
 And only fall on things that still would live ; 
 On the young flourishing forest, or the hut 
 And hamlet of the harmlesa villager. 
 The mists boil up around the glaciers ; clouds 
 Rise curling far beneath nie, white and sulphury, 
 Like foam from the arosed ocean of deep hell." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIIL 
 
 11 ORTAU- AVALANCHES. — TALLET AND GLACIERS OP 
 GRINDLEWALD. 
 
 -«f! [ 
 
 Now must we leave this scene, rcfreslicd both in body and spi- 
 rit, and travel higher, still higher, to the summit of the pass. 
 The Jungfrau with her diadem of Virgin snow is still before 
 us, singing her hymns of thunder, and the sharp enormous 
 mass of the Eigher shoots out almost in front. The avalan- 
 ches are still falling at short intervals, but chieflj on the other 
 side of the mountain, produced by the echoes of guns, fired 
 from the Wengcrn side. This is the method resorted to for 
 bringing down the hanging masses of snow, by the concussion 
 of the air, when the avalanches do not occur voluntarily in sight 
 of travellers, in order, if possible that they may not be obliged 
 to pass the mountain without Avitncssing this greatest of Al- 
 pine sublimities. And even these mortar-avalanches are well 
 worth seeing. But they cannot be so sublime as those Avhich 
 Nature produces of her own proper motion. Besides, it is quite 
 intolerable to find everything for sale; to be buying a look at 
 an avalanche, just like some popular wonder, where the keeper 
 stands with tlie string of the curtain in his hand, ready to dis- 
 close the mysteries so soon as you have deposited your shilling. 
 So you get" an avalanche v/ith a sixpence worth of powder, as 
 if you had gone to visit the Zoological Gardens, or Dr. Koch's 
 Hydrargos. Really one would rather wait upon the mountain 
 for days, and talk alone with Nature, permitting her to indulge 
 her own fancies. 
 
 A
 
 "^ j 
 
 XlEVf OF GRINDLEWALD. 
 
 On the highest part of the pass we found a vender of straw- 
 berries, cakes, and cream, with a stout little cannon and plenty 
 of ammunition. For a dishi of strawberries he charged only a 
 single batZf or three cents., and half this sum for firing his can- 
 non! Probably it was because most of our party were Ger- 
 mans; but whatever men may say of Swiss prices, there was 
 no extortion here, neither at the Hotel of the Mountain; and 
 at either place they would be justified in charging quite inor- 
 dinately. Here a man may shoot avalanches, as he would bring 
 down pigeons on the wing, but he cannot always bag his game. 
 He hears the swift crashing mass, but sees nothing. The vir- 
 tue of our strawberry-lad's cannon was thus tested, and each 
 time the report was followed, after a moment or two of silence, 
 by two rushing ice-falls, but apparently on the other side of the 
 mountain, with a sound as of buried thunder. 
 
 The view from the summit of the pass towards Grindlewald 
 is very magnificent, for you see the whole green and lovely val- 
 ley, amidst its grand surrounding mountains, and can even 
 distinguish afar off the inn on the pass of the Grand Schei- 
 deck. The snowy peaks of the Jungfrau, 13,718 feet above 
 the level of the sea, the Monch, ] 3,598 feet, and the Giant 
 Eigher, 13,070 feet, are in full sight; also, as you proceed, 
 the Wetterhorn, or Peak of Tempests, the Shreckhorn, or 
 Peak of Terror, and the Finster-Aarhorn, or Peak of Dark- 
 ness, come into the vision, the latter, with its sharp sky point- 
 ed pyramid, being the loftiest of the Oberland group. Well 
 named are these mighty peaks, for Terror, Storm, and Dark- 
 ness do here hold theh- sway through no small part of the year, 
 though, on such a bright midsummer's day as we are passing, 
 with what glittering varied, successive splendours do they crown 
 the view ! You can scarcely take your eye from them, so ex- 
 citing and transcendently beautiful is the scene, even to watch 
 the difficult rough path by which you are travelling. There 
 are witliin sight of it the traces of the path of an enormous 
 avalanche, which swept down whole woods, as the sweep of a 
 mower's scythe cuts clean the grass, and leaves the dry stubble. 
 The glacier of Grindlewald is seen at the bottom of the Val- 
 ley, having pushed itself out through a mountain gorge from
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIAf. 
 
 k 
 
 the everlasting Emjjire of Winter, down amidst the habitations 
 of man, hy tlie green pastures and gardens and sunny brooks 
 of summer. A little more, and it might hang its icy dripping 
 caverns over the heads of the haymakers, though now you en- 
 ter those caverns at a point much below the sloping meadows, 
 where the mowers are busy with their scythes. The body of 
 the glacier, that at this point extends its advanced post into 
 the green valley, winds, it is said, among the Alps of the Ober- 
 land to the immense extent of 115 square miles. You visit 
 this Lower Glacier of Gi'indlewald on your way down from the 
 Wengcrn Alp, and you find a scene which in some respects is 
 the ilont-Anvert of Chamouny over again. The cavern, from 
 which issues one of the two rivers that form the Lutschinen, 
 seems not so large as tliat of the Arveiron in Chamouny, 
 although the entrance to it is said to form a magnificent arch 
 seventy feet high. The colour of the ice is exquisitely clear, 
 sparkling, and beautiful, whereas at the foot of the Chamouny 
 glacier it is gray and dingy. The mountains that rise around 
 this glacier of Grindlewald, the exquisite green of the vallc}'. 
 the exciting contrast in the landscapes, the soft pastures and 
 black forests of fir skirting and fringing such oceans of frost, 
 and craggy ridges and peaks of ice and snow, present a strange 
 wild, lovely scene to the imagination, both grand and lovely, 
 with such startling alternations as you meet nowhere else but in 
 dreams. 
 
 From my room in the evening at the inn I could see, or 
 seemed in the distance to see, the whole of this glacier. An 
 excursion upon it would have detained me a day of this bright 
 weather (and who could tell how soon it might change, leaving 
 me imprisoned among the mountains?), but the visit wouW 
 have been almost as interesting as the exploring of the glaciers 
 of Mont-Anvert. A sea of ice and snow spreads out before us, 
 from which rises in awful sublimity the vast peak of the Shreck- 
 horn, and here you may enter the very deepest recesses of win- 
 ter, shut out from every sign of life and verdure. How sub- 
 lime the scenery of this Valley! for every successive generation 
 tlic same impressive grandeur. While spring, summer^ autumn,
 
 k 
 
 y 
 
 GUISDLEWALD VILLAGE. 
 
 winter, have danced their changing life of glory and gloom to- 
 gether, from creation's dawn, tempest and storm have made 
 these peaks their habitation, and will do so while the world 
 lasts. What a day of sublime and beautiful visions has this 
 been! It is almost too much of glory to be crowded into one 
 such short interval. One scarcely notes the fatigue of the 
 passage, in the constant excitement of mind produced by such 
 glorious forms of nature. 
 
 With Avhat undying beauty does the moon pour her soft light 
 into the deep snowy recesses of the glacier, or rather of the 
 vast abyss, round which the sides of mountains sheeted witk 
 eternal ice form perpendicular barriers, where avalanches shoot 
 down to bury themselves as in an ocean. The scene is still 
 and solemn. The glacier is so near, that the dwelling-houses 
 seem almost to touch it. The moon is now shootiuo- her lio^ht 
 up from behind the vast mountain of the Wetterhorn, streaming 
 across the Mettenberg, and gilding the snowy outlines of the 
 scenery, till they look like the edges of the silvery clouds. Dan- 
 te has some lines in his celestial Paradise that might well be 
 descriptive of this scene. The cornice of snow running round 
 the inner walls of the mountains and the glaciers looks like 
 the cornices of Egptian Temples. 
 
 The guides at Grindlewald seemed to enjoy themselves after 
 the day's various excursions, carrying their merriment deep 
 into the night. From all quarters travellers are collected in 
 the village to scatter again across the mountain passes in the 
 moruiua;, some back to Interlachen, some over the Wenofern 
 Alp to Lauterbrunnen, some for the glaciers, some across the 
 Grand Scheideck. The little valley is a central mirror both 
 of the grandeur and beauty of Swiss scenery. The village is 
 in clusters of picturesque cottages, scattered along the grassy 
 upland slopes, and winding down to the bottom of the vale. 
 The people must subsist principally by the pasturage of their 
 cattle, and the products of the dairy, with some chamois hunt- 
 ing; for Spring, Summer, and Autumn are all condensed into 
 five short months, leaving the rest of the year to undisputed 
 Winter, and mingling the instability of all seasons into one. 
 12 (I
 
 n'ANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 The thick forcst-hke vertlure of the Valley of Lauterbrunncu 
 is missing here, though the two vales are about the same height 
 above the sea. Lauterbrunnen is a deep, entire, colossal, per- 
 pendicular cleft iu the mountains, an oblong shaft as in a mine; 
 Grindlewald is a more gradual basin between gigantic ascend- 
 ing peaks and passes. In cither Valley how appropriate are 
 those texts from Scripture, which sometimes run round the 
 wooden galleries of the cottages. Inscribed when the dwell- 
 ings were erected, they are as an heir-loom of piety, as the 
 voice of an ancestral patriarch still speaking. "By the helji 
 of God, in whom is my trust,'' says one of these devout me- 
 msntos, "I have erected this for my habitation, and commend 
 the same to his gracious protection, 1781." Surely it is a good 
 and pleasant custom. " Because thou hast made the Most High 
 thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any 
 plague come nigh thy dwelling." 
 
 In the morning, Avhen ascending from the Valley, peak after 
 peak comes into view, with the bright sun successively strik- 
 ing them. At length you see at once the two glaciers, with the 
 peaks of the Schreckhorn, the Eigher, the Wetterhorn, the Met- 
 tenberg, and far across the Wengern Alp, the range of snowy 
 summits beyond Lauterbrunnen. The sunrise is beautifully 
 reported from point to point, with the rays of light gilding and 
 silvering the edges and crags of the mountain. 
 
 Almost every grand scene in Switzerland has its story or 
 legend of sad things or supernatural connected with it. The 
 accidents and escapes of ages are chronicled in tradition, as 
 the battles of the mountain heroes are in history. It is said 
 that one of the former innkeepers at Grindlewald, Christopher 
 Bohren, was once on his way across the glacier between the 
 Wetterhorn and the Mettenberg, when the ice broke beneath 
 him, and he was plunged down a cavity of some sixty-four feet. 
 He was not killed by the fall, but his arm was broken. There 
 was no possibility by an ascent, and this gulf seemed to enclose 
 him for the resurrection, in a sepulchre of ice, himself embalm- 
 ed while living, by the Magician Frost, to sit there as a star- 
 ing ice-mummy, forever. Nevertheless, there was a sound of 
 dripping and gurgling water, and on groping round he discover- 
 
 r^'^
 
 JUNGFUAD AVALANCHES. 
 
 243 
 
 ed a channel worn in the ice, into which he could just creep 
 and advance painfully, if it mitjht possibly issue to the day. 
 There was a hope, and it kept the fingers of the frost from his 
 heart, and animated him to drag his bruised and stiffened limbs 
 along the dripping ice-fissure, thinking of his wife and child- 
 ren. What a terrible situation ! Would he ever again see the 
 blue sky, and the green grass, and the curling smoke from the 
 chalets of the village ? Would he hear the voices of friends 
 searching for him ! Could he live till they should miss him ? 
 Would he ever again see the face of a human being ? Thus 
 groping in the heart of the glacier, suddenly he came to the 
 outlet of the torrent which had worn for him the channel, and 
 following its plainer and more open course, he was extricated 
 and saved ! 
 
 Not longer ago than 1821, M. Mouron, a clergyman from 
 Vevay, lost his life in visiting the lower glacier. He was not 
 without a guide, but not being tied to him, fell into one of the 
 yawning crevices in the ice, a gulf of nearly 700 feet in depth, 
 jind must have been killed instantly. Twelve days afterward 
 the body of the unfortunate traveller was found and brought up 
 to the day by tying a guide to a rope, and letting him down 
 into the abyss with a lantern. After several attempts of this 
 nature, the persevering hunter, though exhausted by the want 
 of air, succeeded in attaching the corpse to his own body. A 
 watch and purse found upcn it redeemed the guide from the 
 murderous suspicions which had rested upon him, and the dead 
 traveller was buried in the parish church. There is great 
 danger in walking upon or along the sharp edges of the almost 
 fathomless gulfs in these glaciers. You may think yourself 
 very careful, but then you are to remember also the inevitable 
 fatal consequences of a single slip, or of one false step, or even 
 of an uncertain movement. There ai-e sometimes similar situ- 
 ations in life, where a man's path, be it wrong or right, leads 
 across great dangers, and one false or presumptuous step is 
 the misery of a lifetime. A decision, whicli it takes but an 
 instant to make, it may cost years to recover from. A man is 
 a fool who ventures amidst such hazards, except at the call of 
 truth and duty. 
 
 yH^
 
 k^^^^^^JL 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 PASS OF THE SCIIEIDECK TO MEYRINUEN. 
 
 1 FIND that I have recorded the scenes of this day in my jour- 
 nal, as having been so varied and so beautiful as to be almost 
 faticruinc:. The feel in 2: of fatio-uc is Q-one ; I do not at all re- 
 member it ; but the sense of beauty is eternal. We started 
 from Grindlewald early, and visit the Upper Glacier. There 
 is a little lake of water at its margin, a crystal cup as it were, 
 where the glacier, the mountains, and the heavens are reflected 
 with wonderful depth and beauty. An old man met us, who 
 acts as guide into the glacier, and who told us he had twenty- 
 four children, ten by his first wife, and fourteen by his second. 
 He was a droll old fellow, this ice guide, looking indeed im- 
 measurably old, but entering with a great deal of youthful 
 cheerfulness into the blithesome humour of the young travellers 
 about him. Under his guidance we entered a cavern in the 
 glacier, a deep crystal ravine, high enough to advance upright 
 without touching the pointed roof, winding quite a distance 
 into the body of the glacier, whose superincumbent mountain 
 masses will one day crush it. The ice-walls are of an exquisite 
 and almost perfectly transparent emerald or azure, smooth as 
 glass, and dripping with water cold as the ice itself. It was a 
 hazardous position for the traveller, for the roof of the cavei-u 
 of azure ice is sure to fall, and it might as well have fallen 
 while we were there as at any other time, but we entered and 
 came forth in safety. An entombment alive in such a sepul- 
 chre would have been far worse than a fall of ten thousand feet 
 among the icy precipices. 
 
 It is impossible to say what it is that gives to the ice of these 
 glaciers so beautiful a colour. It is this partly which makes 
 them so much more beautiful than those of Chamouny ; at the 
 same time that their peaks and minarets are so varied, their 
 depths so enormous, and the step from them into the depths of 
 an intense summer verdure so sudden and startling. They 
 are a forest of icebergs, that have marched down to bid defiance 
 to the forest of firs. From tlie height of the Grand Scheideck 
 
 \
 
 ^jH 
 
 t 
 
 the glacier is a most magnificent object, as also are the glitter- 
 ing mountain barriers, silent, stern, and awful, that enclose it. 
 How different your feelings when you are in the depths of the 
 Valley, with the mountains shutting you in and keeping watch 
 over you, looking down upon you with their grand and awful 
 countenances, and those which you experience when you ascend 
 so high as to command both them and your former position in 
 one view, when you rise to a point, whence you can look in 
 among them, count and compare their masses, and confront 
 their brightness from their foundations to their topmost sum- 
 mits. But you must have fine weather. Scarcely one feature 
 of all this glory is to be seen if you are travelling in the mist, 
 if the clouds are low, or the rain is pouring. 
 
 It is like the progress of the soul in the study of divine truth. 
 Your atmosphere must be clear, the sun shining. There are 
 days when clouds cover everything, days of rain, and days of 
 mist, and seasons of tremendous tempest. When you are in 
 the valley it does not make so much difference. There is a 
 portion of truth which is visible at all times, green grass, still 
 waters, quiet meadows, though you may not see a single moun- 
 tain summit. Down in such a quiet depth, the great myste- 
 rious truths of the system that surrounds you overshadow you 
 and shut you in. But if you would see their glory, there is 
 much labour of the soul needed ; you must toil upwards, you 
 must have bright weather in the soul, and by and by you gain 
 a point where you survey the mighty system; its glittering mas- 
 ses and ranges stretch off below, above, around you ; its sky- 
 pointing summits pierce the upper depths of heaven ; here you 
 must have faith, you must be somewhat with John in Patmos, 
 in the Spirit ; for if the mist is around you, you can see no- 
 thing, but if the sun is shining, what an infinitude of glory 
 opens to your view ! 
 
 While on the Grand Scheideck, we enjoyed the sight of a 
 most beautiful Avalanche ; it was the extreme of beauty, but 
 without the sublimity of those we had witnessed the day be- 
 fore. If this had been all that we had seen, we should have 
 deemed the descriptions sometimes given to have been altoge- 
 ther exaggerated. The traveller in Switzerland is unfortunate
 
 l^ 
 
 ^1 
 
 246 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A I'lLGKIM. 
 
 «* 
 
 who does not see a genuine avalanche on a grand scale. But 
 this was very beautiful; first a sudden jet from the mountain, 
 like a rocket of white smoke, then the fall of the whole mass 
 of ice and snow with a cloud rising from it, and a rush of small 
 thunder, like the roar of a waterfall. 
 
 From the Grand Scheideck down into the Valley of Hasli at 
 Meyringen, the journey is one of indescribable, and to a man 
 that knows nothing of Alpine scenery, inconceivable magnifi- 
 cence. It is true that the prospect before you, as you pass 
 down toAvards Rosenlaui, is not so remarkable for its grandeur, 
 as the scenes you have already passed through; but behind you 
 in the evening sun, the way is a perspective of lengthening- 
 glory, where the snowy mountains, seen through the forests of 
 firs, and overhanging them, floating, as it were, in a heaven of 
 golden light give to the 63^0 a vision of contrasts and splendours, 
 the like of which may possibly no where else be presented. 
 
 Such is sometimes the difference between experience and an- 
 ticipation. A man's early life is often so much pleasanter and 
 more prosperous than his late, that the retrospect looks full of 
 rich and mellow scenes, lovely remembrances in soft enchant- 
 ing colours, Avhilc the prospect is destitute of beauty, or some- 
 times is filled with foreboded tempests. Many a man in the 
 decline of life seems going down into gloom from a mountain- 
 top of glory, and all the light of his existence shines to him 
 from behind. But this cannot be the case with a Christian. 
 The brightest prospect is before him. That man is happy who 
 loves to dwell upon the future, upon what is in reserve for him. 
 That man is happy, who sees over the storms of his past life 
 a bow of promise, created by a setting sun that is to rise in 
 glory. A guilty man cannot love to dwell upon the past, un- 
 less he be a penitent man, a man of faith who sees in the past 
 the commencement and prophecy of a better future. The say- 
 ing of the ancient moralist was uttered without much knowledo^c 
 of its whole meaning : 
 
 " Hoc est vivere bis 
 Vita posse priore frui.'' 
 
 " 'Tis living twice, 
 
 To enjoy prist life.".
 
 GLACIER OF EOSBNLAUI. 
 
 For, who can enjoy his past life, unless the light of the Cross 
 be shining upon it ? No man can do it, Avithout some great 
 and dreadful delusion, for the only light of hope, or material of 
 goodness and blessedness in the Past, comes from the Cross of 
 Christ. But where that is shining, how it floods the moun- 
 tain passes of our existence with glory ! 
 
 w 
 
 ''8 ■ 
 
 y 
 
 -0 
 
 f. 
 
 F> 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 GLACIER OF ROSENLAUI AND THE FALLS OF THE REICHENBACH. 
 
 On your way down, you have the excursion to the glacier of 
 Rosenlaui, celebrated for the extreme beauty of its roseate and 
 azure colours. It lies in a mighty mountain gorge on our 
 right, far up between the great masses of the Wellborn and 
 the Angels' Peaks (Engelhorner), a most remarkable scene, 
 both in itself and its accessories, the ice-born picture, its fir- 
 clad base, and its gigantic craggy frame. A thundering tor- 
 rent comes roaring down an almost fathomless split in the 
 moimtain, where the jagged sides threaten each other like the 
 jaws of hell. Torrents from difterent directions meet fiercely 
 at the foot of the glacier, which is thrown over them as a moun- 
 tain of ice, with vast ice blocks roofing the subterranean fissure, 
 with a mighty peak of rock towering above, and a mountain 
 of granite on the other side. You enter the bosom of the gla- 
 cier by steps cut for you by the guide, at the risk of tumbling 
 into the conflict of waters below. The surrounding forests of 
 fir, the cataracts, the ice-clifi"s shining, and the gray bare crags, 
 keeping watch like sentinels, together with the extreme pictur- 
 esqueness and beauty of the Valley opening out beneath, make 
 up a scene well worth the toil of climbing to it. 
 
 Now you take the way down from Rosenlaui to Mcyringen ; 
 looking behind you, it is still inexpressibly beautiful, more 
 beautiful than the vision of the vale. It is because of the com- 
 bination between the snow, the sun, and the black fir forest, 
 the firs against the snow, the snow against the sun, the air a 
 flood of glory. Through a wintUng vale of firs the great white 
 
 ^ ^^r^^'-^^^' \; ^^^ 
 
 A 
 
 ^
 
 ■^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 mountains flash upon you, now hidden and now revealed ; and 
 of all sights in Switzerland, that of the bright snow summits 
 seen through and amidst such masses of deep overshadowing 
 foliage, by which you may be buried in twilight at noon- day, 
 is the most picturesque and wildly beautiful. Between four 
 o'clock and sunset this Rosenlaui pass, in a bright day, is won- 
 derful. The white perfect cones and pyramids of some of the 
 summits alternate with the bare rocky needles and ridges of 
 others, all distinctly defined against the sky, with the light 
 fallinc: on them in a wild magic azure-tinted clearness. Here 
 is one section or quadrature of the picture as you look upwards 
 to the heights down which you have been so long descending; 
 far off, up in the heavens a vast curling ridge of snow cuts the 
 azure upper deep; nearer, the enormous gray peak of the Well- 
 horn shoots above it ; lower, towards the world, between two 
 great mountains, down rushes the magnificent glacier of Ro- 
 senlaui, till its glittering masses, which seem ready to take one 
 plunge out of heaven to earth, are lost to your eye behind the 
 green depths of the forest. 
 
 But if we stay looking at this scene, and still loitering and 
 looking behind us, we shall not get to Meyringen till night- 
 fall. So down we climb beside the roaring torrent, which is 
 impetuously plunging and foaming to take the leap of the Rei- 
 chenbach fall, not at all knowing what awaits, when suddenly 
 comes another of those swift, vast contrasts, those mighty 
 shiftings of scenery so unexpected and unthought of, as in a 
 dream. As if the world's walls had opened before you, and 
 you had just lighted with wings on a shelving precipice to look 
 forth, the Vale of Meyringen is disclosed far beneath, with its 
 village and meadows, church steeples and clumps of trees, and 
 the bright Alpbach cascade pouring over the crags on the other 
 side. From the point where you stand, the descent into the 
 Vale is nearly two thousand feet, rugged and precipitous, and 
 from nearly your present level the stream of the Reichenbach 
 takes its grand leap down the gorge at your left, making the 
 celebrated Reichenbach Falls, and afterwards, by a succession 
 of leaps not quite so grand, it races, foaming and thundering, 
 over precipice after precipice, through black, jagged, pictur- 
 esque tortuous ravines down into the valley to join the Aar.
 
 VOICES OF EVENING. 
 
 
 One would tliink the two rivers would be glad to nave a mo- 
 ment's peace, and 2)leasant, gurgling communion, after such a 
 furious daring, cataractical course of foam and thunder. Each 
 of them has come down out of ice-palaces as from the ala- 
 baster gates of heaven, and each has made, in its perillous 
 course, one of the grandest cataracts in all Switzerland. Now 
 they flow on as if nothing had happened, like generous minds 
 after some great action. Methinks they are saying one to ano- 
 ther, as their waters meet and mingle. How much plcasanter 
 it is to be gliding on so quietly between green banks and rich 
 meadows, than to be tumbling over the mountains, where we 
 seem to be of no use whatever, but for great parties of English 
 people to come and look at us through their eye-glasses. But 
 you are mistaken, gentle streams. Perhaps you have done 
 more good by the grand thoughts your "unceasing thunder 
 and eternal foam" have given rise to in your perillous career 
 among the mountains, than you will do in your path of ver- 
 dure all the way to the sea. It is not the sole use of streams 
 like yours to make the grasses and the flowers to grow, or to 
 enjoy yourselves among them. But we cannot wonder that 
 you do not wish to be always playing the cataract. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 TWILIGHT, EVENING, AND NIGHT IN SWITZERLAND. A SABBATH IN 
 
 MEYRINGEN. 
 
 The stillness of evening in Switzerland is accompanied with a 
 soft music from the thousand mountain torrents which roar 
 with such a shouting voice as at noon day, loosened by the 
 sun from the glaciers, and then subside into a more quiet, soul- 
 like melody. It is like the Avind, strong blowing on -^ilolian 
 harp with loud strains, and then sinking down into faint aerial 
 murmurs. So at evening, the streams being partially pent up 
 again in ice, the sound grows less in body, but more distinct in 
 tone, and more in unison with the sacred stillness of the hour. 
 It is like changing the stops in an organ. The eficct has been
 
 ■WANUKRIXGS OF A riLGIlIM. 
 
 noted both by plain prose travellers and imaginative poets, 
 and nothing can be more beautiful. The lulled evening hum of 
 the busy world, and the dim twilight of the air, and the gra- 
 dual stealing forth of the modest stars after the heat and glare 
 of day, are in harmony. xVs in Milton, 
 
 " At last a soft and solemn breathing sound 
 Rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes, 
 And stole upon the air." 
 
 For at such an hour the music of nature, passing into solemn 
 voices of the night, seems rather like the hushing strains from 
 invisible harps of celestial iutelligencies floating in the atmos- 
 phere, than like any music from material things. Some of the 
 finest lines ever composed by the poet Rogers ■svere called forth 
 by the perception of these stilly notes and almost imperceptible 
 harmonies of evening. I say almost imperceptible, because a 
 man busied with external things, or even engaged in social 
 talk, will scarcely notice them. The mind must be in somewhat 
 of a pensive mood, and watching M'itli the finer senses. A tra- 
 veller must be alone, or must say to his friend. Hush ! listen ! 
 
 " Oft at the silent, shadowy close of day, 
 
 When the hushed grove has sung its parting lay, 
 
 When pensive twilight, in her dusky car, 
 
 Comes slowly on to meet the evening star, 
 
 Above, below, aerial murmurs swell 
 
 From hanging wood, brown heath, and bushy dell ! 
 
 A thousand nameless rills, that shun the light. 
 
 Stealing soft nuisic on the ear of night. 
 
 So oft the finer movements of the soul, 
 
 That shun the sphere of pleasm-e's gay control, 
 
 In the still shades of calm seclusion rise. 
 
 And breathe their sweet seraphic harmonies 1" 
 
 Pleasures of Memory. 
 
 This is very beautiful. Do we not at such an hour, more 
 than any other, feel as if we were sojourning, in the striking 
 language of Foster, " on that frontier where the material and 
 the ideal worlds join and combine their elements " ? It is the 
 hour when, Isaac-hke, the solitary saint in the country, if not 
 in the city, 
 
 *' Walks forth to meditate at even-tide/'
 
 and tliinks upon a world that thinks not for herself. It is the 
 hour when, among the mountains or in the villages, the soul 
 seems sometimes to see far out beyond the verge of Time, seems 
 to feel the horizon of existence expanding, seems to be upon 
 the sea-side, and is impelled, as in the beautiful image of 
 Young, to 
 
 " Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore 
 Of that vast ocean she must sail so soon !" 
 
 Delightful it is, when Saturday evening comes, with such calm 
 and sacred voices and influences of nature, if the soul is in the 
 right mood, to hear the prelude wherewith it seems as if nature 
 herself would put man in harmony for the Sabbath. 
 
 " It is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; 
 
 The holy time is quiet as a Nun 
 
 Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
 
 Is sinking down in its tranquillity ; 
 
 Listen ! the mighty Ecing is awake, 
 
 And doth with his eternal motion make 
 
 A sound like thunder — everlastingly!" — Wordsworth. 
 
 There is the feeling, if not the audible sense, of a similar sound 
 among the mountains, though inland far we be, the sound as 
 of waters rolling on the shore of another world, whether we 
 call it, with Wordsworth, the sound of that Immortal Sea that 
 brought us hither, or content ourselves with saying in plain 
 prose that it is the ever-brooding sense of our immortality, 
 which no immortal accountable being can ever shake from his 
 constitution. 
 
 And now as I have quoted so many poets, drawn by the 
 analogy of that hour in human existence, which seems some- 
 times to have collected both religious and irreligious writers to- 
 gether in the same porch, before the inner Temple of Devo- 
 tion, under the same irresistible influences, I will add one ex- 
 tract from a great poet who has entered that Temple, and not 
 merely stood and sung without ; a poet of America, who has 
 written too little, and that little in too high a strain, to catch 
 the popular applause of his own countrymen. * 
 
 > Richard II. Dana. Ue might take a rank as high above all the Ame- 
 rican poets as Wordsworth has done among the modern poets of Great
 
 " listen, Man ! 
 A voice within us speaks that startling word, 
 JIan ! thou shalt never die I Celestial voices 
 n.vmu it unto our souls ; according harps 
 By angel fingers touched, when tlie mild stars 
 Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
 The song of our great immortality: 
 Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, 
 The tall dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas, 
 Join in this solemn, universal song. 
 — O listen, ye, our spirits ! drink it in 
 From all the air I 'lis in the gentle moonlight ; 
 'Tis floating midst Day's setting glories ; Night, 
 Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step. 
 Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our cars ; 
 Night and the Dawn, bright day and thoughtful Eve, 
 All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse, 
 As one vast mystic instrument, are touched 
 By an unseen living Hand, and conscious cords 
 Quiver with joy in this great Jubilee. 
 — The dying hear it ; and as sounds of earth 
 Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
 To mingle in this heavenly harmony I" 
 
 All my companions left me at Meyringen, and I had a quiet, 
 lonely Sabbath. It was a beautiful day for travelling, but 
 more lovely still for resting. Had it rained, a number of per- 
 sons would have kept Sabbath at Meyringen, but they would 
 not do it unless compelled by bad weather. Now God had 
 given us six days of bright elastic air, clear sun, and cloudless 
 skies to see him in his works ; should we grudge one day for 
 the study of his word, one day for prayer ? Should we travel 
 without God, and travel in spite of him ? What a dark mind 
 under so bright a heaven ! It is a sad and sinful example, 
 Avhich Protestant travellers do set in Switzerland, by not rest- 
 ing on the Sabbath-day. Prayer and provender never hindered 
 a journey. That is a good old proverb ; but it is safe to say 
 that a man who rides over the Sabbath, as well as through the 
 week, though he may give his horse provender, is starving and 
 hm-rying his soul. 
 
 Who resteth not one day in seven, 
 That soul shall never rest in heaven. 
 
 But there may be rest without worship, rest without prayer.
 
 \\ 
 
 SABDATfl AND PRAYER. 
 
 The Sabbath is more thoroughly observed by Romanists, m their 
 way, than it is by Protestants in theirs. Without prayer it is 
 the Avorst day, spiritually, in all the seven. Mc who gave it 
 must give the heart to keep it. How admirable is that sonnet 
 translated by "Wordsworth from Michael Angelo. Few original 
 pieces of Wordsworth contain so much real religion as theso 
 beautifully translated lines. 
 
 " The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed, 
 
 If Thou the Spirit give by which I pr.ay; 
 
 My unassisted heart is barren clay, 
 
 Which of its native self can nothing feed : 
 
 Of good and pious works Thou art the seed, 
 
 Which quickens only wliero Thou sayest it may; 
 
 Unless Thou show to us thine own true way 
 
 No man can find it : Father ! Thou must lead. 
 
 Do Thou then breatlie those thoughts into my mind. 
 
 By which such virtue may in me be bred 
 
 That in thy holy footsteps I may tread : 
 
 The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, 
 
 That I may have the power to sing of Thee, 
 
 And sound Thy praises everlastingly." 
 
 The nights of Saturday and Sabbath, it was a lovely siglit 
 to watch the rising moon upon the tops of the snow-shining 
 mountains, at such an immense height above us. We could 
 not see the moon, but could only see her pale light travelling 
 slowly down, as a white soft vail, along the distant peaks and 
 ridges, till at a late hour the silver radiance poured more ra- 
 pidly over the forests and filled the valley. 
 
 Saturday evening is distinguished in Scotland and New 
 England as a time of speciality for washing children ; in some 
 parts of Switzerland it is a chief time for courting. I do not 
 know that here among the Oberland Alps they have any such 
 custom of child-scrubbing ; in some parts it might be ques- 
 tioned if they have any ablutions at all ; but I am sure it is a 
 good habit. There was always a great moral lesson in it, be- 
 sides the blessedness of being perfectly clean once in a week. 
 It taught the children unconsciously that purity was becoming 
 to the Sabbath ; that there was a sort of instinctive feelino- in- 
 
 o 
 
 duced by it of the necessity of putting off the dark soils of the 
 world and the week, and of being within and without clean and
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 tidy for tlie sacred day. Well -n'oukl it be if children of a riper 
 growth could wash themselves of the cares of the world and 
 the deceitfulness of riches every Saturday evening, with as 
 much ease and ready obedience as they used to gather up their 
 playthings and submit to the bath of soap-suds ; if they could 
 put aside their ledgers, and see how their accounts stand for 
 eternity on Saturday night, they would have more leisure for 
 prayer on the Sabbath, and would not so often bring their 
 farms, their cattle, and their counting-houses into the house of 
 God. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 FROM MEYRINGEN TO THE PASS OF THE GRIMSEL. 
 
 Again in the week's opening, upon our winding, upward way, 
 from Mcyringen to the Pass of the Grimsel. What glorious 
 weather ! the element of Autumnal bright and coolness mingling 
 with the softness and warmth of the Summer. 
 
 " The silent night has passed into the prime 
 Of day — to thoughtful souls a solemn time. 
 For man has wakened from his nightly death 
 And shut up sense, to morning's life and breath. 
 He sees go out in heaven the stars that kept 
 Their glorious watch, while he, unconscious, slept ; — 
 Feels God was round him, while he knew it not, — 
 Is awed— then meets the world— and God's forgot. 
 So may I not forget thee, holy Power! 
 Be to me ever, as at this calm hour. 
 
 " The tree tops now are glittering in the sun : 
 Away ! 'Tis time my journey were begun!" — Dana. 
 
 Forth from the industrious, thriving village of Meyringen, we 
 pass through a picturesque, broken, Avooded vale, with many 
 romantic side openings, and then comes one of the loveliest sud- 
 den morning views of the distant blue and snowy mountains. 
 The clouds have ranged themselves in zigzag fleeces, in a bright 
 atmosphere of many shades of azure, deepening and softening 
 in the distance. It is a lovely day. Whatever travellers have 
 been resting on the Sabbath, that rest has lost them nothing 
 of this heavenly weather, and it ought to make the soul's at- 
 
 <™^ 
 

 
 ^^^ 
 
 _4^gSf .j.g=:^^ 4 
 
 
 UPPER HASLI. 
 
 2b7 
 
 will trace all the progress of this liis better life, witli grateful 
 acknowledgment to the Sacred Power, which has advanced him 
 to a decisiveness of religious habit, that seems to stamp Eter- 
 nity on his character. In the great majority of things, habit 
 is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt ; in religious char- 
 acter it is a grand felicity. The devout man exults in the in- 
 dications of his being fixed and irretrievable. He feels this con- 
 firmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God which will never 
 let him go. From this advanced state he looks with firmness 
 and joy on futurity, and says, I carry the eternal mark upon 
 me that I belong to God; I am free of the universe; and I am 
 ready to go to any world to which he shall please to transmit 
 me, certain that everywhere, in height or depth, he will acknow- 
 led o-e me for ever. ' ' 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 r 
 
 UPPER HASLI, AND THE RIVER AAR. FALLS OF THE AAR. 
 
 DESOLATION OF THE PASS. 
 
 Now we overlook the Vale of the Upper Hasli, with the Aar 
 winding through it. As I sit upon a rock by the way- side 
 and sketch these words, the air is full of melody, the birds are 
 singing thoughtfully, the large grasshoppers make a sonorous 
 merry chirping, and the bells of the goats are tinkling among 
 the herbage and trees on the sides of the mountains. The 
 dewy mist has not yet passed from the grass, but lies in a thin, 
 transparent haze over the meadow. Half way across lies the 
 deep shadow of a mighty mountain peak, over which the sun 
 is rising; but beyond this shade the chalets and clumps of trees 
 are glittering and smoking in the morning sunshine. The mist- 
 clouds are now lingering only within the ridges of the farthest 
 mountains, while the whole grand outline cuts the deep cloud- 
 less blue of heaven. The shafts of light shoot down into the 
 vale, past the angular peaks and defiles. No language can tell 
 the beauty of the view. I could sit here for hours, not desir- 
 ing to stir a step farther. The mind and heart are filled with 
 12 . , U
 
 I 
 
 ^^A^^ 
 ^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A rU.GUIil. 
 
 Ifc- 
 
 y 
 
 9 
 
 p- 
 
 Op- 
 
 its loveliness, and one cannot help blessing God for the great 
 and pin-e enjoyment of beholding it. If his grace may but 
 sanctify it, it ■\\'ill be like a sweet chapter of his word, and one 
 may go on his Avay, refreshed as Pilgrim was when he had 
 gazed over the distant Celestial glory from the Delectable 
 mountains. 
 
 See the smoke rising from the chalets before you ! The 
 sun- light is absolutely a flood of glory over this scene. Oh! 
 how lovely ! And still, as I sit and write, new shades of beau- 
 ty come into view. And now a few steps farther and what a 
 new and perfect picture ! The vale is almost a complete circle 
 hemmed in by mountains, with the Aar glittering across it like 
 a belt of liquid silver. And now we come down into the valley, 
 IIow rich the vegetation, impearled with the morning dew ! 
 And the little village of Hasli-Grund just at the base of the 
 mountain, with a cloud of smoky light upon it, how beautiful! 
 Does it not seem as if here could be happiness, if anywhere on 
 earth? But happiness is a thing within ; you cannot see it, 
 though you may guess at it, and say within yourself, One 
 miglit be happy here. It takes many things to constitute the 
 beautiful appearances that make a stranger stop and exclaim, 
 How lovely ! Whereas, it takes but a few things to make up 
 real happiness, if all within is right. A crust of bread, a pit- 
 cher of water, a thatched roof and love ; — there is happiness 
 for you, whether the day be rainy or sunny. It is the heart 
 that makes the hoyne, whether the eye of the stranger rest up- 
 on a potato-patch or a flower-garden. Heart makes home 
 precious, and it is the only thing that can. 
 
 From this point the mountain passes look, as winding up to 
 Paradise ; the broken masses of verdure around you are like 
 that "verdurous wall" round Eden, over which Satan made 
 such a pernicious leap. Pass out from the valley, and the 
 scene changes into one of savage wildncss and grandeur ; you 
 are wandering among rough, broken mountains, with fearful 
 craggy gorges, through which the Aar furiously rushes ; the 
 guide tells j'ou of perillous falls in tempests, and of deaths by 
 drowning and by the avalanche ; and, to confirm his words, ^Jir^ 
 ridge after ridge of barren, savage, scathed peaks present their fl 'i 
 
 _^ ^ ■^^^^'^ 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 
 
 V
 
 bare rock ribs down wbicb are perpetually tbundering the ava- 
 lancbes, as if to dispute with the torrent the right of roaring 
 through the valley. Piles of chaotic, rocky fragments, over 
 which the path clambers, bespeak the dates of desolating 
 storms. Now and then the eye and the mind are relieved by 
 the greenness of a forest of firs, but in general the pass is one 
 awful sweep of desolation and sterile sublimity. It is like the 
 soul of a sinner deserted of God, while the thundering torrent, 
 madly plunging, and never at rest, is like the voice of an awak- 
 ened angry conscience in such a soul. 
 
 Amidst this desolate and savage scenery, after travelling 
 some four or five hours, with a single interval of rest at Gut- 
 tanen, we come suddenly upon the celebrated falls of the Aar. 
 There is a point on which they are visible from the verge 
 of the gorge below, before arriving at Handek, but it is by no 
 ^. means so good as the points of view above. These points are 
 ^■jff very accessible, and from a bridge thrown directly over the 
 main fall, you may look down into the abyss where the cataract 
 crashes. A storm of wind and rain rushes furiously up from 
 the spray, but when the sun is shining it is Avell worth a tho- 
 rough wetting, to behold the exquisitely beautiful rainbows 
 which circle the fall beneath. A side torrent comes down from 
 another ravine on the right, meeting the Aar fall diagonally, 
 after a magnificent leap by itself over the precipice, so that the 
 cataract is two in one. The height of the fall being about 
 two hundred feet, when the Aar is swollen by rain this must 
 be by far the grandest and most beautiful cataract in Switzer- 
 land. The lonely sublimity of the scenery makes the astound- 
 ing din and fury of the waters doubly impressive. 
 ]j A short distance from the falls, a single chalet, which itself 
 
 is the inn, constitutes the whole village of Ilandck. From this 
 place up to the Grimsel, the pass encreases if possible in wild- 
 ness and desolation. Vegetation almost entirely ceases. The 
 fii-, that beautiful emblem of the true Christian, as it has been 
 called, satisfied with so little of earth, and rising straight to 
 heaven, can no more find a footing. Gloomy bare mountains, 
 silent and naked as death, frown over the pathway, and you 
 Bcem to be coming to the outermost limits of creation. 
 
 \%^
 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 The patli crosses a singular, vast, smooth lodge of root, 
 called the HoUenplattc, nearly a quarter of a mile in extent, 
 about two miles above the Falls, said to have been the bed of 
 an old glacier, and to have become worn smooth and polished 
 bv the attrition of the ice-mountain. The path is hewn along 
 the edge of the precipice. Your guide-book tells you that it is 
 "prudent to dismount here, and cross this bad bit of road on 
 foot, since the path runs by the edge of the precipice, and the 
 surface of the rock, though chiselled into grooves to secure a 
 footing for the horses, is very slippery. A single false step 
 mio-ht be fatal to man and beast, precipitating both into the 
 gulf below: and the slight wooden rail, which is swept aM'ay 
 almost every winter, would afford but little protection." A 
 pedestrian, having no care of a mule, is very independent of 
 all these dangers, though he would not wish to cross this place 
 in a tempest; but the guide-book might have added the account 
 of a traveller whose mule slipped and fell over the precipice, 
 while he himself was saved only by the presence of mind and 
 sudden firm grasp of his guide, dragging him backwards, even 
 while the mule plunged down the abyss. It is extreme fool- 
 hardiness to go against the directions or cautions of the guide, 
 in a place of danger. 
 
 By and by the path crosses the Aar and recrosses, and at 
 Icno-th leaves it on the left, to seek the Hospice of the Grimsel. 
 Vegetation seems annihilated ; but amidst all this frightful 
 sterility you behold upon a rocky shelf far up the side of an 
 almost perpendicular mountain, a man mowing ! My guide 
 shouted, and suddenly I heard an answer and an echo from 
 above, and lifting up my eyes, there stood the mower, sharpen- 
 ing his scythe on the brow of the precipice, looking down upon 
 us with great unconcern, though the little green spot he was 
 mowing seemed itself so steep that he was in the greatest peril 
 of sliding into the gulf below. What a strange life many of 
 these mountaineers do lead, an existence more dangerous and 
 precarious than that of the marmot and the chamois ! 
 
 " The Earth," said Coleridge, "with its scarred face, is the 
 symbol of the Past; the Air and Heaven of Futurity." What 
 a striking image is this, amidst such awful scenery as our path
 
 ■^w 
 
 W 
 
 ;'!/ 
 
 \J 
 
 \ 
 
 -^ 
 
 nOSPICE OF THE GRIMSEL 
 
 261 II 
 
 has led ud through from Hasli-Gruud ! These scarred craga 
 and mountains, riven as with thunderbolts, and desoLate of ver- 
 dure, are hieroglyphics of man's sins. The whole creation 
 groaneth and travaileth in bondage. But this bright air and 
 these blue heavens are still as glorious as when the morning 
 stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 
 Through the grace of Christ, though a man's Past be hke the 
 scarred black valley of the Grimsel, his Futurity may be like 
 the Air of Heaven in its purity and radiancy of glory. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 HOSPICE OF THE GRIMSEL. — GLACIERS OF THE AAR. 
 
 The Hospice of the Grimsel stands immediately beneath and 
 amidst these desolate and barren mountains, about half an hour 
 from the summit of the pass. Grimly and fearfully they frown 
 upon it, as if to say, the nearer Nature gets to Heaven without 
 Grace, the more you see nothing in her but craggy, gloomy, 
 overwhelming horrors, the emblems of a scarred and guilty- 
 Past, more visible and striking the nearer they come into con- 
 trast with the pure and radiant Future. So is a fallen being, 
 unrenewed. So it is Avith the inveterate and crabbed repug- 
 nancies, the black and thunder-riven crags, the desolate and 
 barren peaks, of fallen, guilty, despairing human nature ; no 
 where so awful as when brought nearest to God, if not clothed 
 with verdure, and brought near to him in Christ. Thei'e is a 
 transformation to be wrought, and when the righteousness 
 which Christ imparts is thrown upon this same ruined nature, 
 when his Spirit dwells within it and transfigures it, then Des- 
 pair departs into hell, and earth, that groaned in bondage, re- 
 flects and resembles heaven. Craggy men become little chil- 
 dren, and in the Spirit of Adoption, Abba, Father, is the voice 
 that ail the renewed creation sends up to God. 
 
 The Hospice is a rough, strong, rock building, with a few 
 small windows, like a jail, or Spanish Monastery, or hospital 
 for the insane. Altogether, it is the gloomiest, dreariest, most 

 
 -«3i 
 
 -^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 262 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGKIM. 
 
 repulsive kudscape, externally, to be found in any of the pas- 
 \^ scs of Switzerland. The peaks of the mountains rise above it 
 about a thousand feet, it being itself at a bleak elevation above 
 the sea of more than seven thousand ; — the rocks around it 
 might remind you of some of Dante's goblins damned, like 
 crouching hippopotamuses, or like gigantic demons chained 
 and weeping, with the tears freezing in their eyelids. There 
 is a little tan/, or black lake, directly behind the Hospice, 
 which looks like Death, black, grim, stagnant, a fit mirror of 
 the desolation around it. No fish live in it, but it is said to be 
 never frozen though covered deep with snow all winter. A 
 boat like Charon's crosses it to get at the bit of green pasture 
 beyond, where the cows of the Hospice may be fed and milked 
 for one or two months in the summer. There are admirable 
 materials for goblin tales in this Spitzbergen landscape. 
 
 Within the building, everything is nice and comfortable ; a 
 fine little library, enriched, probably by English travellers, with 
 some admirable religious books, a well furnished refectory and 
 abundant table, eighty beds or more, and everything in excel- 
 lent order. What a fine testimony it is, that the truly religious 
 books one meets with are mostly in the English language. 
 There arc, indeed, in our tongue, perhaps more devotional books, 
 more streams running from the Bible, than in all other lan- 
 guages put together. It was delightful to meet these familiar 
 and loved companions in this desolate pass of the Grimsel. 
 We sat down, about twenty visitors in all, to a plentiful even- 
 ing meal, with a cup of tea, most refreshing to such a tired 
 traveller as I was. The number of visitors daily at table is 
 from thirty-six to forty. A few days since one hundred per- 
 sons were here at once, for the night, with half as many guides 
 in addition. 
 
 I liked mine host at the Grimsel ; he seemed to take a fa- 
 therly interest in the stranger, and pressed my hand warmly 
 at parting, with many good wishes for my pleasant journey. 
 How it takes away from the mercantile, cold, mercenary cha- 
 racter of an inn, when the keeper of it is blessed with cordial, 
 hospitable manners ! Whether he have the heart of a good 
 Samaritan or not, if he seems to take an interest in you, he 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 rl 1
 
 .»i^ 
 
 
 V 
 
 gets double interest from you ; it invests tlie bought fare with 
 a home feeling ; you pay for it ten times as readily as you 
 Avould to a grumbler, and you leave the house as that of a 
 friend. 
 
 I paid a more hasty visit to the Aar glacier than I could 
 have wished, for it would be worth a sojourn of two or three 
 days to study it; but I was afraid of the weather. From the 
 Grimsel you may walk to the lower glacier in about three quar- 
 ters of an hour, and see at its very source the wild river, up 
 whose furious torrent you have been all day climbing. The 
 termination of the glacier in the valley is of the colour of a 
 rhinoceros' hide, from the mixture of rocks and gravel ground 
 up in the ice; and where the river runs out of its mouth, it may 
 give you, as you stand below its huge masses, the idea of a 
 monstrous elephant disporting with his proboscis. The rocks 
 protrude from the ice, constantly dropping as fast as it melts, 
 and forming chaotic masses of fragments beneath. 
 
 This enormous glacier is said to be eighteen miles long, and 
 from two to four in breadth. The great peak of the Finster- 
 Aarhorn, the Aar-peak of Darkness, rises out of it, probably 
 the loftiest of the Oberland Alps, a most sublime object. This 
 is the glacier so interesting for the studies and observations of 
 Agassiz and Hugi, carried on upon it, and for their hotel un- 
 der a huge rock upon its surface. This is the glacier on which 
 the hut was built by Hugi in 1827, to measure the movement 
 of the masses, and it was found that in 1836 they had advanced 
 2184 feet. Think of this immeasurable bed of ice, nearly 
 eighty square miles in extent, and how many hundred feet deep 
 no man may know, moving altogether if it move at all, moving 
 everlastingly, with the motion of life amidst the rigidity and 
 certainty of Death ; — crossed also by another glacier, the two 
 throwing up between them a mighty causeway or running ridge 
 of mingled ice and rocks, sometimes eighty feet high ! The 
 Upper and Lower Glaciers together arc computed to occupy a 
 space of nearly 125 square miles. They are not so much split 
 into fissures as the glaciers of Chamouiiy, and therefore they 
 are much more accessible. 
 
 The Hospice of the Grimsel is tenanted from March to No- 
 
 -O- 
 
 Ic*- 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ <;^i^>^-^ f^
 
 ■^i 
 
 264 
 
 WANDEUINGS 01' A I'lLGIUU. 
 
 vcmber by only a single servant, with provisions and dogs. 
 In March, 1838, this solitary exile was alarmed by a mysteri- 
 ous sound in the evening, like the wailing of a human being in 
 distress. He took his dog and went forth seeking the travel- 
 ler, imagining that some one had lost his way in the snow. It 
 was one of those warning voices, supposed by the Alpine dwel- 
 lers to be uttered by the mountains in presage of impending 
 storms or dread convulsions. It was heard again in the morn- 
 ing, and soon afterwards down thundered the avalanche, over- 
 whelming the Hospice, and crushing every room save the one 
 occupied by the servant. With his dog he worked his way 
 through the snow, thankful not to have been buried alive, and 
 came in safety down to Meyringcn. 
 
 This is the common story. But I have met with more than 
 this, in an interesting little book of Letters and travelling 
 sketches from a Daughter to her Mother. Miss Lamont tells 
 us that the lonely tenant of the Hospice occupied himself all 
 winter with his art of Avood-carving, having no companions but 
 his dogs, and was able, during the perillous seasons, to save 
 the lives of nearly a hundred persons every year. He said he 
 heard the supernatural voice several times before the fall of the 
 avalanche. It was a great storm, and for four days snowed 
 incessantly. "When he first took out his dog, it showed 
 symptoms of fear ; at last it would not go out at all ; so when 
 lie had the third time heard the low voice, which said, "Go 
 into the inner room," he went in and knelt down to pray. 
 While he was praying, the avalanche fell, and in a moment 
 every place, except the one little room where he was, M'as filled 
 with snow. Ho firmly attributed this exception to his prayers 
 — and why might it not be so ? Answer not, ye who suppose 
 a world can only be governed by such laws as ye can compre- 
 hend. 
 
 No ! answer not, except you have faith in God, except you 
 know yourself what it is to pray, what it is to live a life of 
 prayer. Then answer, and say that the Power which loosened 
 the avalanche, and directed its path, was the same, and none 
 other, which as a protecting hand encircled the place of prayer. 
 The Divine grace that led the heart thither only preceded the 
 
 {■Qf^ 
 
 :sfe= 
 
 ^
 
 Divine power that summoned tlie storm. And what an infidel 
 heart must that be which, having experienced such a protec- 
 tion would not attribute it to prayer ! 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 LAKE OF THE DEAD. — GLACIER OF THE RHONE. PASS OF THE 
 
 FUKCA. 
 
 The night was cold and cloudless. By the rising moon, the 
 scene of awful desolation around the Hospice, cold as it was, 
 Mn was covered with a vail of loveliness. It is scarcely possible 
 to convey an idea of the beauty of the moonlight night in such 
 a region. This morning the air was of a crystal clearness, 
 but a fathomless white ocean of cloud fills the valley beneath 
 us, while the grisly sharp peaks and ridges around us and 
 above rise into a bright shining sky. 
 
 Close at the summit of the pass, about half an hour from 
 the Hospice, 8400 feet above the sea, you coast the margin of a 
 little dark, still lake, into which the bodies of dead travellers, 
 who perished by the w^ay, have been launched for burial. It 
 therefore goes by the name of the Dead Sea, or Lake of the 
 Dead. These Barnes are singularly in keeping with the effect 
 of the scenery upon the mind, so wild, so grim, yet so majes- 
 tic, so seemingly upon the confines of the supernatural world, 
 where it seems as if imprisoned silent genii, still and awful, 
 were gazing upon you, as if the eye of these heaven-scaling 
 mountains watched you, and would petrify and fasten you, as 
 you flit carefully like a spectre across the vast and dream-like 
 landscape. A small glacier which you have to cross falls into 
 this Lake and feeds it, and the peak of the Seidelhorn rises 
 above it, with the snowy Schreckhorn towering through the 
 mountain ridges from the Aar glacier. The magnificent white 
 range of the Cries glacier sweeps glittering on the other side. 
 
 A little distance beyond this death-lake you come suddenly 
 upon the view of the glacier, of the Rhone, very far below you, 
 a grand and mighty object, with the furious Rhone itself issu- 
 
 
 V 
 
 3Xr^C
 
 i\ 
 
 . ing from the ice, like a wliole menagerie of wild beasts from 
 tlieir cages. Down it roars, with the joj of liberty, swift and 
 furious through the valley, leaping, dashing, thundering, foam- 
 ing. Remembering the career it runs, how it sometimes floods 
 the valleys like a sea, by how many rivers it is joined, and how 
 it pours dark and turbid into the lake of Geneva, and out again 
 regenerated as clear as crystal from Switzerland into France, 
 and so into the Mediterranean, it is interesting to stand here 
 far above its mighty cradle, and look down upon its source. 
 The glacier is a stupendous mass of ice-terraces clear across 
 the valley, propped against an overhanging mountain, with 
 snowy peaks towering to the right and left. There is a most 
 striking contrast between the bare desolation of the rocks on 
 the Grimsel side, and the grassy slopes of the mountains in com- 
 panionship with this glacier. Your path coasts along its mar- 
 gin, amidst a thick fringe of bushes and flowers, from which 
 you can step down upon the roofs and walls of the ice-caverns, 
 and look into the azure crevasses, and hear the fall, the gurgle, 
 and hurrying sub-glacial rush of unconscious streams just born 
 as cold as death. Their first existence is in a symphony of drij)- 
 ping music, a prelude to the babble of the running rill, and 
 then, as they grow older, they thunder like the trumpet of a 
 cataract. Far above you herds of cattle are seen browsing on 
 the steep mountain side, so steep that it seems as if they must 
 hold on to the herbage to keep from falling. The voices of the 
 herdsmen echo down the valley ; you half expect to see the 
 whole group slide, like an avalanche, down into the glacier 
 below. 
 
 There are, more properly speaking, two glaciers of the 
 Rhone, for as you pass up towards the Furca, you see a rapid 
 stream rushing from a glacier that cuts the sky above you to 
 the right, and pouring, cavernous and cataractical, into the 
 Lower Glacier, from whence it afterwards issues in the same 
 stream which constitutes the Rhone. From the pass of the 
 Furca, which costs you a hard climb to surmount, there is a 
 grand and varied view of the Finsteraarhorn and the Schreck- 
 horn, with the more distant snowy mountains. From thence 
 into the valley of the Sidli Alp you have a rapid descent, which 
 
 t>^ 
 
 'P^'^r ^ a^
 
 carries you over wide steep fields of ice and snow, down which 
 you may ghdc, if you please, like a falling star, though not so 
 softly. There is a most exciting and dangerous delight in 
 flying with your Alpen-stock down such an ahrupt immense de- 
 clivity. You feel every moment as if you might plunge head- 
 long, or break through into some concealed abyss, to be laid 
 away in crystal on the secret shelves of the deep mountain 
 museum ; but bating that, you enjoy the somewhat perillous 
 excursion as much as you ever did when a wild, careless boy, 
 plunging into snowbanks, skating with the ice bending beneath 
 you, or sliding fiercely down the steep hill, and shouting at the 
 top of your voice. Clear the coast ! to the manifest danger of 
 all astonished passengers. The path along the terra firma of 
 the mountain is also in some parts hazardous, since a single 
 false step, or a slip at the side, might prove fatal. 
 
 On the Furca pass you are at the boundary between the 
 Cantons Valais and Uri, and you have, Avithin a circle of little 
 more than ten miles around you, the sources of five prominent 
 rivers, some of them among the largest in Europe ; the Rhine, 
 the Rhone, the Reuss, the Ticino, and the Aar; some tum- 
 blin"- into the Mediterranean, some into the German sea. You 
 have passed two of their most remarkable feeding glaciers, 
 those of the Rhone and the Aar. The course of the river Reuss 
 you are not to follow in the pass and valley of the St. Gothard. 
 
 Continuing our course from the Furca, for a long distance 
 there is no habitation whatever, except for the swine or the 
 dead, until you come down to the Realp, a cluster of some 
 dozen houses, where the Capuchin friars have a convent, and 
 own the inn. One of these men, in his coarse brown robe, with 
 a hempen cord about it, entered while I was taking some re- 
 freshment, and stepped up to the barometer. Really, the cord- 
 ed friars do often look as if they had just been cut down from 
 the gallows, or were going thereto. What a queer choice of 
 vestments and symbols ! It reminds one of the passage con- 
 cerning " them that draw iniquity Avith cords of vanity, and 
 sin as it were with a cart-rope." Nevertheless, notwithstand- 
 ing the rope, the friars may be very Idnd and hospitable men, 
 when they have the means. 
 
 '■\ 
 
 4^ 
 4^
 
 Seeing liim watch the glass, I made to him the very original 
 remark that the weather was very fine. Yes, said he, hut we 
 shall have bad weather very soon. Hearing this, I also ran to 
 the barometer, for the sound of bad weather is startling to a 
 pedestrian among the mountains, and found indeed that the 
 mercury was falling. Thereupon I at once determiued to push 
 on, if possible, to the Devil's bridge, that I might see at least 
 the finest part of the St. Gothard pass while the weather was 
 clear, since little is to be seen when it rains or is misty on the 
 mountains. So my guide led me by a shorter cut across the 
 rocky pastures on the left side of the Urseren Valley, without 
 stopping at Hospeuthal, that I might have ample time to sur- 
 vey the pass by daylight. 
 
 '[$»- 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 TlIE devil's bridge. SAVAGE DEFILES OF TIIE UEDSS. 
 
 The Valley of Urseren, into which we have descended from the 
 Furca, is one of the highest inhabited vales in Switzerland, 
 4356 feet above the level of the sea, perfectly destitute of trees, 
 yet covered with soft green pasturage, and affording subsist- 
 ence to four dairy-keeping, cattle-rearing, cheese-making vil- 
 lages, with 1360 inhabitants. The cheese and red trout are 
 much recommended by the guide-books, but we had satisfied a 
 traveller's appetite at the inn of the friars, and were not cog- 
 uizant of the temptation. The Hospice of the St. Gothard liea 
 a couple of hours farther up the pass, from whence you go 
 down by innumerable zig-zags into sunny Italy. 
 
 We made haste across the river, and through the village of 
 Andermatt, about a mile beyond which you are separated from 
 the Devil's Bridge only by the right shoulder of an inaccessible 
 mountain. From the green, smooth, and open meadows of 
 Andermatt, you abruptly enter this mountain, through the long 
 gallery or tunnel of Urnerloch, hewn in the solid rock over the 
 river Reuss, 180 feet in length, and wide enough for carriages. 
 Before this grand tunnel was bored, the mountain, shutting 
 
 f 5"^
 
 TIIE DEVIL S BRIDGE. 
 
 doAvn perpendicular into the roaring river, had to be passed by 
 a rude suspension gallery of boards outside, hung down by 
 chains amidst the very spray of the torrent. It was a great 
 exploit to double this cape. 
 
 You are not at all prepared for the scene which bursts upon 
 you on the other side, for you have been luxuriating in mea- 
 dows, and there is no sign of change ; it is really like a hurri- 
 cane in the West Indies ; you are one moment under a clear 
 sky, you see a black cloud, and down comes the fierce tornado. 
 So from the green and quiet slopes of the sheltered Urseren 
 Valley, after spending a few moments in the darkness of Ur- 
 nerloch rock valley, you emerge at once into a gorge of utter 
 savageness, directly at the Devil's bridge, and in full view of 
 some of the grandest scenery in all Switzerland. It bursts 
 upon you, I say, like a tropical storm, with all the sublimity 
 of conflicting and volleying thunder-clouds. It is a most stu- 
 pendous pass. The river, with a great leap over its broken 
 bed of rocks, shoots like a catapult into the chasm against the 
 base of the mountain, by which it is suddenly recoiled at right 
 angles, and plunges, bellowing, down the precipitous gorge. 
 
 The new bridge spans the thundering torrent at a height of 
 about 125 feet over the cataract. It is of solid, beautiful ma- 
 sonry, the very perfection of security and symmetry in modern 
 art. But as to sublimity, though there is from it by far the 
 best view of the Cataract of Reuss, and though, being nearer 
 to that Cataract, it sets you more completely in the midst of 
 the conflicting terrors of the gorge, yet for itself, as to sublim- 
 ity and daring, it is not to be compared with the simple rude 
 old structure, above which it rises. That was the genuine 
 Devil's Bridge, still standing, a few yards lower down than the 
 new, like an arch in the air, so slight, so frail, so trembling. 
 It is much more in accordance with the scenery than the new, 
 and is so covered with mosses, being made of unhewn stones, 
 which centuries have beaten and grizzled with tempests, that 
 the mountains and the bridge seem all one, all in wild har- 
 mony ; whereas the new bridge is grossly smooth, elegant, and 
 artificial, almost like a dandy looking at the falls with his eye- 
 glass. The two bridges might stand for personifications of 

 
 270 
 
 -_JB»^ A jo-t^f£^^^ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGUIH. 
 
 ^X 
 
 genius and art; the old bridge, with its insecurity and daring, 
 is a manifest work of Genius ; the new is the evident length to 
 which Art can go, after Genius has set the example. 
 
 The old bridge, the genuine Devil's Bridge, was built in UlS, 
 by the Abbot of Einseidlen, perhaps to invite pilgrims from a 
 greater distance to that famous convent. In comparison with 
 ^ j^ the old, it is like one of Campbell's thundering war-odes, the 
 battle of Ilohenlindcn, for example, beside a tedious, prosy, 
 correct description, or like Brace's Address to his army, or 
 like the yell of an Indian war-whoop, compared with the writ- 
 ten speeches of commanders in Sallust. The upper bridge 
 spans the cataractical performance of the Reuss at an angle 
 in the mountain, where naturally there is not one inch of space 
 for the sole of the foot, but a perpendicular cliff, against wliich 
 the torrent rages, and in which the only way of blasting the 
 rock, and scooping out a shelf or gallery for the passage on 
 the other side, was by lowering down the workmen with ropes 
 from the brow of the mountain, where, hanging over the boil- 
 ing gulf, they bored the granite, and fixed their trains of powder. 
 
 The old bridge was only one arch thrown across the gorge, 
 and but just broad enough to admit of two persons passing 
 each other in safety, with scarcely any protection at the sides, 
 and at a height of about a hundred feet above the torrent. It 
 was a dizzy thing to pass it, and for persons of weak nerves 
 dangerous, and to get upon it you coasted the gulf of zigzag 
 terraces. The new bridge is of two arches, with safe and 
 strong parapets, and of ample width for carriages. Till the 
 first bridge was made there was no passing this terrific chasm, 
 no communication possible from one side to the other. 
 
 Who could have supposed that into this savage den, amidst 
 its roar of waters, so distant from the world, so unsuitable for 
 a battle field, there could have been poured the conflicting tides 
 of the French Revolution, in a condensed murderous strife be- 
 tween two armies? Twice in the space of little more than a 
 month was the war campaign of 1799 driven through this pass 
 by the French, Russians, and Austrians, conquering alternate- 
 ly. First in August the French charged the Austrians, and 
 driving them across the Devil's Bridge, rushed pell mell after 
 
 V V^^-»^
 
 them, when the arcli fell midway and precipitated the Avcdged 
 masses of the soldiery into the boiling torrent. Then in Sep- 
 tember, that great war-wolf Suwarrow poured down witb his 
 starved Russians from the top of the St. Gothard. They de- 
 voured the soap in the village of Andermatt, and boiled and ate 
 the tanned leather and raw hides, and in the strength of these 
 aliments, drove the French across the Devil's Bridge, and 
 rushed themselves to the passage. The French in their retreat 
 broke down the bridge by blasting the arch, but this put no 
 stop to the impetuous fury of the Russians, who crossed the 
 chasm on beams of wood tied together with the officers' scarfs, 
 and in their rage to come at their enemies plunged hundreds 
 of the foremost ranks of their own columns into the foaming 
 cataract. It was more fearful meeting the fury of their ene- 
 mies in this conflict than having their path over the mountains 
 swept by the dread avalanches. The w^ar of human beings was 
 worse than that of nature, though they had to encounter both. 
 They dared the fight of the avalanches, that they might fight 
 with each other. Sucli is human passion, such is war ! 
 
 Yet the world has deified its warriors, and starved its bene- 
 factors and poets. What sort of proportion is there between 
 the benefit conferred upon the English nation by the Duke of 
 Marlborough in the victory of Blenheim, and that bestowed up- 
 on England and the world by John Milton in the gift of Para- 
 dise Lost? None at all. The work done by the Poet is so 
 infinitely superior to that accomplished by the Warrior that 
 you can scarcely institute a comparison. 
 
 And yet the Parliament and Queen of Great Britain bestowed 
 upon the Duke of Marlborough after the battle of Blenheim a 
 royal domain with royal revenues, besides devoting five hun- 
 dred thousand pounds sterling to build a palace fit for so great 
 a warrior to live in; while John Milton was obliged to sell the 
 copyright of his great poem for ten pounds, and died compara- 
 tively unknown and poor! In England by tliat great poem, 
 thousands of people have been literally gaining their subsistence, 
 and making their fortunes, to say nothing of the tens of thou- 
 sands, whose minds have been invigorated and enlarged by 
 feeding on it, while by the great victory, and the magnificent 
 
 1^ 
 
 IJ*- 
 
 "4. 
 
 Cn, 
 
 ■^£<? 
 
 S^
 
 s'^^^^'^ L 
 
 273 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 reward of it, revenues tliat niiglit have supported tliousands 
 have hcea devoted exclusively to the luxury and splendour of a 
 single family! So went the war-worshipping era of our world. 
 At present it may be hoped, if poetry is not rising, war at least 
 is at a discount. 
 
 & 
 
 CHAPTER LIT. 
 
 LEGENDS OF THE I'AS?. — COWPEr's MEMORIA TECIINICA. 
 
 After the gorge of the Devil's Bridge, you plunge down the 
 precipitous valley, by well constructed zigzags, crossing and 
 recrossing the Reuss repeatedly, till you come to the savage 
 defile of Schellinen, where for several miles the ravine is so 
 deep and narrow, that the cliffs seem to arch the heavens, and 
 shut out the light. The Reuss meanwhile keeps such a roar- 
 ing din, making in the short space of four leagues a fall of 
 2500 feet, almost in a perpetual cataract, that the people have 
 called this part of the way the Krachenthal, or crashing valley. 
 
 The noise and the accompaniments are savage enough. The 
 mountains seem ready to tumble into the bed of the river. "We 
 tremble," said my companion under the influence of the scenery 
 of the Gemmi, "lest the mountains should crush us ; what must 
 be that state of despair in men's hearts, which can call on the 
 mountains to fall on them and bury them, rather than meet the 
 face of God?" 
 
 There are curious legends in this part of the valley. Enor- 
 mous fragments of rock are strewn around, as if they might 
 have fallen here from the conflict of Titans, or angels, when 
 they plucked the seated hills with all their load to throw at each 
 other. One of them, almost a mountain by itself, nearly in the 
 road, goes by the name of Teufelsteiu, or Devil's Stone, having 
 been dropped, it is said, by the overworked demon, in attempting 
 to get it across the St. Gothard pass. The legend runs that he 
 set out to convey this crag across the valley for a wager, but 
 let it slip, and lost the game. The manner in which the tra- 
 veller gazes upon this rock, in consequence even of this foolish
 
 "^V 
 
 \i 
 
 legend, the peculiar interest he feels in it, is a curious example 
 of the power of imaginative association, the craving of the mind 
 for some intelligent moral or meaning. In all things possible 
 jou must have a human or a supernatural interest. The prin- 
 ciple is universal. A child in the nursery would not be half so 
 much interested by a simple engraving of a house, ever so well 
 done, with merely the announcement, TJiis is a house, as when 
 you come to say. This is the house that Jack built; then what an 
 interest! Then how the imagination peoples it! There is 
 Jack, the malt, the cat, the rat, the priest, the milk-maid, and 
 this is the cozy house, where all the wonders of the linked story 
 had their existence. What a place of interest ! Just so with 
 the Devil's Crag. Ridiculous as the legend is, no man can pass 
 that stone, without being interested in it, and perhaps seeing 
 his disappointed Infernal Majesty in idea, with sail broad vans 
 in the air above him, sweating like a day labourer, and ineffec- 
 tually struggling to float beneath the weight. The common 
 legends concerning the Devil do almost always represent him 
 as outwitted, foiled, and cheated, instead of being successful 
 in his villany ; — it is a good sign and prediction, for he must 
 go down. 
 
 At Wasen I found a comfortable, excellent inn, a good, 
 cheerful happy family, and a kind, hospitable host. They seem- 
 ed well to do in the world, and were Romanists, as are most of 
 the people of the Canton Uri. I went to bed thinking of the 
 Capuchin's promise of bad weather, and glad that I had seen 
 the St. Gothard pass in bright day. In the morning the Friar's 
 prediction was as yet unfulfilled. Again the morning was fair, 
 though the clouds were clinging to the mountains up and down 
 the valley, sometimes in long ridges, sometimes in thick fleecy 
 volumes, now surrounding the base half way down, now reveal- 
 ing only the lofty peaks, and now swept from the whole face of 
 the gorge, and admitting the bright sun to fill it. At this mo- 
 ment, on the edge of the mountain top beside us, so lofty and 
 perpendicular that it seems ready to fall, the sun is struggling 
 with the fleecy masses of cloud glowing like silver, and the 
 trees upon the versre of the cliflF seem 
 
 upor 
 
 rge 
 
 focus, while all around is gray mist.
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM, 
 
 We are now coming into a region trodden of old Ijy great pa- 
 ti'iots, and consecrated at this day, to liberty, in history. Wc 
 are getting upon the borders of the country of William Tell ; 
 we must not look at the scenery alone, for grand as it is, the 
 great thoughts and struggles of freedom are grander. In truth, 
 a man ought not to travel through such a region without a 
 fresh memory of connected localities and incidents. How much 
 a man needs to know, to make a good traveller! Or rather, 
 how much he needs to remember, and how vividly! The Poet 
 Cowper, in one of his beautiful letters, recommends pedestrian- 
 izing as good for the memory. "I have," says he, "though 
 not a good memory in general, yet a good local memory, and 
 can recollect, by the help of a tree, or a stile, what you said on 
 that particular spot. For this reason I purpose, when the sum- 
 mer is come, to walk with a book in my pocket; what I read 
 at my fire-side, I forget, but what I read under a hedge, or at 
 the side of a pond, that pond and that hedge will always bring 
 to my remembrance. " 
 
 But suppose the gentle Poet wishes to recall the passages in 
 some other part of the country. It would certainly be some- 
 what clumsy to have to carry about with you a pond or a hedge 
 as a memoria technica; it would be less inconvenient to carry 
 yoin- whole library. And besides, what art shall there be to 
 quicken the memory in knowledges already forgotten ? The 
 memory is a most perverse faculty; it ti-easures up things we 
 could wish to forget, and forgets things we could wish to retain ; 
 but there is one chain, that no man can escape, except he goes 
 to Jesus Christ, and that is, the memory of his own sins. To 
 many a man, to all men "in their sins" the art of forgetting, 
 could it but last for ever, would be the greatest of all bless- 
 ings. 
 
 Wliat an affecting page in the history of an individual mind 
 is presented in those melancholy remorseful stanzas, said to 
 have been written in a blank leaf of the Pleasures of Alemory. 
 They trace the human being; they present a more universal 
 experience of our fallen natm-e by far than the more agreeable, 
 but more supei-ficial recollections of childhood and of latter 
 days. They are as a fossil leaf, in which you observe the fi-
 
 bres, that characterized a whole living family of the vegetahle 
 creation. So do these stanzas read the experience of oui* spe- 
 cies, not indeed, always so clearly acknowledged, even to one's 
 own consciousness, hut always existing, though sometimes like 
 sympathetic letters, to he only revealed when brought to the 
 fire. 
 
 " Pleasures of memoi'j'! supremely blest, 
 And justly proud beyond a poet's praise, 
 If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast 
 Contain indeed the subject of thy lays! 
 By me how envied, for to me, 
 The herald still of misery. 
 Memory makes her influence known 
 By sighs and tears and grief alone. 
 I greet her as the fiend, to whom belong 
 The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song. 
 Alone, at midnight's haunted hour, 
 
 When nature woos repose in vain. 
 Remembrance wakes her penal power. 
 The tyi'ant of the burning brain. 
 She tells of time misspent, of comfort lost, 
 
 Of fair occasions gone forever by, 
 Of hopes too fondly nursed, too rudely ci'ost. 
 Of many a cause to wish, yet fear to die. 
 For what, except the instinctive fear 
 Lest she survive, detains me here, 
 "When all the life of life is fled ? 
 What but the deep inherent dread. 
 Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign. 
 And realize the hell, that priests and beldams feign." 
 
 How painfully impressive is this! The penal power of remem- 
 brance is a terrible reality. It has driven many a mind to 
 thoughts of suicide. But why think of suicide to escape from 
 memory, when the penal power of memory is only a prophecy 
 of the future? It is to he earnestly hoped that the self-tortur- 
 ed unknown individual, wlio traced from bitter unavailing ex- 
 perience the gloomy lines just quoted, may have sought and 
 found in Christ that deliverance from the death of sin and the 
 fear of death, with which only the Lamb of God, who takcth 
 away the sin of the world, can bless the soul. 
 
 I
 
 *^^#^ 
 
 27G 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIilM. 
 
 CTIArTBR LIII. 
 
 ASSOCIATIONS. — CANTON URI, AND THE MEMORIES OF TELL. 
 
 TTow infinite are the moral and spiritual relations even of ma- 
 terial things ! Indeed, what subject is there, says Edmund 
 Burke, that does not branch into infinity ? A world that has 
 been the habitation of intelligent creatures, becomes connected 
 in every part with the story and the influences of their exist- 
 ence. Nature herself sympathizes with them, is invested with 
 the significance of their immortality, travaileth in bondage be- 
 neath their sins and burdens, and acquires the language both 
 of their history and destiny. Point after point, feature after 
 feature, landscape after landscape, the whole world of land, 
 and every rood of sea, may become, in the course of ages, in- 
 dissolubly linked with some great transaction, and with a crowd 
 of the soul's experiences, in such wise, that ever, as long as the 
 globe lasts, it shall be, as it were, an organ, the keys of which 
 are always sounding their intelligent notes of guilty and sad, 
 or innocent and joyous meaning. All thought is eternal, and 
 if the soul have forgotten it, material nature will sometimes 
 bring it up. The wicked may be silent in the grave, but the 
 grave shall not be silent in regard to the wicked. The actors 
 of a life of heroism and goodness pass away, but the earth al- 
 ways speaks of them. 
 
 Such is the eternal, indestructible power of association. 
 Fearfully and wonderfully are Ave made, and strangely linked 
 with the world that we inhabit. So, according to the multi- 
 tude and nobleness of a man's associations, especially of a 
 moral character, will be the depth and though tfulness of his 
 delight in looking upon nature. There is a scenery in the mind, 
 connected with that in nature, and appropriate to it, somewhat 
 as the other parts of a piece of music are connected with the 
 air, and dependent upon it. A man might be able to whistle 
 the air alone, and might have enjoyment in singing it, but if 
 he is ignorant of the other parts, his pleasure cannot equal that 
 of a musical mind, in which all the parts come linked togetlier 
 in one full and perfect harmony. 
 
 Jl*" 
 
 {>
 
 A traveller should be prepared to read the book of nature 
 -qfith the historical harmony. An ignorant or forgetful man 
 Bees nothing but the scene before him, when the historical stu- 
 dent sees it peopled with great forms, sees it in grand moral 
 lights and shades, surrounded bj the manj-coloured atmos- 
 phere of the past, as well as the light of the day's sun that is 
 shining upon it. When a man visits Altorf, he needs to be for 
 the time thrown back into the past ; but this is impossible, 
 unless the past is in him as the fruit of his studies taken into 
 his being. The guide-books will repeat to him the name of 
 Tell and the facts in his history, the inscription will inform 
 him that such and such great events took place amidst the 
 scenes he is visiting ; but this does not give him the past, does 
 not make up that inward scenery with which his mind has need 
 to have been familiar, in order that the place may call heroic 
 times and interests into being. How much greater is the en- 
 joyment of a mind that has the whole of such a drama as Schil- 
 ler's William Tell fresh in memory while wandering over the 
 Canton Uri, than his that has but a few dry dates and names, 
 or worse than all is dependent on the monuments, the guides, 
 and the Handbooks ! 
 
 A man visits Zurich ; he goes into the Cathedral ; what a 
 loss to him, if for the first time he learns that Zwingle there 
 preached, or knows nothing about the history of Zwingle, and 
 the scenes of the reformation ! He visits Einseidlen; seeks the 
 shrine of the Virgin, sees the monks at worship; Avhat a loss to 
 him if his studies in history have failed to people the scene to 
 his own mind from the great life that for a time was there pas- 
 sing! A man crosses the Wengern Alp. If he has never read 
 the tragedy of Manfred, there is a grand scenery created from 
 the poet's mind, in respect of which he crosses before the Jung- 
 frau with his eyes shut. A man passes into Athens and stands 
 on the Acropolis. What a loss to him if his studies have never 
 made him familiar with the age of Pericles! Nay, there is a 
 recollection of objects around him that have absolutely no 
 meaning, no story, no lesson, no language to his mind, if many 
 a page of Grecian history be not in his remembrance. A man 
 
 »J>-
 
 WANDEIUNOS OF A riLGKIM. 
 
 Thetes, with its dim colossal ruins. What an inappreciable, 
 irretrievable loss to him if he never read Herodotus, or is des- 
 titute of a knowledge of the combined prophetic and actual 
 history of that antique marvellous country, with its gigantic, 
 monstrous types of thought and being! 
 
 " Labour to distil and unite into thyself," says ancient Ful- 
 ler, " the scattered perfections of several nations. Many ucccl 
 foreign countries, bringing home Dutch drunkenness, Spanish 
 prJ.de, French wantonness, and Italian Atheism; as for the good 
 herbs, Dutch industry, Spanish loyalty, French courtesy, and 
 Italian frugality, these they leave behind them ; others bring- 
 home just nothing ; and because they singled not themselves 
 from their countrymen, though some years beyond sea, were 
 never out of England." This is the great folly of travelling 
 without a foreign language, that it compels a stranger to keep 
 company only with his own countrymen, so that he returns 
 home with all his prejudices. 
 
 We are still in the magnificent pass of the St. Gothard, and 
 it continues to present a character at once picturesque and 
 beautiful, wild and savage. The gorges are tremendous, the 
 bridges thrown across the torrent frequent and bold. Here and 
 there, dark forests of fir cling to the mountains, and sometimes 
 you see the savage jagged paths of recent avalanches. Now 
 and then, there is a little chapel on the mountain's brow; the 
 evening chime of bells comes ringing up the valley ; you meet 
 corded brown friars walking and women working on the roads. 
 The sun is pouring through rifts in the clouds, and the dark 
 blue sky opens. 
 
 I cannot help noting the variety and contrast of colours of- 
 fered to the eye in such a scene; the azure of the sky, the vio- 
 let mountains, of a hue as deep as the heart's ease, the grisly 
 gray rocks, the black firs, the deep blue gorges, the pale ver- 
 dure of the trees, the deeper delicious green of the grassy slopes 
 and meadow patches, the white virgin snow, the dim mists, the 
 silvery clouds, the opal of the morn, the golden lights of even- 
 ing. What an intermingling of lovely hues and shades ! At 
 some distance below Wasen the mountains are singularly grand. 
 Far down the Valley a pyramidal peak of bare granite guards
 
 TELL S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 tlie way to the heroic region, and now the green and flowery 
 mottled slopes, with the thick luxuriant foliage and fruits of 
 the walnut, chestnut, pear, and other trees, begin to spread out 
 more largely. Here is a sweet picturesque spot, wildly beau- 
 tiful. The smell of the uew-made hay as it lies upon the green 
 sward is full of fragrance. Here and there it is gathered into 
 small grotesque stacks to be carried on the shoulders. I have 
 seen women with their heads and shoulders buried beneath 
 enormous bundles of this short grass, labouring along the path 
 at the brink of precipices, where a single step would plunge 
 bundle and carrier into the gulf below. Now and then comes 
 to the ear the pleasant music of the mower whetting his scythe. 
 The Valley opens out immediately at Amsteg, where the 
 ascent towards Andermatt, in the direction you have passed, 
 commences. From this to Altorf the way winds luxuriant 
 through a Avell-wooded and cidtivated region. You visit the 
 village of Burglen, where William Tell was born. It is a beau- 
 tiful rural hamlet, of most magnificent verdure, higher up among 
 the mountains than Altorf, and commanding a rich leafy view 
 of the Valley below. The church is in front, and in sight is 
 the village of Attighausen, where Walter Furst was born. A 
 little chapel stands on the spot formerly occupied by Tell's 
 house. Why could they not have let the house remain as it was, 
 and put the chapel in the churchyard ? It is covered witli 
 very rude paintings, descriptive of various scenes in Tell's life, 
 accompanied with sentences from Scripture. On the front of 
 the chapel is the text, " We are called unto liberty — but by 
 love serve one another." How admirable and appropriate! 
 Called unto liberty, to serve in love ! A blessed Avorld this 
 will be, when all tyranny and oppression end in that. A bles- 
 sed inheritance it is, when the Patriot leaves that to his coun- 
 trymen. 
 
 H^ 
 
 fl 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 TRADITIONS OF FREEDOM. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY THE GARRISON 
 
 OF CIVIL. 
 
 Less than half an hour's walk now brings you to Altorf, uaiuo
 
 WANDERINGS OF A TILGHIM. 
 
 SO sacred iii Swiss story, where you pass tlirougli the very 
 square in which the heroic father shot the apple from his child's 
 head. There the figures stand, above the fountain; the rudest 
 caricature of statuary could not deprive them of interest. And 
 there is the old tower said to stand where the linden tree grew, 
 to which the noble boy was bound by the tyrant Gcssler, as the 
 mark for the father's archery. The Child was father of the 
 Man, for had he not stood steadfast and smiling the father's 
 heart had faltered. You must have your own boyish enthu- 
 siasm fresh about you, with which you used to read the story 
 at school, if you would visit these spots now with proper feel- 
 ings, or with enjoyment like that which the story itself once 
 gave you. 
 
 And what an admirable tale ! In all the romantic or heroic 
 eras of nations there never were finer materials of poetry. What 
 11 pity there could not have been some Homer to take them up, 
 to give them the charmed shape and being of truth wrought by 
 the imagination into epic song ! Schiller has done much in his 
 masterly drama, but the subject is that almost of an historical 
 epic. Schiller was eminently successful in the delineation of 
 the child, as well as the patriot. Happy is the country that 
 has such memories to cherish as those of Wallace, Leouidas, 
 and Tell, and is still worthy of them ! Unhappy and degraded 
 is the land, from which, though the letter of such memories may 
 remain, the soul of them in the people hath departed ! It is 
 sad to say of a country, It has been fi'ee. It is sad to say of a 
 country, as of an individual, that 
 
 " The wiser mind 
 Mourns less for what age takes away 
 Than what it leaves behind." 
 
 The critics are trying to mistify the historical grandeur of 
 Switzerland, casting the blur of doubt and scepticism over its 
 heroic traditions, questioning whether Tell and the apple ever 
 existed. A country of critical unbelievers that could produce 
 a Strauss, to turn Christ and the Apostles into a myth-mist, 
 will dispose easily of all less sacred story. There is no feat 
 which such infidelity cannot perform ; it would put a lie into 
 the lips of Nature herself. Ruthless work it makes when it 

 
 
 
 1^' 
 
 ft 
 
 -^1 
 
 CEITICAL INFIDELITY. 
 
 turns the plouglishare of ruiu through loved and hallowed asso- 
 ciations. But true patriotism and poetry, as well as Divine Truth, 
 are too much for it; it can no more strike the memories of Tell 
 from the mind of Switzerland than it could aholishthe earth's 
 strata or annihilate her veins of gold and diamond. Ever will 
 these heroic traditions remain, ever in the faith of the Swiss 
 hearts, ever in the glens of the mountains, ever in the hooks and 
 ballads of the cottages, as indestructihle as the Alps, as far 
 kenned and brightly shining as the light of those flowers that 
 poets tell of: — 
 
 " Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam 
 Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 
 To set the hills on fire." 
 
 Even S'O beautiful, so far seen, so inspiring, like beacons on 
 the mountain tops, are these historical traditions. What wick- 
 edness it would be to sweep them from the soul of the country! 
 On a clear moonlight night, it is said, you can even now some- 
 times see the stalwart form of Tell in his native valley bending 
 his great cross-bow, and trying the strength of his arrows. It 
 would require no great power of imagination to see beneath 
 the moon on the meadow of Grutli the immortal group of three. 
 Tell, Furst, and Melcthal, with solemn faces and hands uplift 
 to heaven, taking that great oath of Liberty which was the 
 testament of freedom to their country. 
 
 All things considered, it is well and noble that the public 
 authorities in Uri should have ordered to be burned a book by 
 the son of the celebrated Haller, criticising the story of Tell so 
 as to injure the popular version. Let the rulers and the peo- 
 ple but keep the right spirit of the tradition which they guard 
 with such jealousy, and let them unite the freedom of the State 
 and of the personal franchise on their mountains with the spirit 
 of piety, with freedom to worship God according to conscience, 
 and they Avill show themselves worthy of the inheritance which 
 old patriots transmitted to them. How true, how precious, 
 how noble, is that sonnet of Wordsworth on the obligations of 
 Civil to Religious Liberty, in which he apostrophizes his native 
 land for the dear memory of her sons, who for her civil rights 
 have bled, and then passes to the great truth that all uselessly 
 
 '{?% 
 
 j.,:. 

 
 WA>DERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 ^; 
 
 would these great souls have fallen in the conflict, if it had not 
 heen afterwards sustained and carried onward by religious prin- 
 ciple ; if the freedom fought for on earth had not been lighted 
 from other worlds and linked 'with heaven. So must claims 
 from other worlds inspirit the Star of Liberty in Switzerland, 
 or not long will it remain above the horizon. 
 
 " How like a Roman Sj'dney bowed his head, 
 
 And Russel's milder blood the scaffold wet 
 
 But these had fallen for profitless regret, 
 
 Had not thy holy church her champions bred. 
 
 And claims from other worlds inspirited 
 
 The Star of Liberty to rise. Nor yet, 
 
 (Grave this within thy heart !) if spmtual things 
 
 Be lost through npaihy, or scorn, or fear, 
 
 Shalt thou thy humbler franchises support. 
 
 However hardly won, or justly dear. 
 
 AVhat came from heaven to heaven by nature clings. 
 
 And if dissevered thence, its course is short." 
 
 Graver, deeper, more important truth than this was never con- 
 densed into the like human composition. Study it, ye politi- 
 cians and statesmen, and not only statesmen but Christians, 
 and not only in the Old World but the New ! In England, in 
 Geneva, in America, wherever there is liberty in possession or 
 liberty in danger, study this. If spiritual ihinfjs he lost through 
 apathy, or scorn, or fear, or formalism, your hmnblcr civil pri- 
 vileges you never can support, at what costly price soever they 
 may have been won, or however dear they may be to you. Let 
 souls be persecuted for religion, or yoiu- religion merged into a 
 State sacrament, or a church commandment fastened by the 
 State, and your State will be a despotism and yourselves slaves. 
 Your true freedom must come from God, and cling to God, 
 and leave the soul alone and undisturbed with God, for God's 
 Spirit alone can support it. 
 
 " What came from heaven to heaven by nature clings, 
 And if dissevered thence, its course is short !" 
 
 I will not omit to add the very beautiful third stanza of those 
 suggested to Wordsworth by Tell's tower at Altorf, on Avhich 
 the deeds of the hero are painted. It was not indeed an Ita- 
 lian pencil that wrought the paintings, but neither was it an 
 
 ^ 
 
 I
 
 
 Italian heart that wrouglit the actions. Tell's boy was the 
 heir of his father's courage, and tlie very personification of 
 cheerful filial faith and love. 
 
 " How blest the souls, who, when their trials come, 
 
 Yield not to terror or despondency. 
 
 But face, like that sweet Boy, theii" mortal doom, 
 
 Whose head the ruddy apple tops, while he 
 
 Expectant stands beneath the Linden tree, 
 
 Not quaking, like the timid forest game ; 
 
 lie smiles, the hesitating shaft to free, 
 
 Assm'ed that Heaven its justice wiU proclaim, 
 
 And to his father give its own unerring aim." 
 
 Before coming to Altorf, you cross a rapid stream, in which 
 it is said that William TeU lost his life in his old age hy en- 
 deavouring to save a child from drowning, when the waters 
 were high. This was in 1350. He was born about the year 
 1280. The village of Burglen, his birth-place, is a most lovely 
 spot in a vale of luxuriant vegetation, surrounded by great 
 mountains, and fit to educate a spirit hke Tell's. Here a man 
 must live in the Past, the great Past, and hope for the future. 
 WovJd that Tell's great spirit could retm-n from the dead, "to 
 animate an age forlorn," to waken his native vales again with 
 the echoes of genuine liberty ! Would that such a spirit might 
 rise, to break the fetters from the souls of his countrymen, 
 worse, by far, than those on the body. 
 
 " There is a bondage worse by far to bear 
 
 Than his who breathes, by roof and floor and wall 
 
 Pent in, a Tyrant's solitary thrall: 
 
 'Tis his, who walks about in the open air. 
 
 One of a nation, who, henceforth, must wear 
 
 Their fetters in their souls. For who can be. 
 
 Who, even the best, in such condition, free 
 
 From self-reproach, reproach which he must share 
 
 With human nature ? Never be it ours 
 
 To see the sun, how brightly it will shine 
 
 And know that noble feeling, manly powers. 
 
 Instead of gathering strength, must droop and pine. 
 
 And earth, with all her pleasant fruits and flowers 
 
 Fade and participate in Man's decline." 
 
 But what is this bondage worse by far to bear? It is the 
 bondage of the mind and heart in superstition ; it is the absence
 
 =^^^^^^ 
 
 284 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 of religious freedom ; it is the irou age of intolerance, and the 
 chaining of the soul in a spiritual despotism more rigid and 
 terrible than that of nature in the glaciers. This is worse to 
 bear. There never can be freedom in Switzerland till there is 
 freedom to worship God. There never can be freedom till there 
 is the religion of voluntary faith, instead of a despotic form, 
 -^figfj/^ into which you are pressed and held fast by penal law. It is 
 a glorious word, Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Li- 
 berty ; and now a spiritual Tell is needed in Switzerland, as 
 in Rome, to proclaim this to his countrymen, to tell them in 
 what that liberty consists, and to show them that an infidel 
 mob, and a church with penal persecuting maxims, are alike 
 opposed to it and deadly, whether under a monarchy, a despot- 
 ism, or a republic. 
 
 They have in Switzerland Romish Republics, but is republi- 
 cauism a cure for intolerance ? Will it unloose the fettered 
 Bouls of the peoj^le ? No more than the mountain winds and 
 the summer months unbind the glaciers. In almost every Ro- 
 mish Republican state in Switzerland the profession of Protes- 
 tantism is followed by the loss of the rights of citizenship, as 
 well as incapacity to fill any public office in the state. I speak 
 the language of a Swiss citizen himself, Avho reminds me of 
 the example of his own Christian friend, M. Pfyftcr, formerly 
 a Professor of history in the College of Lucerne, but who, on 
 becoming a Protestant, lost both his place of professor and his 
 rights as a citizen. He went to live at Lausanne, a voluntary 
 exile from a country where he would inevitably be persecuted. 
 Neverthless, they have at Lucerne the most republican insti- 
 tution, they have universal suffrage, but in addition to this 
 they have Romanism and the Jesuits. Give to these agents 
 the requisite majority of votes and supremacy of power, and 
 the freaks of persecution may be even more startling and fero- 
 cious in a republic than a monarchy. Universal suffrage, once 
 fired by the spirit of intolerance, may be worse than State 
 edicts on a people with whom to hear is to obey. They wear 
 their fetters in their souls who wear them as a part of the mob 
 that forged them. Many masters are more intolerable thaii 
 one. 
 

 
 ;^^ 4 
 
 INTOLERANCE. 
 
 285 
 
 i 
 
 V 
 
 Every part of earth, every heritage of intelligent freemen, 
 that has been visited with the fires of religious persecution, and 
 every spot on earth that has not, ought to dread all approxi- 
 mation to the union of Church and State ; for power converts 
 even devotion into superstition and fanaticism, and they that 
 have got free themselves run to fasten their cast-off fetters up- 
 on others. If the Church does not persecute through the State, 
 the State will oppress the Church, will make it a political tool, 
 or nothing. Read the commentary in the Canton dc Vaud, 
 where a democratic State, not Roman Catholic, enacts the per- 
 secuting antics of the English Church and State under Queen 
 Elizaheth, while the people are permitted hy the State to mob 
 the assemblies of voluntary Christians ! Where the Church 
 relies on the State for support, it is an abject creature, fawn- 
 ing, and ready to be persecuted ; where it is apart of the State 
 by establishment, and holds the legislative and executive power, 
 it is a ferocious creature, ready to persecute ; it is the cat or 
 the tiger, as circumstances require ; it will catch mice for the 
 State, and sleep by the fire-side, or it will abide in jungles and 
 \)lay the Oriental despot. 
 
 This is not the true Church of Christ, but the Church cor- 
 rupted, fur his kingdom is not of this world. When the powers 
 of this world, instead of being sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, 
 and so put in subjection to his authority, are committed to the 
 Church and subjected to the use of the Church under her au- 
 thority, that is not the advancement of Christ's kingdom, nor 
 is that the way in which Christ's kingdom can advance ; for 
 Christ's kingdom is spiritual, in the hearts of men, and not in 
 the government of empires, which government, just so far as 
 it is committed to the Church, is but the act and voice of the 
 Tempter, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall 
 down and worship me. 
 
 All error is intolerant ; but even the Truth, if put into form 
 without love, will roast men alive with no more remorse than 
 error itself. So it is only the truth in love that can make men 
 free. Put into form, and fought for as form, without love, it 
 may make men as bitter, as violent, as malignant, as intoler- 
 ant, as any despotism of hierarchical error. Because it be- 
 
 V^
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM, 
 
 comes a selfisli tiling, a proud thing, a thing of mcum and tuum, 
 a thing of conquest, a possession of selfishness and pride. 
 
 All the fighting for truth done without love is not for God, 
 but for self and Satan. If you really love the truth, you will 
 love it under other forms besides your own ; you will not fight 
 to impose your form on others. But if you belong to a form 
 without love, and set out to extend the truth in your form, you 
 inevitably become intolerant, and if you had tlie power, you 
 would be a fierce persecutor. There is no safety for the world 
 against your intolerance, but in your weakness. 
 
 Wc want protection for our religious convictions, not only 
 against intolerance imposing an established form, not only 
 against the Church without love, the Church as an Inquisition, 
 the Church as a Despotism, but also against the intolerance of 
 the people, against the caprices of popular liberty associated 
 with power. We want a religious liberty above and separate 
 from a political liberty, and which can no more be invaded by 
 it than a man's dwelling-house can be torn down with impu- 
 nity, or a church or a city fired by a mob. This is impossible 
 when the Church is dependent on the State. The State will, 
 if it pleases, direct the Church what to teach, and how to 
 teach it, and if she refuses, will punish, will persecute. The 
 State may be the purest of republics, and yet may indulge in 
 the most atrocious despotism in matters of religion. There- 
 fore, a constitutional State must have no power to meddle with 
 religion at all, except to protect its quiet worship. The whole 
 world must inevitably come to this conclusion, and then the 
 whole world will be still. Then love will reign, and truth 
 will burn brightly. The State itself will more readily become 
 religious, when it is deprived of all power to modify and go- 
 vern religion. 
 
 How impressively are these truths illustrated by what is now 
 going on in Germany and Switzci'land ! God in his providence 
 is showing us that neither Evangelical Protestantism, nor Ro- 
 manism, nor Rationalism, whether under a republic or a des- 
 potism, can be entrusted with State power. The State cannot 
 be entrusted with power over the Church; for, some way or 
 other, it will act the tryrant. The Church cannot be entrust- 
 
 h 
 
 I
 
 'r^-^ 
 
 REGION OF LUCEllNE. 
 
 289 
 
 I 
 
 Of hilly fields and meadows, and the lake 
 With some fail- bark perhaps, whose sails light up 
 The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles 
 Of purple shadow." 
 
 Here a man, whose misfortune it may have been to be born 
 in the heartless heart of some great city, might, if it were not 
 for the demon of intolerance, find a spot for his family, to grow 
 up quietly under all the influences of nature. And if he have a 
 dear child like the Poet's, here he may muse, whether amidst 
 the Frost at Midnight, or the summer stars, and watching the 
 slumbers of his cradled infant, may say, 
 
 " Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, 
 AVtose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm. 
 Fill up the interspei-sed vacancies 
 And momentary pauses of the thought. 
 My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart 
 "With tender gladness, thus to look at thee 
 And think that thou shalt learn for other lore 
 And in fur other scenes ! For I was reared 
 In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim. 
 And saw naught lovely but the sky and stars. 
 But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze, 
 By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags 
 Of ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds. 
 Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores 
 And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear 
 The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible 
 Of that eternal language, which thy God 
 Utters, who from eternity doth teach 
 Himself in all, and all things in himself. 
 Great Universal Teacher ! He shall mould 
 Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. 
 
 " Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, 
 Whether tlie summer clothe the general earth 
 With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing 
 Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch 
 Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch 
 Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whither the eavc-drops fall. 
 Heard only in the trances of the blast, 
 Or if the secret ministry of Frost 
 Shall hang them up in silent icicles, 
 Quietly shining to the shinuig moon." 
 
 I say, were it not for the demon of intolerance, the binding 
 of the conscience in the fetters of Church and State. This is 
 12 T
 
 vO 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLQEIM. 
 
 the pest that still afflicts Switzerland, worse by far than the 
 scourge of Cretinism and the goitre, and accompanied, in this 
 re"-ion of Lucerne, with an unaccountable passion for the Jes- 
 uits, whose teachings in morality and political science are so 
 at war with the immemorial freedom of Tell's mountains. Lu- 
 cerne is one of the three towns, witb Berne and Zurich, where 
 the confederative Diet holds its sessions. It is styled " Town 
 and Republic," having a Council of One Hundred for its govern- 
 ment, divided into a daily Council of thirty-six, and the larger 
 Council of sixty -four, the whole Hundred meeting every three 
 years, or, if the daily Council require it, oftener. At the head 
 of the Council is a Chief Magistrate, called the Avoyer. The 
 number of inhabitants in the town is about 8000 Romanists, 
 and two hundred Protestants, the Protestants being excluded 
 from all participation in the rights of citizens, and only admit- 
 ted on sufferance. How different from the manner in which we 
 receive Romanists in our own country! "When will the example 
 of equal citizenship among all religionists be followed abroad 
 by Romanists towards Protestants? 
 
 There is an arsenal in Lucerne well worth visiting for its 
 historical trophies. Here you may see the very shirt of mail. 
 in which Duke Leopold of Austria was struck down at the 
 great battle of Sempach. There is also the monument of 
 Thorwaldsen to the memory of the Swiss guards, one of the 
 finest things of the kind in the world, one of the few monu- 
 ments of simple grandeur and pathos speaking at once to the 
 heart, and needing neither artist nor critic to tell you it is 
 beautiful. There are the curious old bridges, like children's 
 picture-books, amusing you much in the same manner, where 
 indeed you can scarcely get across the bridge, you are so taken 
 with examining the rude old sketches. There are all the scenes 
 of the Old Testament hanging above you, as you pass one way, 
 and all the scenes of the New as you pass the other. This 
 Scriptural bridge was 1380 feet in length, and when you are 
 tired with looking at the pictures, you may rest your eyes by 
 leaning on the parapet, and gazing over the lovely Lake, with 
 the sail-boats flitting across it, and the distant mountains tower- 
 ing above it. In the roof of another bridge are represented the 
 

 
 LIONS AT LUCERNE. 
 
 291 
 
 heroic passages of native Swiss history, and ia yet another the 
 ■whole curious array of Holbein's Dance of Death. 
 
 Wordsworth says truly that "these pictures are not to be 
 spoken of as works of Art, hut they are instruments admirably 
 aoswering the purpose for which they were designed." And 
 indeed when they were first painted, and for a long time after, 
 how deep must have been the impression made by them on the 
 people's mind and especially the hearts of the children. Fa- 
 thers and mothers with their little ones in hand, from far and 
 near, wandered up and down in these picture-hooks of the his- 
 tory of Christ and of the country, telliug their stories and their 
 lessons. It was a singular conception, and a very happy one, 
 "turning common dust into gold," and inviting every passen- 
 ger of the hridge to get more than the value of his toll (if ever 
 there was any) by thinking on his pilgrimage. Wordsworth 
 says that the sacred pictm-es are 24:0 in number. His lines are 
 beautiful, produced by the remembrance of them. 
 
 " One after one its Tablets that unfold 
 The whole design of Scripture history ; 
 From the first tasting of the fatal Tree, 
 Till the brighD star appeared in eastern skies, 
 Announcing One was born mankind to free ; 
 llis acts, his wrongs, his final sacrifice ; 
 Lessons for every heart, a Bible for all eyes. 
 
 "Long may these homely works devised of old, 
 These simple efforts of Helvetian skill, 
 Aid, with congenial influence, to uphold 
 The State, — the Country's destiny to mould; 
 Turning, for them who pass, the common dust 
 Of servile opportunity to gold ; 
 Filling the soul with sentiments august. 
 The beautiful, the brave, the holy, and the just!" 
 
 Mount Pilatusis the Storm King of tiie Lake, always brew- 
 ing mischief; and a good reason for it, according to the strange 
 old legend that ho who washed his hands of Chr.'st's blood be- 
 fore all the people, and yet delivered him up to the people, 
 drowned himself in a black lake on the top of the mountain. 
 How he came to bo there is accounted for by his being banish- 
 ed into Gaul by Tiberius, and into the mountains by Conscience. 
 There still his vexed spirit wanders, and invites the tempest. 
 
 ^^^ ^ i i^
 
 
 WANDEllINGS OF A TILGHIM 
 
 If ever in tlic nioruing sunslihio you get upon the forehonJ of 
 the mountain, you are sure to have bad weatlicr afterwards, 
 but if in the evening it is clear, this is a good prophecy. Tran- 
 slating the common proverb of the people concerning it in the 
 reverse order. 
 
 " When rilatus doffs his hat, 
 Then the weather will be wet." 
 
 But when he keeps his slouched cloud-bcaver over his brows 
 all day, you may expect fair weather for your excursions, the 
 storm-spirit not being abroad, but brooding. 
 
 ■>-jQ 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 ASCENT OF THE RIGHI. — EXTRAORDINARY GLORY OF THE VIEW. 
 
 If you are favoured with a fine clear sunrise, then, of all excur- 
 sions from Lucerne, that to the summit of the Righi is unri- 
 valled in the world for its beauty. It is comparatively rare 
 that travellers are so favoured, and the Guide-books warn you 
 not to be disappointed, by quoting, as the more common fate, 
 the sad Orphic ululatlon of some stricken poet, who came down 
 ignorant of sunrise, but well acquainted with the rain. 
 
 Seven weary up-hill leagues we sped, 
 
 The setting sun to see ; 
 Sullen and grim he went to bed, 
 
 Sullen and grim went we. 
 Nine sleepless hours of night we passed 
 
 The rising sun to see; 
 Suller, and grim ho rose again, 
 
 Sullen and grim rose we." 
 
 After hesitating some days, because of unpromising responses 
 from the cloud-sybils, we at length resolved to try it, for the 
 ascent is worth making, at all events. We chose the way 
 across the Lake by the village of Weggis, which place we 
 reached by a lovely sail in a small boat with two rowers, a 
 thousand-fold pleasanter way, and more in keeping with the 
 wild sequestered scenery, than a noisj crowded steamer. There 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 "^^^^
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 In 
 
 I 
 
 arc several other routes, as you may learn by the Guide books, 
 but I shall mention only ours. Landing at Weggis, you im- 
 mediately commence the ascent of the mountain, fatiguing to 
 the uttermost on a warm afternoon, hut filled with views all 
 tlie way up, of Lake and snowy mount, and wild-wood scenery, 
 beautiful enough to pay you abundantly, even if you saw no- 
 thing at the summit but the ground you tread upon. We made 
 our ascent in the afternoon, so as to be upon the mountain by 
 night, all ready for the morning's glorious spectacle ; but it 
 would have been far more comfortable to have come up one 
 morning, and stayed till the next. 
 
 The sunset was one of extraordinary splendour, as regards 
 the clouds and their colouring in the golden West, and we en- 
 joyed also a very extensive view, but not tlte view. We had 
 set out from Lucerne with a burden of forebodings, almost every 
 party that had made the ascent for weeks having returned with 
 a load of disappointments; and though the evening was now 
 fine, the next morning might be cloudy. It is an excursion 
 for which you must have clear weather, or, as to the particular 
 scene of glory for which you make it, which is the sunrise upon 
 the vast range of mountains visible from the Righi, it is nothing. 
 An ordinarily fine morning will not answer; you must have a 
 clear sky the moment the sun rises into it. Though the whole 
 heavens besides be fair, yet if there happen to be a stripe or bank 
 of cloxids lying along the eastern horizon, your sport is up, you 
 lose the great spectacle. The fog, which sometimes breeds in 
 fine weather, is still more destructive. You might as well be 
 abed under your blanket. So it may easily be conceived that 
 of the many thousands, who travel thither, very few obtain the 
 object of their journey. Nevertheless, in other respects, as I 
 have said, the mountain is well worth ascending. A clear sun- 
 set, together with the prospects bursting on you in your way 
 up, are rewards to give a day for, and a liard journey. 
 
 The brow of tlic mountain is as perpendicular as Arthur's 
 Crag at Edinburgh, almost cresting over like the sea- surf, or 
 a wave in mid-ocean. In the evening, walking along the edge 
 of the precipice, the vast scene is of a deej) and solemn beauty, 
 though you are waiting for the duv.n to reveal its several foa- 
 
 i'^
 
 ^k 
 
 ^jfC 
 
 294 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 tures. The lights in so many villages far below, over so great 
 an extent, produce a wild and magic picturesqueness. There 
 at our left is Lucerne, here at our feet is Kussnacht, a few 
 steps to the right and Arth is below you, with many glancing 
 lights in the surrounding chalets. The evening church bells 
 are ringing, and the sound comes undulating upward, so deep, 
 BO musical! Thei'e is no moon, but the stars are out, and me- 
 thinks they look much brighter, more startling, more earnest, 
 than they do from the world below. How far we are above 
 that world! How pure and still the air around us! Is the 
 soul as much elevated towards the air of heaven? Ah, if by 
 climbing a mountain top we could become spiritually-minded, 
 liow easy would it be! But we have brought the self-same 
 mind and disposition up the Righi, that sailed with our bodies 
 across the Lake, and there is the same moral atmosphere here 
 as in the world below. There is no place lower than heaven 
 that is above sin; and here we are at least a hundred people in 
 all, and room enough for selfishness, were it only in elbowing 
 for room. 
 
 The summit where we are is called the Culm of the Righi, 
 because it is the culminating or highest point, running up with 
 a tm*f-covered slope, to the wave-like summit. A few steps 
 down the slope stands the little inn, with a second rough lod- 
 ging house below, though all accommodations are insufficient for 
 the crowd of sleepers waiting for the sun. Half an hour's walk 
 farther down, upon a lower summit, there is another inn, from 
 which those who spend the night there do generally issue too 
 late from their beds to arrive at the summit with the dawn, and 
 so lose the finest part of the vision. We slept little and un- 
 quietly, and we rose while the stars were still bright, but be- 
 ginning to pale a little in the East with the breaking light of 
 day ; and no man who has not been in the same situation can tell 
 the delight with which we threw open the windows, and found a 
 clear fresh glorious morning. The sentinel of the dawn for the 
 sleepers in the inn seized his long wooden horn, and blew a 
 blast in doors and out to waken them, and then one after ano- 
 ther emerged into the open air, and hastened to the top of the 
 mountain to watch the movements of the sun. It was \erj 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
 m^ 
 
 4i 
 
 / 
 
 M
 
 
 SUNRISE ON THE RIGHI. 
 
 cold, and the travellers -who liad come away without cloaks liad 
 committed a most uncomfortable and nipping mistake, which 
 they sometimes rectify hy wrapping themselves in the blankets 
 under which they have slept ; a practice which has suggested 
 theintiiuation, in form of a warning, to be found in every room, 
 that those who carry off the bed coverings shall pay a tax of 
 ten batz each. So in a very cold dawn you may see the moun- 
 tains covered with shivering blanket spectres. 
 
 It was the sixth of September, and the most perfectly beau- 
 tiful morning that can be imagined. At a quarter past three 
 the stars were reigning supreme in the heavens with just enough 
 of the old moon left to make a trail of light in the shape of a 
 little silver boat among them. But speedily the horizon began 
 to redden over the eastern range of mountains, and then the 
 dawn stole on in such a succession of deepening tints, that no- 
 thing but the hues of the preceding sunset could be more beau- 
 tiful. But there is this great difference between the sunrise 
 and sunset, that the hues of sunset are every moment deepening 
 as you look upon them, until again they fade into the darkness, 
 while those of the sunrise gradually fade into the light of day. 
 It is difficult to say which process is most beautiful ; for if you 
 could make everything stand still around you, if you could 
 stereotype or stay the process for an hour, you could not tell 
 •whether it were the morning dawn or the evening twilight. 
 
 A few long, thin stripes of fleecy cloud lay motionless above 
 the eastern horizon, like layers of silver lace, dipped first in 
 crimson, then in gold, then in pink, then lined Avith an ermine 
 of light, just as if the moon had been lengthened in soft fur- 
 rows along the sky. This scene in the East attracts every eye 
 at first, but it is not here that the glory of the view is to be 
 looked for. This glory is in that part of the horizon on which 
 the sun first falls, as he struggles up behind the mountains to 
 flood the world with light. And the reason why it is so glori- 
 ous is because, long before you call it sunrise in the East, he 
 liglits up in the West a range of colossal pyres, tliat look like 
 blazing cressets kindled from the sky and fed with naptha. 
 
 Tbe object most conspicuous as the dawn broke, and indeed 
 the most sublimely beautiful, was the vast enormous range of
 
 296 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 the snowy mountains of the Oberland, without spot or vail of 
 cloud or mist to dim them, the Finsteraarhorn at the left and 
 the Jungfrau and Silherhorn at the right, peak after peak and 
 mass after mass, glittering with a cold wintry whiteness in the 
 gray dawn. Almost the exact half of the circumference of the 
 horizon commanded before and behind in our view, was filled 
 with these peaks and masses of snow and ice, then lower down, 
 the mountains of bare rock, and lower still the earth with 
 mounts of verdure; and this section of the horizontal circum- 
 ference, which is filled with the vast ranges of the Oberland 
 Alps, being almost due West from the sun's first appearance, 
 it is on their tops that the rising rays first strike. 
 
 This was the scene for which we watched, and it seems as 
 if nothing in nature can ever again be so beautiful. It was 
 as if an angel had flown round the horizon of mountain ranges, 
 and lighted up each of their white pyramidal points in suc- 
 cession, like a row of gigantic lamps burning with rosy fires. 
 Just so the sun suddenly tipped the highest points and lines 
 of the snowy outline, and then, descending lower on the body 
 of the mountains, it was as if an invisible Omnipotent hand 
 had taken them, and dipped the whole range in a glowing pink; 
 the line between the cold snow untouched by the sunlight, and 
 the warm roseate hue above, remaining perfectly distinct. 
 This efi'ect continued some minutes, becoming, up to a certain 
 point, more and more beautiful. 
 
 We were like children in a dark room, watching for the light- 
 ing up of some great transparency. Or, to use that image with 
 Avhich the Poet Dante endeavoured to describe the expectant 
 gaze of Beatrice in Paradise, awaiting the splendours to be re- 
 vealed, we might say, connecting some passages, and adapting 
 the imagery, 
 
 " E'en as the bird wlio midst the leafy bower 
 Has in her nest sat darkling through the night. 
 With her sweet brood ; impatient to descry 
 Their wished looks, and to bring home their food 
 In the fond quest unconscious of her toil: 
 She of the time prevenient, on the spray 
 That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze 
 Expects the sun; nor ever till the dawn
 
 ■•cl 
 
 1 
 
 Removeth from the east her eager ken. 
 Wistfully thus we looked to see the heavens 
 Wax more and more resplendent, till on earth 
 Her mountain peaks burned as with rosy flame. 
 
 'Twixt gladness and amaze 
 In sooth no will had we to utter ought, 
 Or hear. And as a pilgrim, when he rests 
 Within the temple of his vow, looks round. 
 In breathless awe, and hopes some time to tell 
 Of all its goodly state; even so our eyes 
 Coursed up and down along the living light, 
 Now low, and now aloft, and now around 
 Visiting every stop. Each mount did seem 
 Colossal ruby, whereon so inwrought 
 The sunbeam glowed, yet soft, it flamed intense 
 In ectasy of glory." 
 
 In truth no word was uttered when that scene became visible. 
 Each person gazed in silence, or spake as in a whisper. It 
 was as if we witnessed some supernatural revelation, where 
 mighty spirits were the actors between earth and heaven ; 
 
 " With such ravishing light 
 And mantling crimson, in transparent air, 
 The splendours shot before us." 
 
 And yet a devout soul might have almost felt, seeing those fires 
 kindled as on the altars of God made visible, as if it heard the 
 voices of Seraphim crying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of 
 Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory! For indeed, the 
 vision was so radiant, so full of sudden, vast, and unimaginable 
 beauty and splendour, that methinks a phalanx of the Sons of 
 God, who might have been passing at that moment, could not 
 have helped stopping and shouting for joy as on the morning 
 of creation. 
 
 This was the transient view, which to behold, one might well 
 undertake a voyage across the Atlantic ; — of a glory and a 
 beauty indescribable, and no where else in the world to be en- 
 joyed, and here only in perfect weather. After these few mo- 
 ments, when the sun rose so high, that the whole masses of snow 
 upon the mountain ranges were lighted with the same rosy light, 
 it f^rew rapidly fainter, till you could no longer distinguish the 
 deep exquisite pink and rosy hues by means of their previous 
 contrast with tbe cold white. Next the sun's rays fell upon 
 
 A 
 
 ^
 
 M^^^^^tA 
 
 -^ 
 
 ^^ \i 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 the bare rodij peaks, wlierc lliei'c was neither snow nor vegeta- 
 tation, making them shine hke jasper, and next on the forests 
 and soft grassy slopes, and so down into the deep bosom of the 
 vales. The pyramidal shadow cast by the Righi mountain was 
 most distinct and beautiful, but the atmospheric phenomenon 
 of the Spectre of the Righi was not visible. 
 
 This amazing panorama is said to extend over a circumfer- 
 ence of oOO miles. In all this region, -when the upper glory of 
 the heavens and mountain peaks has ceased playing, then, as 
 the sun gets higher, forests, lakes, hills, rivers, trees, and villa- 
 ges, at first indistinct and gray in shadows, become flooded 
 with sunshine, and almost seem floating up towards you. 
 There was for us another feature of the view, constituting by 
 itself one of the most novel and charming sights of Swiss 
 scenery, but which does not always accompany the panorama 
 from the Righi, even in a fine morning. On Earth, the morning 
 may be too fine. This was the soft smooth white body of mist, 
 lying on most of the lakes and on the vales, a sea of mist, float- 
 ing, or rather brooding, like a white doA-e, over the landscape. 
 The spots of land at first visible in the midst of it were just 
 like islands half emerging to the view. It lay over the bay of 
 Kussnacht at our feet, like the white robe of an infant in the 
 cradle, but the greater part of the Lake of Lucerne was sleep- 
 ing quietly without it, as an undressed babe. Over the whole 
 of the Lake of Zug the mist was at first motionless, but in the 
 breath of the morning it began slowly to move altogether to- 
 wards the West, disclosing the village of Arth and the verdu^ 
 rous borders of the Lake, and then uncovering its deep sea-green 
 waters; which reflected the lovely sailing shadows of the clouds 
 as a mirror. 
 
 Now the church bells began to chime under this body of 
 mist, and voices from the invisible villages, mingled with tlie 
 tinkle of sheep-bells, and the various stir of life awakening from 
 sleep, came stilly up the mountain. And now some of the 
 mountain peaks themselves began suddenly to be touched with 
 fleeces of cloud, as if smoking with incense in morning wor- 
 ship. Detachments of mist begin also to rise from the lakes 
 and valleys, moving from the main body up into the air, Tire 
 
 r^ 
 
 V 
 
 n^o^ 
 
 
 ^
 
 kV 
 
 SUNRISE ON THE RIGIII. 
 
 villages, clialets, and white roads, dotting and threading the 
 vast circumference of landscape, come nest into view. And 
 now on the Lake of Zug you may see reflected the shadows of 
 clouds that have risen from the surface, hut are themselves he- 
 low us. 
 
 It is said you can see fourteen lakes from the place where 
 we are standing. I counted at least twelve last evening, hefore 
 the night-vail of the mist had heen drawn ahove them, hut this 
 morning the goings on in the heavens have been too beautiful 
 and grand to take the time for counting them, and besides they 
 are too much enveloped with the slow-retiring fogs to detect 
 them. On the side of the Righi under the eastern horizon you 
 behold the little Lake of Lowertz, with the ruins of the village 
 of Goldau, destroyed by the slide of the Rossherg, and you 
 trace distinctly the path of the destroying avalanche, the vast 
 groove of bare rock where the mountain separated and thun- 
 dered down the vale. A little beyond are the beautiful peaks 
 of Schwytz, called the Mitres. 
 
 All this wondrous panorama is before us. Whatever side 
 we turn, new points of beauty are dieclosed. As the day ad- 
 vances, every image, fully defined, draws to its perfect place 
 in the picture. A cloudless noon, with its still solemnity, 
 would make visible, for a short time, every height and depth, 
 every lake, mountain, town, streamlet, and village, that the 
 eye could reach from this position, and then would pass again 
 the lovely successive transitions of shade deepening into shade, 
 and colours richlier burning, into the blaze of sunset, and the 
 soft melancholy twilight, till nothing could be seen from our 
 high position but the stars in heaven. In a few hours we have 
 witnessed, as on a central observatory, what the poet Young 
 
 calls 
 
 " the .-xstonisliing magnificence 
 
 Of unintelligent creation," 
 
 from the numerous worlds that throng the firmament at mid- 
 night, 
 
 " wliere depth, bcight, breadth, 
 Are lost in their extremes, and where to count 
 The tliick-sown glories in this field of fire 
 Perhaps a seraph's computation fails."
 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 to tlie beauty and suLlimitj of oui- own small world, revealed 
 when theirs is hidden, in the break of dawn, and revealed with 
 such an array of morning splendour, that not even Night and 
 the universe of stars can be for the moment a more entrancing 
 spectacle ! 
 
 And for whom hath God arranged all this ? Not for the 
 angels alone, but for every eye that looks to him in love, for 
 the humblest mind and heart that can look abroad and say. 
 My Father made them all ! He made them, that his children 
 might love him in them, and know him by them. 
 
 " The soul of man. His face designed to see, 
 Who gave these wonders to be seen by man, 
 lias here a previous scene of objects great 
 On which to dwell; to stretch to tliat expanse 
 Of thought, to rise to that exalted height 
 Of admiration, to contract that awe. 
 And give her whole capacities that strength 
 Which best may qualify for final joy. 
 The more our spirits are enlarged on eai-th. 
 The deeper draught they shall receive of heaven. 
 Tliou, who didst touch the lips of Jesse's son. 
 Rapt in sweet contemplation of those fires, 
 And set his harp in concert with the spheres, 
 Teach me, by this stupendous scaffolding, 
 Creation's golden steps, to climb to Thee !" 
 
 Young. 
 Before such a scene how ought the heart to expand with 
 the love of God and the adoration of his glory! Waken, my 
 soul, to morning worship with the whole creation around thee, 
 and breathe forth, with all the works of God, the breath of 
 gratitude and praise. What a scene is this I How beautiful, 
 how beautiful ! And if our hearts ivere in perfect unison with 
 it, if there were within us a spiritual scenery, the work of di- 
 vine grace, as fitting as this material, the creation of divine 
 power, heaven with its purity and blessedness would not be far 
 off from every one of us. And why should the light of the 
 rising sun kindle earth and heaven into a smile so transcend- 
 eutly beautiful, and our souls not be enkindled in like manner 
 in their horizon of spiritual glory ? We need divine grace to 
 take away our blindness. This rosy flame, into which the cold
 
 ^^ 
 
 w 
 
 SUNRISE ON THE HIGIII. 
 
 301 
 
 y 
 
 snowy mountain tops seemed sudtleu]j changed bj the sun up 
 on them, was a symbol of what takes place with the truths of 
 tlie Word of God, when the Spirit breathes upon them and 
 brings them to the soul. Then how they shine, with what 
 lovely warmth of colouring, with what intense exciting bright- 
 ness, with what interpenetrating glory, by which the soul itself 
 is transfigured and raised to heaven ! So must God shine in- 
 to our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of his glory, 
 as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. When this is done, 
 then all things are filled with meaning and love. 
 
 And this whole scene of Night giving place to Morning, 
 poured like a flood over the wide earth, viewed from a height 
 so commanding, may bring forcibly to mind the glory of the 
 rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon the nations, the light 
 and holiness of the Gospel poured over the world and trans- 
 figuring its tribes and institutions with blessedness. From 
 their post of observation in heaven, methiuks celestial intelli- 
 geucies enjoy something such a view, as they see Christ's king- 
 dom advancing, the troops of Darkness fleeing, the mists of 
 Error rolling from the earth, the shrines of idolatry falling, 
 the true temples of God everywhere rising, nation after nation 
 coming to the light, the world awakening to God's praise re- 
 sounding. From every clime they come, in every zone they 
 kneel, from continents and islands, in sun-burned Ethiopia 
 and ice-clad Greenland, Eastern Java, and the natives of the 
 farthest West, unfettered Africa and China from the thraldom 
 of her gods. 
 
 " One Lord, one Father ! Error has no place ; 
 That creeping pestilence is driven away ; 
 The breath of heaven lias chased it. In the heart 
 No passion touches a discordant string. 
 One song employs all nations, and all cry 
 Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us ! 
 The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
 Shout to each other, and the mountain tops 
 From distant mountains catch the flying joy, 
 Till, nation after nation taught the strain, 
 Earth rolls tlie rapturous hosanna round !'
 
 LDCERNE TO EINSEIDLEN. — DR. ZAY S IIISTOHY OF TUB ROSSUERQ 
 AVALANCnE. 
 
 We left Lucerne at five o'clock in the morning, that is, myself 
 and an English clergyman, whom I had promised at Geneva 
 to meet at Lucerne and travel with him into Italy, down the 
 pass of the Splugen. We were dropped by the steamer at the 
 village of Bi-unnen in the Canton of Schwytz, near the little 
 republic of Gersau, the whole of which occupied one village, 
 and a principality of a few acres. The old town of Schwytz, 
 from which the country of Switzerland takes its name, a town 
 of old heroic remembrances and valorous men, is most roman- 
 tically situated at the foot of those curious hierarchical moun- 
 tains called the Mitres. We entered the old church, looked 
 into the town-house with its interesting antique portraits, of 
 real ancestral nobility, passed the Mitres and the Goldau lake, 
 and the Rossberg avalanche, and wound our way towards the 
 curacy of Zwingle and the Abbey of Einseidlcu. There is 
 much food for reflection all the way, as well as much natural 
 beauty for enjoyment. A few mornings ago we were overlook- 
 ing all this scene from the summit of the Rigbi, how beauti- 
 ful ! But is there one spot in all this world of ours where the 
 thought of beauty is not linked sooner or later with that of 
 pain and death ? 
 
 No man can pass this Rossberg mountain without tlnnkinf^- 
 of tlie dread catastrophe that here, only a few years ago, over- 
 whelmed in so vast a burial three or four whole lovely villages 
 at once ; — one of the most terrible natural convulsions in all the 
 history of Switzerland. Four hundred and fifty- seven persons 
 are said to have perished beneath this mighty avalanche. The 
 place out of which it broke in the mountain is a thousand feet in 
 breadth by a hundred feet deep, and this falling mass extended 
 bodily at least three miles in length. It shot across the valley 
 with the swiftness of a cannon-ball, so that in five minutes tl e 
 villages were all crushed as if they had been egg-shells, or the 
 mimic toys of children. And when the people looked towards 
 
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 HF'
 
 4 
 
 the luxuriant vale, where the towns had lain smiling and se- 
 cure, the whole region was a mass of smoking ruins. It makes 
 one think of the sight that met the ejes of Ahraham, when 
 " he got up early in the morning to the place where he stood 
 before the Lord," and all the country, where the cities of the 
 plain had been, was as the smoke and scurf of a furnace. 
 
 But this history ought not to be related in any other language 
 than the simple and powerful narrative of Dr. Zay, of the neigh- 
 bouring village of Arth, an eye-witness of the tremendous spec- 
 tacle. I shall give his words, even though they may be fami- 
 liar to my readers; a paraphrase would not be half so interest- 
 ing. 
 
 "The summer of 1806," says he, "had been very rainy, 
 and on the first and second of September it rained incessantly. 
 New crevices were observed in the flank of the mountain, a 
 sort of cracking noise was heard internally, stones started out 
 of the ground, detached fragments of rocks rolled down the 
 mountain; at two o'clock in the afternoon of the second of Sep- 
 tember, a large rock became loose, and in falling raised a cloud 
 of black dust. Toward the lower part of the mountain, the 
 ground seemed pressed down from above ; and Avhen a stick or 
 a spade was driven in, it moved of itself. A man, who had 
 been digging in his garden, ran away frora fright at these 
 extraordinary appearances ; soon a fissure, larger than all the 
 others, was observed ; insensibly it encreased ; springs of Avater 
 ceased all at once to flow; the pine-trees of the forest absolutely 
 reeled; birds flew away screaming. A few minutes before five 
 o'clock, the symptoms of some mighty catastrophe became still 
 stronger ; the whole surface of the mountain seemed to glide 
 down, but so slowly as to aff'ord time to the inhabitants to go 
 away. An old man, who had often predicted some such disas- 
 ter, was quietly smoking his pipe, when told by a young man, 
 running by, that the mountain was in the act of falling ; ho 
 rose and looked out, but came into his house again, saying ho 
 had time to fill another pipe. The young man, continuing to 
 fly, was thrown down several times, and escaped with difficulty; 
 looking back, he saw the house carried off" all at once. 
 
 "Another inhabitant, being alarmed, took two of his chll- 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 -^^S
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 (Ircu and ran away witli tlicm, calling to his wife to follow with 
 the third ; but she went in for another who still remained (Ma- 
 rianna, aged five): just then, Francisca Ulrich, their servant, 
 was crossing the room with this Marianna, whom she held by 
 the hand, and saw her mistress ; at that instant, as Francisca 
 afterwards said, ' The house appeared to be torn from its foun- 
 dation (it was of wood), and spun round and round like a tcto- 
 tum ; I was sometimes on my liead, sometimes on my feet, in 
 total darkness, and violently separated from the child.' When 
 the motion stopped, she found herself jammed in on all sides, 
 with her head downwards, much bruised, and in extreme pain. 
 She supposed she was buried alive at a great depth; with much 
 difficulty she disengaged her right hand, and wiped the blood 
 from her eyes. Presently she heard the faint moans of Mari- 
 anna, and called to her by her name; the child answered that 
 she was on her back among stones and bushes which held her 
 fast, but that her hands were free, and that she saw the light, 
 and even something green. She asked whether people would 
 not soon come to take them out. Francisca answered that it 
 was the day of judgment, and that no one was left to help 
 them, but that they would be released by death, and be happy 
 in heaven. They prayed together. At last Francisca's ear 
 was struck by the sound of a bell, which she knew to be that 
 of Steinenberg : then seven o'clock struck in another village, 
 then she began to hope there were still living beings, and en- 
 deavoured to comfort the child. The poor little girl was at 
 first clamorous for her supper, but her cries soon became fain- 
 ter, and at last quite died away. Francisca, still with her head 
 downwards, and surrounded with damp earth, experienced a 
 sense of cold in her feet almost insupportable. After prodi- 
 gious efforts she succeeded in disengaging her legs, and thinks 
 this saved her life. Many hours had passed in this situation, 
 when she again heard the voice of Marianna, who had been 
 asleep, and now renewed her lamentations. In the meantime, 
 the unfortunate father, who, with much difficulty, had saved 
 himself and two children, wandered about till daylight, when 
 he came among the ruins to look for the rest of his family. 
 He soon discovered his wife, by a foot Avhich appeared above 
 
 i 
 
 i)f 
 
 4 

 
 STORY OP THE AVALANCHi:. 
 
 ground : she was dead, with a child in her arms. Ilis cries, 
 and the noise he made in digging, were heard hy Marianna, 
 who called out. She was extricated with a broken thigh, and, 
 saying that Francisca was not far ofF, a farther search led to 
 her release also, hut in such a state that her life was despau-ed 
 of: she was blind for some days, and remained subject to con- 
 vulsive fits of terror. It appeared that the house, or themselves 
 at least, had been carried down about one thousand five hundred 
 feet from where it stood before. 
 
 " In another place, a child two years old was found unhurt, 
 lying on its straw mattress upon the mud, without any vestige 
 of the house from which he had been separated. Such a mass 
 of earth and stones rushed at once into the Lake of Lowertz, 
 although five miles distant, that one end of it was filled up, 
 and a prodigious wave passing completely over the island of 
 Schwanau, seventy feet above the usual level of the water, 
 overwhelmed the opposite shore, and, as it returned, swept away 
 into the lake many houses with their inhabitants. The village 
 of Seewen, situated at the farther end, was inundated, and 
 some houses washed away, and the flood carried live fish into 
 the village of Steinen. The chapel of Olten, built of wood, 
 was found half a league from the place it had previously occu- 
 pied, and many large blocks of stone completely changed their 
 position. 
 
 " The most considerable of the villages overwhelmed in the 
 vale of Arth was Goldau, and its name is now affixed to the 
 whole melancholy story and place. I shall relate only one 
 more incident : — A party of eleven travellers from Berne, be- 
 longing to the most distinguished families there, arrived at 
 Arth on the second of September, and set off on foot for the 
 Righi a few minutes before the catastrophe. Seven of them 
 had got about two hundred yards a-head, — the other four saw 
 them entering the village of Goldau, and one of the latter, Mr. 
 H. Jenner, pointing out to the rest the sunmiit of the Rossberg 
 (full four miles off in a straight line), where some strange com- 
 motion seemed taking place, which they themselves (the four 
 behind) were observing with a telescope, and had entered into 
 conversation on the subject with some strangers just come up; 
 12 U 
 
 ^ 
 
 (CL- 
 
 ^
 
 '^X £^ 
 
 -4*1 
 
 ^ 
 
 i^ 
 i 
 
 WANDKRINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 when, all at once, a flight of stones, like cannon-balls, traversed 
 the air above their heads ; a cloud of thick dust obscured the 
 Valley; a frightful noise was heard. They fled! As soon as 
 the obscurity was so far dissipated as to make objects discer- 
 nable, they sought their friends, but the village of Goldau had 
 disappeared under a heap of stones and rubbish one hundred 
 feet in height, and the whole valley presented nothing but a 
 perfect chaos ! Of the unfortunate survivors, one lost a wife 
 to whom he was just married, one a son, a third the two pupils 
 under his care : all researches to discover their remains were, 
 and have ever since been, fruitless. Nothing is left of Goldau 
 but the bell which hung in its steeple, and which was found 
 about a mile off. With the rocks torrents of mud came down, 
 acting as rolJers: but they took a different direction when in 
 the valley, the mud following the slope of the ground towards 
 the lake of Lowertz, while the rocks preserving a straight 
 coin-se, glanced across the valley towards the Righi. The 
 rocks above, moving much faster than those near the ground, 
 went farther, and ascended even a great way up the Righi : its 
 base is covered with large blocks carried to an incredible height, 
 and by which trees were mowed down as they might have been 
 by cannon." 
 
 The people of Goldau are said to have possessed such inte- 
 resting qualities of person and manners, such purity and sim- 
 plicity of domestic life, as well corresponded with the loveliness 
 of their native village and its surrounding scenery. How 
 strange and awful seems under such circumstances the transi- 
 tion from Time into Eternity! No thought was there of death, 
 no effort of preparation, no moment of prayer, but a swift, 
 dread crash, a wild surprise, and those overtaken souls were in 
 the world of spirits! What a lesson for the living! Yet its 
 power is all taken away, in all probability, with the race re- 
 maining, and with the crowd of visitors annually passing, its 
 power as a lesson of sudden death, by the mere fact that death 
 under the same circumstances is not likely to be the lot of those 
 now living. No, answers the lesson, not perhaps under the 
 same circumstances ; but the solemnity of the event is not in 
 its circumstances, and your own death may be as sudden, though 
 
 ■■^ ^ ■^^j ^ g'y? 
 
 I
 
 BATTLE-FIELD OF MORGARTEN. 
 
 yoii may not be buried under a mountain. It is sudden death, 
 not the being crushed by an avalanche, that is so awful. 
 Wherefore, as you stand upon this great grave, and moralize 
 over it, remembering perhaps the prayer, From sudden death, 
 God, deliver us ! — pray also that you may be prepared for 
 sudden death, for it may come to you at your own fireside. 
 Endeavoui*, by Christ's grace, so to live, that death cannot be 
 sudden to you, whenever or however he may come. 
 
 Those are most striking and appropriate lines of an old poet, 
 telling us that though God has promised grace for repentance, 
 he has not promised time, but always says now. Good stanzas 
 they are for our pilgrimage, whether we be at home or abroad, 
 a precious word of wisdom. 
 
 " Early set forth on thine eternal race ; 
 
 The ascent is steep and craggy; thou must climb 
 God at all times has promised sinners grace 
 ^ they repent; — but He ne'er promised time. 
 
 Cheat not thyself, as most, who then prepare 
 For Death, when life is almost turned to fume : 
 One thief was saved, that no man need despair, 
 And hut one thief, that no one might presume." 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 MORGARTEN, SEMFACH, AND ARNOLD OF WINKELRIED. 
 
 On our way from Schwytz to Einseidlen, a short romantic 
 walk from the main road, lies the battle-field of Morgarten, on 
 the borders of the little Lake of Egerie, a spot next after Sem- 
 pach, famous in the heroic ages of Swiss history. We have 
 passed the scene of a great convulsion of nature, a mountain 
 tumbling from its base, and "rocking its Alpine brethren;" 
 but what was this, or a hundred such avalanches, to the war 
 of human passion ? Is it not strange that we stand over the 
 ruins of a volcano, on the grave of buried cities, or where a 
 mountain has fallen on a hamlet and think so much of the loss 
 of life, and the sorrow and pain and dread of sudden death, and 
 the universal niourninf!,- of survivors, but can visit a battle- 
 
 ^
 
 \ 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIJt. 
 
 field, where death revelled with infinitely more of horror and 
 furj, and think of nothing but glory! This avalanche of men 
 at ^lorgarten was the death of thousands, whirled in a storm 
 of passion out of life, with desolating anguish and ruin to thou- 
 sands more; but men gaze at the scene of the conflict, and think 
 only of the heroism of the living avalanche. 
 
 True, it was a battle against tyranny, and William Tell and 
 Walter Furst are said to have been there ; so, no wonder that 
 the Swiss fought so terribly; but still it was war, savage, fierce, 
 remorseless war. And war for ages was almost the habitual 
 school of the Swiss Cantons. This great victory may well be 
 called the "Marathon of Swiss history, the conquest of twenty 
 thousand Austrians by a band of only thirteen hundred men of 
 the mountains, a rushing, crashing ruin like a whirlwind. It 
 took place in the year 1315. A little commemorative chapel 
 stands above the lake, overhung by a rocky hill, from which 
 the scene is all before you ; but it is very difiicult to conceive 
 the position of the armies. The thirteen hundred hung like a 
 small thunder-cloud on the heights above the lake, and the 
 twenty thousand were mailed and crowded along the narrow 
 strand below. The men of Schwytz were the leaders of tho 
 patriots, joined with four hundred from XJri, and three hundred 
 from Unterwalden, and after this day, the name Swiss desig- 
 nated the confederacy and the country — ScnwiTZEii-LAND. 
 
 Seventy-one years afterwards, not far from the same region, 
 on the borders of the Lake of Scmpach, against the same Aus- 
 trian enemies, one man, Arnold of Winkelried, gained a like 
 victory in 1386, by his own self-devotion, at the head of about 
 fourteen hundred men. The poet Wordsworth has finely con- 
 nected his memory with Toll's, at the shrine of patriotism niid 
 
 religion. 
 
 " Thither, in time of .adverse sliocks, 
 Of fainting hopes .and backward wills, 
 Did mighty Tell repair of old, — 
 A Hero cast in Nature's mould. 
 Deliverer of the steadfast rocks, 
 And of the ancient hills ! 
 
 lie too, of battle martyrs chief! 
 Wlio, to recall his daunted peer.^. 
 For victory shaped an open space. 
 By gathering with a wide embr.ico, 
 
 4:
 
 ARNOLD OF WINKELRIED. 
 
 Into his single heart, a sheaf, 
 Of fatal Austrian spears." 
 
 It was indeed an amazing act of self-sacrificing courage, 
 tbat lias no parallel whatever in the history of battles. We 
 Avill let Zschokke tell the story in prose, and then proceed upon 
 our interrupted pilgrimage. " It was the season of harvest, 
 when the sun darted his beams with great ardour. After a 
 short prostration in prayer, the Swiss arose ; their numbers 
 were four hundred men from Lucerne, nine hundred from the 
 Waldstetten, and about a hundred from Glaris and other places. 
 Uniting now their forces, they precipitated themselves with 
 great impetuosity upon the impregnable Austrian phalanx : 
 but not a man yielded to the shock. The Swiss fell one after 
 another; numbers lay bleeding on the ground; their whole force 
 began to waver, when suddenly a voice like thunder exclaimed 
 • I will open a passage to freedom; faithful and beloved confe- 
 derates, protect only my wife and children! ' These words of 
 Arnold Struthan of Winkelried, a knight of Unterwalden, were 
 no sooner uttered than he seized with both arms as many of the 
 enemy^s speais as he was able, buried them in his body, and sank to 
 the ground, while the confederates rushed forward through the 
 breach over his corpse." Nothing now could withstand the 
 torrent ; helmets, arms, all, were demolished by the blows of 
 their clubs. Hundreds of mailed warriors and nobles went down, 
 and Duke Leopold of Austria fell lifeless. Thousands perish- 
 ed in retreat, and the little band remained victorious and free, 
 to bless the devotion of Arnold of Winkelried, and to cherish 
 the legacy of his patriotism, and the fireside of his wife and 
 children. Nothing like this is to be found either in ancient or 
 modern history, and rightly pondered, what a lesson of self- 
 sacrifice it reads to the patriot and the Christian ! 
 
 I-C5^ 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 PILGRIMAGE 01' EINSEIDLEN AND WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN. 
 
 EiNSEiDLEN constitutes the very head quarterH of the worship 
 of the Virgin Mary. All day long, if you como into the
 
 .^■ ^ ir^ j .. 
 
 WANDERINGS 01' A PILGRIM. 
 
 region as we did, nigh about the season for the great annual 
 worshipping festival, or virginal levee, you will meet pilgrims 
 on the roads in every direction, hurrying thither or returning 
 from the shrine; old men and robust peasants, maidens and 
 little children, troops of old women telling their beads and re- 
 peating their prayers, as they tramp along the wet road, as if 
 praying for a wager. What an intense, haggard zeal is de- 
 picted in some of their countenances; their lips move, and they 
 do not look at you, but hurry on undistracted fi-om their great 
 work, for they probably have a certain number of Aves to re- 
 peat, or perhaps a bead roll of prayers so constructed, that if 
 they miss one, they must go over the whole again from the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 And is this religion ? Is it (aur/ht for religion by beings 
 who have heard of Jesus Christ, and of the Sacred Scriptures, 
 and of the character of God ? Is this the influence of the Virgin 
 Mary upon the soul ? Do men expect thus to climb to heaven ? 
 Pass on to the great building, the spacious Temple of the Vir- 
 gin, and you will see. It is a vast and gaudy church withiu, 
 a stately structure without, enshrining a black image of the 
 Virgin, almost as black as ebony, which some believe came mir- 
 aculously from heaven, as fidly as ever the Bphesians believed 
 in the heaven-descended character of the image of their great 
 goddess Diana. This singular shrine is frequented by multi- 
 tudes of penance-doing people, who go thither at the impulse 
 of their anxious half-awakened consciences, under guidance of 
 their priests, to deposit their offerings, perform their prayers, 
 and quiet their soids with the hope, by Mary's help, of escap- 
 ing unscathed both Hell and Purgatory. 
 
 The multitude of pilgrims is sometimes prodigious. When 
 the anniversary festival of the miraculous consecration of the 
 shrine comes on the Sabbath, it lasts fifteen days, and is a 
 great collective jubilee. From every quarter the pilgrims flock 
 as to the opened gate of Heaven. Here they may have plea- 
 sures by the way, commuted for by light penances, or by the 
 pilgrimage itself, indulgences for future pleasure, and pardons, 
 unlimited, for sin. From the year 1820 to 1840, the number 
 of pilgrims annually lias been at an average of more than
 
 Bfe^^^^^V->:^S^^;^ -?g" 
 
 riLGHIMAGE OF EIiNSEIDLEN. 
 
 150,000. This vast concourse of strangers keeps the town and 
 parish of Einseidlen in a thriving business of innkeeping, mer- 
 chandise, and various light manufactures for the " Star of the 
 Sea," the " Queen of Heaven." As of old the Ephesians made 
 silver shrines for Diana, and by her Avorship got their own 
 -wealth, so the Einseidleners make images, shrines, and pictures 
 for Mary, and by this craft maintain a thrifty state. Around 
 the great church iu front and on each side, as well as in the 
 village, are rows of stalls or shops for the sale of books, beads, 
 pictures, images, and a thousand knicknacks in honour of the 
 Virciu, and as a portable Memoria Technica of her worship. 
 The Pope's letter in her behalf makes appropriate display among 
 all these treasures, and as it were fixes their value, just as the 
 Pontifical stamp coins money. It makes one's heart ache to 
 see the mournful superstition of the people. Indeed the whole 
 Establishment of the Virgin in the Romish worship is one of 
 the most prodigious transactions of spiritual fraud, one of the 
 vastest pieces of forgery and speculation in the history of our 
 race. It is a great South Sea bubble of religious superstition, 
 by which thousands make a fortune in this world, but millions 
 make shipwreck of their souls for ever. 
 
 The Pope and the Priesthood are joint stockholders of a great 
 bank in heaven, which they have reared on false capital, and of 
 which they have appointed Mary the supreme and perpetual 
 Directress. So the Pope and the Priests issue their bills of 
 credit on Mary, and for the people the whole concern is turned 
 into a sort of savings bank, where believers deposit their Ave 
 Marias, their pilgrimages, their penances, their orisons and acts 
 of grace, receiving now, for convenience in this world, drafts 
 from the Pope, and expecting to receive their whole reversion- 
 ary fortune from Mary in Paradise. If this be not as sheer, 
 pure, unsophisticated a form of paganism, as the annals of 
 Heathen Mythology ever disclosed or perfected, wo are at a loss 
 to know what constitutes paganism. The artful mixture of 
 the Gospel scheme of redemption, and reference to it, in this 
 Marianic system, makes it, if not a stronger poison, a far more 
 subtle and dangerous delusion for the mind. 
 
 The Romish Scheme as here demonstrated is a system of me- 
 
 A
 
 312 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGKIM. 
 
 diators and courts of appeal, ■\vliicli puts the soul as far as pos- 
 sible from the Great Mediator, and prevents all direct access 
 to the fountain of a Saviour's blood. Here we have the Pope 
 accrediting the saints, the saints interceding with Mary, !Mary 
 interceding with Christ. The system in general, and Einscid- 
 len in particular, with the legendary literature and litanies con- 
 nected with it, constitutes a great development of the common 
 faith and literature of the Middle Ages, the idea of which, ex- 
 amined not in the common mind, but only in a few great intel- 
 lects, has been in some quarters so applauded even b}' professed 
 Protestants. Ages of Faith, forsooth, where true faith Avas ren- 
 dered almost impossible, and all the life of the soul was one vast 
 superstition. 
 
 In front of the great Einseidlen Church there is a fountain, 
 with fourteen compartments or jets, at one of which the com- 
 mon people say and believe our Saviour drank, though when, 
 or how, or by what jiossibility, it would puzzle the staunchest 
 Judseus Apellas to tell. If this place were Sychar, nigh to the 
 parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph, or even 
 if Einseidlen were on the way to Egypt from the Holy Land, 
 such a legend were more possibly accountable and admissible ; 
 but here in the Alpine Mountains, on the way from Schwytz 
 to Zurich, no man can imagine how such a tradition came about. 
 And yet the poor people believe it. I saw a peasant with the 
 utmost gravity and reverence taking fourteen drinks in succes- 
 sion, in order that he might be sure he had got the right one; 
 and probably all the more ignorant pilgrims do the same. 
 Simultaneously with him, a flock of geese M'cre drinking round 
 the fountain, but with much more wit, to save the trouble of 
 going the circuit, they dipped their splashing bill-cups in the 
 reservoir below, into which all the fourteen jets pour their 
 streams together, being sure that the contents of the sacred 
 one must necessarily be there also. 
 
 And do you really think that a goose has so much sense ? 
 Do you think a man can have so much, follij? I would answer : 
 Which ought to be the greatest marvel, that a goose should 
 conclude, since all the jets fall into the pool, that there can be 
 no one jet the water of which is not there, or that a man should
 
 >^ i 
 
 have so much sad and blind credulity as to believe that Jesua 
 Christ once drank there, and that if he drinks at the same jet, 
 his soul Avill be benefited ? Which, I ask, ought to be the 
 greatest marvel ? Is it not a folly almost incredible, almost 
 equal to the mad enthusiasm of the Tunic worshippers at Tre- 
 ves, Holy Coat, pray for us ! And Avhat is to be said of a 
 religion which, instead of endeavouring to cure people of their 
 ignorance, just takes advantage of it, enshrining and maintain- 
 ing in state every absurd phantasm that a frightened supersti- 
 tious brain can coin ? It is the veriest trickery, worthy of a 
 Turkish Santon, a religious jugglery, not half so respectable 
 as that of Jannes and Jamb res, to cajole the common unedu- 
 cated mind in this manner. And it passes one's comprehen- 
 sion how educated men, in other respects upright and honest, 
 can connive at the cherishing of such lunacies among the 
 people. 
 
 It is not merely the nature of these things as a curious sys- 
 tem of superstitions that we wish to look at. The philosophic 
 traveller desires to observe, and is bound to observe, their effect 
 upon the character of the people, the manner in which they 
 take hold of the mind, the sort of atmosphere which they form 
 around the common heart and life of the multitude. This is 
 one of the most curious and instructive investigations in all a 
 man's jom-neyings in Europe, especially when he comes upon 
 an enclosure into which the light and influences of the Refor- 
 mation have never penetrated, and where Romanism, not hav- 
 ing come in contact with systems or controversies, that might 
 shake the faith of its votaries, may be sounded in its depths in 
 the souls invested with it. There is too much of a disposition 
 to set down a Protestant traveller's notes on the Romish sys- 
 tem as he sees it to the score of bigotry or religious prejudice. 
 This is both unfair and unwise, for it tends to make travellers 
 neglectful of observing the workings of foreign religious sys- 
 tems, or restricted and uncandid in giving their impressions to 
 the public. There is nothing that a traveller ought to watch 
 more closely, or report more fully and fairly, than the nature 
 of these two things, religion and education, among the people 
 where he journeys. What should we say, if M. De Tocque- 
 
 \^ 
 
 \
 
 ^"f^^^jm 
 
 y 
 
 T7AKDERINGS OF A PILGKIM. 
 
 ville, in writing of us in America, had abstained from all no- 
 tices and remarks on our religious system, because this would 
 have rendered his book obnoxious to some, and distasteful to 
 others, and might have injured its popularity and acceptable- 
 ness ? A man travels in Europe blindfold, who cither does not 
 observe, or neglects to record, the workings of the great religi- 
 ous system, or who sees it, not in its effects on the whole cha- 
 racter of the people or on common minds, but only in its festi- 
 val ceremonies in gorgeous cathedrals. It is to be feared that 
 many persons look upon Romanism only with the outward eye, 
 and only in its outward observances, without attempting to 
 trace its progress and its influence on the mind and in the 
 heart. 
 
 I purchased and brought away with me several of the little 
 images of the Virgin, which are sold in countless quantities for 
 the use of worshippers. They look very much like the port- 
 able images of the household gods of Egypt, which I obtained 
 several years ago while travelling in that country. They may 
 lie on the same shelf in a man's cabinet of curiosities. And 
 what a curious concatenation, after four thousand years, which 
 brings the idolatry of the earliest pagan system and that of 
 the professedly Christian system, at the two extremes, so sin- 
 gularly together ! Looking at these two sets of images, which 
 a man may carry side by side in his trousers' pocket, it is diffi- 
 cult to believe that there was one particle more or less of super- 
 stition and idolatry in the use of the one than of the other. 
 For a poor peasant now may be as complete and unconscious 
 an idolater of his " Star of the Sea," with the rude image 
 which he carries in his pocket, or about his neck, as the an- 
 cient Egyptian peasant was of his Isis or Osiris. Indeed, the 
 idolatry, whatever it might be, w'hich comes after Christia- 
 nity, must in some respects be worse than that which preced- 
 ed it. 
 
 I gathered likewise several of the little tracts issued at Ein- 
 Beidlen concerning the Virgin, the Shrine and the pilgrimage, 
 constituting the catechisms of the people, and revealing, better 
 than anything else, the water-courses, so to speak, of the su- 
 perstition in their hearts. One of these consists of Litanies for 
 
 ^^0^ 
 
 J^^
 
 
 IMAGES AND TRACTS. 
 
 the invocation of tlie Virgin, with an incredible number and 
 repetition of her titles, and accompanying prayers and suppli- 
 cations to her in all hours and circumstances of danger and 
 distress, from the first moment of temptation to the hour of 
 death and the day of judgment, with a depth of earnestness 
 and even anguish of soul that exhausts all the religious senti- 
 ments of our fallen nature. " Virgin Mother of God ! in all 
 our pains and tribulations come to our aid, and we will love 
 and bless you to all eternity. Amen," 
 
 Another of these tracts consists of an ancient song upon the 
 miraculous dedication of the Holy Chapel of the Virgin, which 
 is said to have been visibly consecrated by our Lord Jesus 
 Christ in honour of liis most holy Mother, the fourteenth of 
 September, of the year 948. To this is added a long prayer 
 to be said before the holy Chapel or the Holy Image of Our 
 Lady, and a shorter prayer to be said before a portable image 
 by those who cannot serve the Virgin at her grand altar at 
 Einseidlen, for which last prayer two hundred days' indulgence 
 are gained by the gift of the Pope. Three pater nosiers and three 
 Ave Marias answer instead of this prayer for those who do not 
 know how to read. Then follows a prayer to Saint Meinrad, 
 the first worshipper of the image, and a martyr in the Chapel, 
 addressed in the prayer as the rnignon or dear one of Mary. 
 Saint Meinrad is called upon to intercede with the "Almighty 
 Mother," and to obtain for devout penitents the pardon of their 
 sins, and the preservation of their bodies from all dangers, and 
 their souls from damnation. In the supplication to the Virgin 
 the soul is represented as fleeing from the wrath of God, to be 
 protected by her in the day of judgment ; and the sinner ren- 
 ders up his last sigh into her hands, that his soid may praise 
 her for ever in a blessed eternity. 
 
 wide and sad and powerful delusion ! To all this variety 
 of expedients, to all these successive ranks of spiritual lawyers, 
 men run with costly fees in their hands, rather than straight to 
 Christ ! All this stately apparatus of ages, altars, and images 
 with men adorning them, crosses on the garments, crosses 
 about the neck, crosses by the roadside, and pilgrims kneeling 
 at them, while the Lamb of God, that taketh away tlie sin of 
 
 i|»-
 
 the n-orlil, stands by unnoticed, and the voice, " Come 
 me ! " is never heard. 
 
 It is a beautiful, though quaint gem of rude poetry, by which 
 George Herbert has illustrated the difference between the vain 
 and the true search after Peace. If any of my readers are tired 
 of the Pilgrimage to Einseidlen, they may have something 
 sweeter to dwell upon in Herbert's lines. 
 
 WANDERINGS 
 
 " Sweet reace, where dost thou dwell ? 
 
 Let me once know. 
 I sought thee in a secret cave, 
 
 And .isked if Peace were there ; 
 A hollow wind did seem to answer, No ; 
 
 Go, seek elsewhere. 
 
 1 did ; and going, did a rainbow note : 
 
 Surely, thought I, 
 This is the lace of Peace's coat ; 
 
 I will search out the matter : 
 But while I looked, the clouds immediately 
 
 Did break and scatter. 
 
 I humbly crave 
 
 Then went I to a garden, and did spy 
 
 A gallant flower, 
 The Crown Imperial : Sure, said I, 
 
 Peace at tlie root must dwell ; 
 But when I digged, I saw a worm devour 
 
 What showed so well. 
 
 At length I met a reverend good old man : 
 Whom when for Peace 
 I did demand, he thus began : 
 
 There was a Prince of old 
 In Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase 
 Offlock and fold. 
 
 He sweetly lived ; yet sweetness did not save 
 
 Ilis life from foes ; 
 But after death, out of his grave 
 
 There sprang twelve stalks of wheat ; 
 Which many wondering at, got some of those 
 
 To plant and sot. 
 
 It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse 
 
 Thi'ough all the earth : 
 For they that taste it do rehearse 
 
 What virtue lies therein ; 
 A secret virtue, bringing Peace and Mirth 
 
 By flight of sin.
 
 Take of this grain, wliicli in my garden grows, 
 
 And grows for you : 
 
 Make bread of it ; and that repose 
 
 And Peace which everywhere 
 With so much earnestness you do pursue, 
 Is only there, 
 The Bread of Life, for ever fresh and fair." 
 
 '-^J 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 ZURICH AND ZWINGLE. 
 
 4/ 
 
 -BANISHMENT OF PROTESTANTS FROM 
 LOCARNO. 
 
 The Stork Inns ! I know not wliy the hotels should be likened 
 to such fowl as the Stork, the Vulture, and others of that ilk, 
 unless it be on account of their long bills. Such as these are, 
 however, somewhat favourite appellations for the inns of Ger- 
 many and Switzerland, and a tired traveller may find himself 
 very comfortable in their hospitalities, not reckoning without 
 his host. A man may spend delightfully at Zurich much more 
 time than we did, whether he be lodged at the Stork, the Stag, 
 the Bear, the Lion, the Peacock, the Black Eagle (if he can 
 find any such inns in the place), or at the hotel Baur, to Avhich 
 Mr. Murray will direct him. I like a pleasant title for an inn; 
 there is something friendly and attractive in it. The Quid pro 
 Quo would be an excellent cognomen ; whether you render it 
 something for somebody, or sui-e of your money^s ivorth, or enter- 
 tainment for man and beast. There is more inn-ward signifi- 
 cance in the titles of Inns than most men dream of; and pro- 
 bably a philosophic traveller would find many a cud of contem- 
 plation both curious and instructive, should he set himself to 
 trace the character and habits of nations in the names and sign- 
 pictures of their inns, from the St. George and the Dragon of 
 merry England to the Three Kings of Germany and the Hotel 
 of the Universe in France. 
 
 Zurich is a town of about 15,000 inhabitants much given to 
 manufacturing and literature, careful of education, prudent, 
 and industrious, prosperous, ancestral, old-fashioned. You see 
 lere a Cathedral of the tenth century, where Zwinglc preached
 
 :-^e=^! ^ 
 
 318 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGUIM, 
 
 in tlic sixtcciitli. Noble heroic times and spirits Avcrc liere dur- 
 ing the fires of the Reformation. Coverdale's old Bible, the first 
 entire English version of the Scriptures, was printed here in 
 1535; and here great men, driven from England by the fatal 
 reign of Mary, came to Avorship as exiles, where, in the enjoy- 
 ment of the hospitality of Zurich, they could cherish their faith, 
 and wait for God to help them. One of the greatest helps God 
 ever gave to the English Reformers was the bringing them to 
 this place and to Geneva, where the forms of glory in creation 
 were so grandly in unison with the excitement of their souls 
 under the discoveries of divine truth, and where they learned 
 such lessons of freedom from the republican simplicity of the 
 Reformation out of England. There they saw those wonders 
 of the world, unseen before for ages, those early simple forms 
 of government, luihierarclncal, iinmonarcliical, in the Church 
 without a bishop, and the State without a king. 
 
 I am not afraid of fatiguing my readers with landing- 
 places of good poetry, and they may be glad to see, what per- 
 haps some of them have not seen, a copy of the verses which 
 the poet Montgomery tells us appeared in nearly all the Gene- 
 van editions of that translation of the Bible which Avas made 
 during the reign of Queen Mary, by those illustrious exiles, 
 John Knox, Miles Coverdale, Anthony Gilby, Christopher 
 Goodman, and others. This translation of the Bible may in 
 some measiire be considered as one of the results of Queen 
 Mary's fires. 
 
 ^k 
 
 ON Tni; IXCOMPAUABLE TREASURE OF THE HOLT SORIPTI'UES. 
 
 "Hero is the Spring where waters flow- 
 To quench our heat of sin ; 
 
 Here is tlie Tree where Truth doth grow, 
 To lead our lives therein. 
 
 Here is the Judge that stints the strife, 
 
 Where men's devices fail ; 
 ncre is the Bread that feeds the Life 
 
 That Death cannot assail. 
 
 The tidings of Salvation dear 
 
 Come to our ears from hence ; 
 Tlie Fortress of our Faith is here, 
 
 And Shield of our defence.
 
 ZURICH AND THE REFORMATION. 319 
 
 Then bo not like the ITog that hatli ' 
 
 A pe.aii at his desire, 
 But takes more pleasure at the trough. 
 
 And wallowing in the mire. 
 
 Read not this Book in any ease 
 
 But with a single eye ; 
 Read not, but first desire God's grace 
 
 To understand thereby. 
 
 Pray still in faith, with this respect, 
 
 To fructify therein ; 
 That knowledge may bring this effect. 
 
 To mortify thy sin. 
 
 Then happy thou in all thy life. 
 
 What so to thee befalls ; 
 Yea, double happy thou shalt be. 
 
 When God by death thee calls. " 
 
 Of a clear sunset tlie view of Zuricli down the Lake is most 
 superblj beautiful. There is a mixture of grandeur in its 
 beauty, owing to the magnificent outline of distant mountains, 
 without which it might be somewhat tame. But any scenery 
 would be tame after a few weeks spent from night till morn 
 and morn till eve, by sunlight and moonlight, amidst moun- 
 tains covered or crowned with snow. It is surprising what an 
 exciting, passionate effect those piles of snow hanging in the 
 horizon produce upon the mind ; you never tire of the sight, 
 nor lose your sense of its novelty and sublimity; and when you ^j f^ 
 are without it, you desire it ; a portion of the mind of creation 
 seems abstracted. It is like the great sea in the landscape. 
 
 Zurich presents many points and sights of interest, but of 
 all the things offered to the stj-anger, the pet lions to me have 
 been Zuinglius' own old Bible, with his own notes in the mar- 
 gin, and two or three letters from the lovely Lady Jane Grey, 
 in her own most beautiful hand-writing. Zuinglius' notes were 
 most frequent, I observed, upon the minor Prophets ; a very 
 characteristic indication, if it might be taken for a proof of his 
 preferences in the Word of God. For there is a fire, a bold- 
 ness, and a straight-forward simple energy and plainness of 
 dealing in the minor Prophets which wonderfully marked the 
 character of the Swiss Reformer. The prophets Amos and 
 Ilosea would be likelv to be favourites with him. lie called no
 
 320 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 man master on earth, and laboured faithfully for his Master 
 in Heaven. He and Luther and Melancthou must have had 
 a joyful meeting with one another, and with Paul and Peter 
 and John, and other old disciples and worthies. How they talk- 
 ed over the scenes of the Reformation and of the great primeval 
 spread of the Gospel beginning at Jesusalem ! 
 
 The Reformers, as well as the Apostles, worked and wrote, 
 much of their time, with Death full in view ; and there is nothing 
 like that to give fire to a man's thoughts, fervour to his feelings, 
 and such an earnestness and solemnity of tone to his utterances, 
 as will compel men to heed them. Almost every word was like 
 a last word, and like a testimony amidst the fire. While this 
 was the case, their communications one with another, and with 
 the people, had a grave sidjlime impression and prophecy of 
 danger and of sufiering, very powerful upon a soul under the 
 seizure of divine truth and grace. There was little room for 
 declamation, or superficial or artificial eloquence, in such cir- 
 cumstances; everything came straight //-o^w the soul, and went 
 straight to the soul, driven by conviction. Life was a great 
 solemn tragedy. Tlic bare utterance of truth was like storm- 
 ing a breach at the mouth of cannon. Hence the decisive 
 energy, conciseness, and power of the Reformers. 
 
 It is not so now in Germany ; the new reformation is indeed 
 a revolution, but of a much lower kind ; the Spirit of God evi- 
 dently thus far has much less to do with it, and though it is 
 doubtless one of God's great shakings and overturnings, in pre- 
 paration for the administration of the Spirit, it must be regard- 
 ed thus far principally as preparation. The Question now is 
 Religious Liberty ; in the first Reformation it was Religious 
 Life: there lies the difierence. After Life comes Liberty, but 
 you arc not so sure that after Liberty comes Life. Men may 
 mistake Ucetice for liberty, even in religion ; and as in the Can- 
 ton de Vaud, licence and despotism may go hand in hand, im- 
 posing fetters on the Church and on the soid. 
 
 Zurich owes much of the prosperity and learning by which it 
 is distinguished, to its hearty acceptance and defence of the doc- 
 trines and followers of the Reformation. It is a most impressive 
 lesson to compare the history of Zurich at the north, with that 
 
 ■ I 
 
 A\
 
 ZURICH AND THE REFORMATIOX. 
 
 321 
 
 P^ 
 
 of Locarno at tlic south, of the Swiss territory. About the year 
 1530 a devout monk from Milan, Beccaria by name, came to 
 Locarno as an earnest preacher of Evangelical Truth. The 
 Romish governor of the bailivrick had the preacher thrown into 
 prison, hoping in this way to stop the fire of the Reformation 
 from spreading. But it had already burned too deep and too 
 far ; the people surrounded the castle of the governor and com- 
 pelled him to release their preacher, who afterwards escaped 
 into the Val Misocco. The next step of the governor, imder 
 authority of the seven Romish Cantons, was to commr.nd all 
 the disciples of the Reformation to attend mass, under pain of 
 outlawry. The Pope by his Nuncio with the Priests, continued 
 to aggravate the persecution, imtil the resolution was taken to 
 banish the Protestants with their families from their homes for 
 ever. The decree was issued in March, 1555. In the town- 
 hall of Locarno, one hundred and fifty followers of the Reform- 
 ed faith received sentence of exile, and immediately set out, 
 amidst all the severity of the season, across savage mountains, 
 to find a kinder home, where the beliefs so dear to conscience, 
 and so sacred to the sight of God, would be revered by man, 
 and permitted in their cherished exercise. 
 
 From that period, the decay of Locarno in industry and pros- 
 perity followed, while Zurich received a new source of wealth 
 and an additional element of art and refinement. "The evan- 
 gelical confederates," says Zschokke, "welcomed them with 
 true Christian charit}'-, and more than a luondred of these un- 
 fortunate exiles, amongst whom were many affluent and learned 
 men, as Orelli, Muralt, and others, found an asylum at Zurich, 
 where their families are distinguished to the present day. By 
 their means the art of weaving silk was introduced into Zu- 
 rich ; they also established mills and dyeing houses, and con- 
 tributed so much by their industry to the prosperity of the 
 town, that its celebrity was soon extended far beyond the limits 
 of Switzerland." 
 
 After the sentence of banishment from Locarno had becu 
 
 pronounced by the deputies, the Pope's Nuncio, with a couple 
 
 of Inquisitors, made their appearance, and with great severity 
 
 exclaimed against the mildness of the punishment. They de- 
 
 12 X
 
 -^f 
 
 w 
 
 luanded of tlic council, on pain of the Pope's indignation, to 
 add the penalty of confiscation to that of banishment, to take 
 away all the property of the exiles, and to separate from them 
 their children also, in order to have them educated in the Romish 
 faith. The Romish deputies, to their praise be it spoken, would 
 not listen to these cruel persuasions on the part of the Priests 
 and his Holiness, but made answer that they never reversed a 
 sentence once pronounced. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 6CENERY ON THE LAKE OF ZTTRICH. — POETRY FOR PILGRIMS. 
 GRANDEUR OF THE LAKE OF WALLENSTADT. 
 
 The scenery on the Lake of Zurich resembles that upon Lonpf 
 Island Sound, and upon some of our New-England rivers. It 
 is of a quiet beauty, with an air of neatness, freedom, and con- 
 tent in the villages, which appear to great advantage, rising 
 with their church steeples and tiled roofs up the hill-sides from 
 the lake. The day we left for Wallenstadt and Coire, the 
 steamer was crowded with pilgrims for Einseidleu. Most of 
 them landed at Richtensweil, for a walk of bead-tellings and aves 
 over the mountains, to the shrine of their faith, the "Star of 
 the Sea." God grant they may one day find in Christ that 
 •'rest unto their souls," which they will seek in vain at the 
 sooty image of Mary in Einseidlen. Neither age nor infirmity 
 can move them from their purpose. Dr. Beattie, in his excel- 
 lent work on Switzerland, tells us that while he and his friends 
 were spending the month of September near the Lake of Zu- 
 rich, they saw among the pilgrims a venerable matron a hun- 
 dred and eight years old, who had walked every step of the way 
 from the remotest corner of Normandy in France, for the per- 
 formance of a vow to Mary of the Swiss Mountains! What 
 singular energy of superstition, at a time when all the faculties 
 of life wear out! The vesper hymns of the pilgrims rose im- 
 pressively upon the air in the stiU autiminal evenings, and one 
 idea, one principle, seemed to govern and absorb them all. 
 
 > 
 
 \^> 
 
 ^Z
 
 REST FOR PILGRIMS. 
 
 323 
 
 Many of them, Dr. Beattie remarks, looked sickly, wan, and 
 exhausted, the health which they came sadly to heg of Mary at 
 Einseidlen, heing lost still more hopelessly by the fatigues and 
 fastings of the way. 
 
 Poor, deluded pilgrims ! Is it not sad to see them wander- 
 ing the world over after health and peace, hut never coming to 
 the Great Physician ! Pest, rest, rest ; — this is the object of 
 all their toils, toils, toils ; — but no toils of the body can ever 
 give inward quiet, or allay sin's fitful fever in the soul, or pre- 
 vent the remorseful tones in the depths of our fallen being, that 
 are ever and anon rushing up with wild prophecies from the 
 soul's inner chambers, like the sound of a gong in subterranean 
 dungeons. Alas, what a mistake, to wander so far, so sadly, 
 so wearily without, for that which is to be found only within, 
 and only in Christ within. These angel will-worshippers, and 
 voluntary humilitarians, and body-punishers, are the strangest 
 quacks that ever meddled with disease. Physical blisters to 
 soothe an irritated conscience, to lull the mental anxieties into 
 forgetfulness, to draw forth the rooted sorrow of a wounded 
 spirit, to quiet the feverish apprehensions of a coming judg- 
 ment; for a word from Christ, a look, to unseal the foun- 
 tain of tears, a whisper, I am tiib Way, the Truth, the Life. 
 All the cantharides of penance, sackcloth, and ashes, stripes on 
 the body, pebbles in the shoes, rough pilgrimages over desert 
 and mountain, fasts and aves and orisons in arithmetical pro- 
 gression, — did ever one of them or all together put a man at 
 peace with his conscience, or extract the thorn, or charm the 
 serpent in one of his sins ? 
 
 What a simple thing is the Gospel ! How all heaven, in 
 knowledge and blessedness, is comprehended in that one pre- 
 cious word, / am the Way, the Truth, the Life! The Gospel, 
 applicable to all, the same in all places, in all times, in the cot- 
 tage and the palace, in the city and the wilderness, in caves and 
 dens of the earth and great houses, with rich tables, or the 
 crumbs from them, in fine linen or in sheepskins and goatskins, 
 with rich and poor, with bond and free; the Gospel, the same 
 simple all-suflicieut food and remedy, Christ all in all, the sup- 
 ply of all wants, the recompense for all evils, the healing of all
 
 diseases, the world's medicine, happiness and transfiguration! 
 Hero and liero only you have the impulse and soul of all lasting 
 reforms the reformation of all reformers, the beginning and the 
 end of all true pilgrimages, the consolation and support of all 
 pilgrims. " Must I forsake the eoil and air," said Baxter, 
 
 " Must I forsake the soil and air, 
 Where first I drew my vital breath ? 
 That way may be as near and fair, 
 Whence I may come to Thee by death. 
 All countries are my Father's lands ; 
 Thy Sun, thy Love, doth shine on all; 
 We may in all lift up pure hands, 
 And with acceptance on Thee call. 
 
 Wliat if in prison I must dwell, 
 May I not there converse with Thee ? 
 Save me from sin, thy wrath, and hell, 
 Call me thy child, and I am free! 
 No walls or bars can keep Thee out, 
 None can confine a holy soul ; 
 The streets of heaven it walks about, 
 None can its liberty control." 
 
 Now, because it is suitable to this part of our pilgrimage, 
 and fine in itself, though rude and plain, I shall add Baxter's 
 Valediction, so faithful and bold in its rebuke of that vain 
 show, wherein all men naturally are not so much pedestrians, 
 as they are ambitious runners and wrestlers. With this we 
 will leave our Einseidleners, and proceed to Wallenstadt. 
 
 " Man walks in a vain show. 
 They know, yet will not know. 
 Sit still when they should go. 
 
 But run for shadows ; 
 While they might taste and know 
 The living streams that flow. 
 And crop the flowers that grow, 
 
 In Christ's sweet meadows. 
 Life's better slept away. 
 
 Than as they use it ; 
 In sin and drunken play 
 
 Vain men abuse it. 
 
 They dig for hell beneath, 
 They labour hard for death. 
 Run themselves out of broatli 
 To overtake it.
 
 w 
 
 y 
 
 Ilell is not had for naui^ht, 
 Damnation's dearly bought, 
 And with great labour sovighu, 
 
 They'll not forsake it. 
 Their souls are Satan's fee, 
 
 He'll not abate it ; 
 Grace is refused, that's free, 
 
 Mad sinners hate it. 
 
 Is this the world men choose. 
 For which thoy heaven refuse, 
 And Christ and grace abuse. 
 
 And not receive it ? 
 Shall I not guilty be. 
 Of this in some degree, 
 If hence God would mc free, 
 
 And I'd not leave it ? 
 Jly soul from Sodom fly. 
 
 Lest wrath there find thee ; 
 Thy refuge-rest is nigh, 
 
 Look not behind thee." 
 
 From Zurich to Schmerlkon, at tlie otlier end of the lake 
 towards Italy, is about twenty-six miles, the greatest width of 
 the lake being only three miles, and generally much narrower. 
 The banks are beautifully sprinkled with white cottages, farm- 
 houses, and thriving villages, the abodes of industry and peace. 
 Over the verdant wooded mountains, with such a green and 
 richly cultivated base, rise up the snowy peaks, like revelations 
 of another world, calling you away to its glory. If you are 
 familiar v/ith the writings of Klopstock, Zimmerman, and Gess- 
 ner, you probably knoAV something of the inspiration which 
 such scenery tends to kindle and keep burning in a sensitive 
 mind. Gessner was a native of Zurich; Zimmerman's residence 
 was on the borders of the lake at Richtensweil. 
 
 At Rapperschwyl, you are in the Canton of St. Gall, oppo- 
 site the longest bridge in the world, and probably the worst, 
 taking into consideration the vast extent of its qualities, four 
 thousand eight hundred feet. It is a singular feature on the 
 lake, when viewed from the mountains. The village of Rap- 
 perschwyl is a place to put an artist with his portfolio in good 
 humour ; a feudal old town, an ancient gray castle, an old 
 church, old walls, and fine picturesque points of view overlook-
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PrLGRlM 
 
 ing tlio water. Thenco we proceeded to Sclimerikon, Avhere 
 we embarked on board the Diligence for Weseu, and then found 
 ourselves at the western extremity of the Lake of Wallenstadt, 
 suddenly in the midst of some of the grandest, most glorious, 
 most exciting scenery in the world. 
 
 There is no describing it ; at least no possibility of justly 
 conveying its magnificence. The Lake of Wallenstadt, about 
 twelve miles long, is pre-eminent in beauty and grandeur. It 
 is inferior only to the Lake of Lucerne, and that is saying 
 much. There is the greatest majesty and glory in the forms 
 of the mountains that rise out of it, while the side gorges that 
 open off from it are picturesque, rich, and beautiful. We felt 
 in going from the scenes of open luxuriance around Zurich, 
 that it was good to get again among the mountains, it was like 
 going back into the fortress of the soul. Those mighty tower- 
 ing masses seem to prop and elevate the inward being. They 
 look down upon you so silent, so awful, so expressive ; you 
 have the same feelings on entering among them that you have 
 in going beneath the dome of some vast religious temple, the 
 same that you have in walking on the shore of the ocean. We 
 diued on deck on board the steamer, but it really seemed in- 
 congruous to be eating amidst such grand and solemn scenery; 
 the table of a restaurant set in the middle of St. Peter's would 
 have seemed almost as much in keeping. Nevertheless, men 
 must eat, drink, and sleep, though the scenery be ever so beau- 
 tifiil. In the midst of our dinner we came opposite the point, 
 where in a mountain more than seven thousand feet high, an 
 immense cavern pierces entirely through the summit, so that 
 even from the lake you can look through it and see the sky, 
 though you would think it was a patch of snoAV you were look- 
 ing at. 
 
 After a few hours from Wallenstadt through the beautiful 
 scenery of the vale of Scez, we arrived at Ragatz, for a visit 
 to the astounding black glen of the Baths of Pfeffers. The 
 evening threatened a storm but we had enjoyed a day of great 
 grandeur, and for the night were in good time at the comfort- 
 able shelter of an inn, which the guide-books tell you was an 
 old summer residence of the Abbots. 
 
 A,
 
 V, 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 BATHS OF PFEFFERS. — GORGE OF TAMINA. — COIRE AND GRISONS. 
 
 It rains in toi'rents. We can no more tell where vre are than 
 if it were midnight. No morn has come, as on the Righi, in 
 russet mantle clad, disclosing in heaven and earth a wide, won- 
 drous, exciting scene of glory and beauty, hut rain, rain, rain, 
 grave, determined, steadfast, concentrated rain, and nothing 
 else sensible or visible. You could not guess that there was 
 either mountain, village, or horizon in Switzerland, but now 
 and then, as at breathing intervals, the huge dark masses drip- 
 ping in mist, loom out of the storm, hke the hulks of a wrecked 
 creation. It is, to say the least, a very vigorous break upou 
 the monotony of fair weather, and inasmuch as we have no 
 mountain excursion to make to-day, but a gorge to visit, in 
 which Dante might have chained the tenants of the sixth hell, 
 if the rain holds up, so that we can get to the mouth of it, it 
 may pour on afterwards, without disturbing om* progress to- 
 wards the earth's centre. 
 
 The object for which most travellers stop, as we have done, 
 at Ragatz, is the celebrated cavern of the Baths of Pfeffers, 
 the most extraordinary scene for its compass in all Switzer- 
 land. It is a gorge and cavern combined, a remarkable split 
 in the mountain, deep, dark, ragged, and savage, the sides of 
 which cross their jagged points far above you, so closely, hke 
 the teeth of a saw, that only here and there you can see the 
 day-light at the top, and the sky, through the rift, with the 
 trees of the external world peeping down upon you. As far 
 below a torrent is thundering, and you creep, hanging midway 
 to the dripping shelves of the cliff, along a suspended footpath, 
 a couple of planks wide, nearly a quarter of a mile into the 
 heart of the great fissure. There, in a crypt in the deep rock, 
 lies the hot fountain, where a cloud of steam rises round you 
 like a vapour bath, and the gush of hot water pours its cas- 
 cade into the roaring cold torrent below. . This torrent, for the 
 convenience of which the mountain seems to have been sunder- 
 ed, is called the Tamina ; it bellows through the gorge with 
 terrific din and fury, shoots past the base of perpendicular and
 
 \1 ^ -^^ 
 
 y 
 
 -41 
 
 TVAN'DERIXGS OF A riLGHIM. 
 
 overhanging mountains seven or eight hundred feet high, and 
 after plunging from precipice to precipice in grand cataracts 
 along its deep channel, pours itself into the Rhine. 
 
 From Ragatz to the Baths, it is a constant gradual ascent 
 of about an hour, through scenery romantic and grand, and 
 deepening into sublimity as you reach, beneath the overhang- 
 ing mountain, by the sound of the deep struggling thunder of 
 the Tamiua, the grim old Bath-buildings, that rise like a por- 
 tal in the jaws of hell. From hence up to the hot spring, along 
 the -wet, shaking, crazy, old plank bridge, which I have des- 
 cribed, with the torrent boiling at the bottom of the chasm, 
 about forty feet beneath you, and the serrated, craggy, inter- 
 twisting, overlapping marble walls rising several hundred feet 
 above you, the passage is such an one as Bunyan might have 
 taken for the type of his Valley of the Shadow of Death. It 
 is a most tremendous scene, before which all your previous ex- 
 periences of the wild, terrible, and fantastic freaks of nature 
 have to give way in submission. You will never forget this 
 gorge of the Tamina, and these Baths of the Pfeffers. 
 
 It is said they were discovered about the year 1000, and that 
 patients used to be let down by ropes from the cliffs into the 
 very fountain, to be steeped there for hours, and drawn up 
 again. The next progressive step in comfort was a number of 
 cells like magpies' nests, pinned to the walls around the foun- 
 tain, where patients might abide the season. Far gone a man 
 must be in disease, and wo-begone in spirit, before an abode in 
 that frightful dripping chasm would do him good. In the next 
 age men's ideas in therapeutics were so advanced, that they 
 conducted the hot medinical water by conduits out of the gorge, 
 and built the grisly bath-houses at the entrance; and still later 
 they have come to the perfection of the system, by conveying 
 the water down to the comfortable inn at Ragatz. Its tempe- 
 rature at the spring is about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It en- 
 joys a wide and thorough reputation for its healing efficacy. 
 
 If it had not been for the rain we might have enjoyed, from 
 the heights above this terrific gorge, a view as vast and beau- 
 tiful, as the ravine itself is deep and dreadful. The sketch of 
 it by the artist forms one of the finest landscapes in the Swiss 
 portfolio. Here the Poet Montgomery might have stood at
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 day -break, as we have done upon the Righi, in bright weather, 
 and dreamed that reverie of the Alps, of which the two open- 
 ing and closing stanzas are so impressive and sublime. 
 
 " The mountains of this glorious land 
 
 Are conscious beings to mine eye, 
 When at the break of day they stand 
 
 Like giants, looking through the sky, 
 To hail the sun's unriscn car, 
 
 That gilds their diadems of snow. 
 While one by one, as star by star. 
 
 Their peaks in ether glow. 
 
 Their silent presence fills my soul, 
 
 When, to the horizontal ray 
 The many-tinctured vapours roll 
 
 In evanescent wreaths away, 
 And leave them naked on the scene, 
 
 The emblems of Eternity, 
 The same as they have ever been, 
 
 And shall for ever be ! 
 
 And O yo everlasting hills ! 
 
 Buildings of God, not made with hands, 
 Whoso Word pei'forms whate'er he wills, 
 
 Whose Word, though ye shall perish, stands. 
 Can there be eyes that look on you, 
 
 Till tears of rapture make them dim. 
 Nor in his works the Maker view. 
 
 Then lose his works in Him ? 
 
 By me, when I behold Him not. 
 
 Or love Him not when I behold, 
 Be all I ever knew forget : 
 
 My pulse stand still, my heart grow cold ; 
 Transformed to ice, 'twixt earth and sky. 
 
 On yonder cliff my form be seen, 
 That all may ask, but none reply. 
 
 What my offence hath been ! " 
 
 From Ragatz we posted to Coire, in the Canton of the Ori- 
 sons. It is an old capital of some 5000 inhabitants, enjoying 
 some peculiar commercial advantages by its position at the 
 confluences of various roads, and on the highway of travel from 
 Italy into Switzerland and Germany. The Canton in the main 
 is Protestant, and the democrative government is of a Council 
 of seventy members at Coire. In the Cantons of St. Gaul, 
 Glarus, and the Grisons, there are some delightful and rare 
 examples of religious toleration and equality between the two 
 systems that divide the population. Sometimes, the Protcs- 
 
 ••^^fi^-
 
 WANDEUTNGS OF A I'lLGHlM. 
 
 tants <aiid Romanists being nearly equal in numbers, tlie same 
 church is used by them for public worship in turn. This is 
 the case in some parts of the Rheinthal, a valley of the Rhine, 
 which has its three sources in the Canton of the Grisons. In 
 the Canton Glarus, containing about twenty-six thousand in- 
 habitants, though the Protestants number three-fourths of the 
 population, the governmental " council is composed of equal 
 proportions of the inhabitants. Catholics and Protestants," 
 and in some cases the same chapel is used for both congrega- 
 tions. The churches and schools are established and paid by 
 the government, and parents are required, under a certain pe- 
 nalty, to send their children for instruction. 
 
 If the traveller wishes to know how that rare thing in Eu- 
 rope, the Voluntary System, acts upon the happiness of the 
 people where it prevails, ho may turn to Mr. Murray's short 
 description of the Engadine Valley, with its populous and 
 flourishing villages, where they have "nine months of winter, 
 and three of cold weather." What the writer intended as a 
 blot, appears only as a seal of primitive truth and purity, 
 "Poverty," he says, "is rare, beggary almost unknown, and 
 the people, who are, with the exception of one or two parishes, 
 Protestants, are creditably distinguished for their morality, and 
 are exempt from the vices common in other parts of Switzer- 
 land. Their pastors are held in great respect, but their pay is 
 miserable, affording a striking proof of the working of a volun- 
 tary system. The Sabbath is strictly observed; strangers only 
 are allowed on that day to ride or drive till after church time. ' ' 
 A voluntary system that produces such fruits as these, is better 
 than all the will-worship of the most lavishly supported hierar- 
 chical or state establishments. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 COURSE OF THE RHINE. LOUIS PHILIPPE, THE ROYAL SCHOOL- 
 MASTER AT HEICHENAU. REICHENAU TO THUSIS. 
 
 From Coire we pass through Reichenau, a little village at the 
 bridges, where the two branches of the Rhine unite, one from
 
 COURSE OP THE RHINE. 
 
 tlie St. Gotbard, the other from the pass of the Splugeu, to 
 form one "rejoicing and abounding river," that runs in and 
 out at the Lake of Constance, thunders over the falls at Schaff- 
 hausen, feeds the pride, patriotism, and wine-vats of all Ger- 
 many, and after its long com-se of grandeur, fuss, and glory, is 
 sponged up by the sands before it can reach the sea. Poor 
 disappointed river ! What an emblem it is of the closing life of 
 some men, who have made a great stir in their day, but go en- 
 tirely out of men's minds before they die ! 
 
 An emblem of some noisy reformers and agitators without 
 heart, who make a great show of patriotism, benevolence, and 
 fearless zeal for a time, but by and by sink down and are heard 
 of no more, in the sand-banks of selfishness and expediency. 
 An emblem more fitly of some truly great men, like Scott and 
 Southey, in whom paralysis overtakes the mental faculties, 
 after they have enriched society with the overflowing treasures 
 of their great genius. But not an emblem of the Christian, 
 who " like the sun seems larger at his setting," and pours 
 as a river of life into the ocean of eternity. Nor is it an em- 
 olem of that River the streams whereof make glad the City of 
 God ; for the gladdening and glory of its course here are but 
 things by the way, incidental results, by which it transfigures 
 human society with peace and beauty, while the depth and 
 blessedness of its elements are then only to be fully seen and 
 known, when out of Death it flows a shining Sea of Life through 
 Eternity. 
 
 There is an inn at Reichenau, formerly a Chateau, which 
 Louis Philippe, King of the French, would perhaps be glad to 
 have transported into the Museum of the Louvre, as a sort of 
 old chrysalis of the living Monarch, more curious in some re- 
 spects than the Sarcophagi of dead Egyptian kings. Li this 
 Chateau at Reichenau, in the days of his adversity, while the 
 French Revolution, with Napoleon as its Star of the Morning, 
 its Lucifer, Avas sweeping on its swift and awful wing across 
 the nations, Louis Philippe, the friendless young man, the fu- 
 ture Monarch, taught mathematics and history in a common 
 school ! Compelled to flee from Baumgarten in 1793, he brought 
 a secret letter of introduction to M. Jost, the Principal of tho 
 
 ji^ 
 
 l^ 
 
 1-0^
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRDI. 
 
 burgomaster Tscharner's school, and being appointed a teacher, 
 he found a refuge for nearly a year, unknown in this employment. 
 A season of much meditation it must have been to him, of hard 
 and profitable thinking, of useful trial, and of much enjoyment 
 in nature. Sometimes he stopped in the midst of his Algebraic 
 solutions, as one surrounded in a dream by the din and smoke 
 of the armies of his country, and sometimes he Avas himself in 
 a reverie in the palace of the Tuileries in Paris, while the boys 
 were following his compasses and calculations round the wood- 
 ed globe. Many a pleasant walk he must have had among the 
 mountains, many a refreshing swim in the blue and gray wa- 
 ters of the Rhine. The schoolmaster may have been happier 
 than the monarch, and probably was. Fifty-four years ago, 
 how little could he have dreamed the scenes through which his 
 life of the next half century, as the Actor instead of the Teacher 
 of history, was to be drawn ! The young pedestrian, with a 
 bundle on his back and a pilgrim's staff, calling himself Mon- 
 sieur Chabot, knew not that he was on his way to the throne, 
 instead oi from it, or that the extremes of his life, almost his 
 first and second childhood, should be the instruction of half a 
 dozen Swiss children and the governing of thirty millions of 
 French. 
 
 On our way towards this village we passed in sight of tho 
 hamlet of Feldsberg, threatened with destruction from the fall 
 of an overhanging mountain more perpendicular by far than 
 the Rossberg. The danger was so imminent that the inhabi- 
 tants, some months before, had begged to be received into a 
 neighbouring commune, and united with it. But the people of 
 Feldsberg were Protestants ; so the authorities of the Romish 
 commune refused to grant their request, unless they would re- 
 nounce the Protestant faith and become Roman Catholics ! 
 This was truly characteristic ; and the determination of the 
 poor people to abide by the Gospel under the falling mountain, 
 rather than take refuge in Romanism from the avalanche, was 
 equally so. What disposition has been made of the inhabi- 
 tants I know not ; but it is very clear that the i-eligious cha- 
 rity and freedom, applauded in some parts of the Canton, have 
 no place in the neighbourhood of this threatened convidsioa of
 
 INTOLERANCE. 
 
 333 
 
 nature. There is in this very region a mixture of the two op- 
 posite systems of religion quite unexampled, the village of Rei- 
 chenau, for instance, being Romish, while just the other sitle 
 of the river the hamlet is Protestant. The languages are 
 quite as distinct, one village speaking German, while its next 
 neighbour talks in the Romansch patois. 
 ■^f/. The world has made the greatest mistake against its own 
 
 interests in being so intolerant, that ever was made. Some- 
 times one portion of it has driven away from its bosom the most 
 vital elements of its industry and prosperity, because they could 
 not conform to its hierarchical and religious despotisms. Spain 
 impoverished herself by driving out the Moors and Jews. France 
 put back her own advancement in agriculture and manufac- 
 tures irretrievably by burning out the Huguenots, and at the 
 same time enriched other countries at her own expence. Italy 
 impoverished and debilitated herself in like manner by the pe- 
 remptory banishment of some of her best manufacturers, be- 
 cause they were Reformed, and in that measure took the most 
 direct course possible to build up the Protestant city of Zu- 
 rich, where the banished ones from Locarno found a hospitable 
 refuge with all their wealth, arts, and industry. They who 
 will leave a country for their faith, rather than desert their 
 faith, are likely to be the best of its citizens, and when you 
 draw them off, you take away the life-blood of the coimtry. 
 This is one way in which, by the constitution of Divine Provi- 
 dence, men's sins come down upon their own pate, and nations 
 reap the fire of their own persecutions. They soav their fields 
 with fire, and gather fire into their own garners. They sow the 
 wind and reap the whirlwind. But men do not learn this, 
 until they see it in history, and even there they rarely turn the 
 light of their own experience upon the future, so that selfishness 
 and passion often beguile one generation to a plunge into the 
 same mistakes that have ruined the preceding. 
 
 From Reichenau we posted the same evening to Thusis, a 
 village of about seven hundred inhabitants, situated against 
 the jaws of the wildest, most tremendous defiles in Switzerland, 
 on a mountain-terrace or projection of unequal height, from 
 which you enjoy down the open valley the loveliest variety of 
 
 ^%
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 prospect in river, plain, mountain, castle, and hamlet. By 
 one of those great calamities, which so often overwhelm the 
 Swiss villages, this thriving little town has been hut recently 
 destroyed by a conflagration. No man can measure the dis- 
 tress which must fall upon the inhabitants ; indeed, there seems 
 no possible resource by which they could recover from so deso- 
 lating a blow. It is most melancholy to think of the misery 
 that must be endured by them. 
 
 The romantic country through which we have now been tra- 
 velling possesses more remembrances of feudal tyranny and 
 war in the half-ruined castles, so thickly scattered along the 
 Rhine-vales, than any other part of Switzerland. Sometimes 
 they can scarcely be distinguished from the rocks on which 
 they arc built, they have become so storm-beaten, old, and moss- 
 grown. Some of them surmount the crags in such picturesque 
 boldness, apparently inaccessible and impregnable, that you 
 wonder both how they were constructed and how they were con- 
 quered. They are remnants of a despotic, warlike, social state, 
 like the huge fossil remains of a past world of all-devouring 
 monsters. The landscapes commanded by them are scenes of 
 the greatest grandeur and beauty, though that was the element 
 least thought of in their construction. Now the traveller winds 
 his way along, and thinks of the powerful spirit of beauty in 
 Nature which has subdued them to herself in their decay, and 
 dropping a vail of loue and melancholy grandeur over them, 
 has enshrined the forms of men's tyranny for the delight of 
 man's imagination. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 TEURIFIC GRANDEUR OF THE SPLU6EN. THE VIA MALA. CREA- 
 TION AS A TEACHER OF GOD. 
 
 Is it not perfectly true that everything which is to have power 
 over man must come to him through a human heart, must have 
 the tone of the heart? To get wilhin him, it must proceed/;-o7?i 
 within some one else ; all that is merely external is cold, unap- 
 
 f.
 
 TERRIFIC GRANDEUR OF THE SPLUGEN. 
 
 335 
 
 
 pealing, lifeless. This is tlie case indeed wltli man's works, 
 but not with God's, There is never an object in God's crea- 
 tion but speaks at once to the heart as well as to the mind, 
 if the heart be prepared to listen. The universe is glorious, 
 because God made it, and it speaks of Him. Whatever object 
 he has touched with the finger of his power shall bear that im- 
 press till he has annihilated it. Though it were but a withered 
 leaf driven by the whirlwind, it sparkles with his glory. And 
 there is as much of Ilim, of his power and love, in a drop of 
 dew trembling on a rose-leaf, if rightly appreciated, as in the 
 snowy summit of Mont Blanc burning at sunset. 
 
 All things are steps and links for intercourse with God. 
 Hence, Henry Martyn used to say, when tired of human com- 
 pany and its depravity, and destitute of all Christian commu- 
 nion, that anything whatever of God's works was sweet to him. 
 " A leaf," said he, " is good company," for it brought his Fa- 
 ther near to him, and he could talk with God. 
 
 It is a blessed, practical, and not merely imaginative habit 
 of mind, by w^hicli the things of sense are thus rendered sub- 
 servient to spiritual purposes, " auxiliar to divine." It is a 
 heavenly faculty, by which the hieroglyphics of himself which 
 the Eternal Being has deigned to write with the finger of his 
 glory upon created things, may be interpreted and read in their 
 splendour and fulness. The universe is a type of spiritual in- 
 telligence to the eye that made it thus, disclosing and reflecting 
 at every turn the knowledge of the glory of its illuminating 
 Sun. I have seen, says the poet Wordsworth, in one of his 
 most beautiful strains of imagery, 
 
 " I have seen 
 A curious child, that dwelt upon a tract 
 Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
 The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell, 
 To which, in silence huslied, his very soul 
 Listened intently; and his countenance soon 
 Brightened with joy: for murniuriiigs from within 
 Were heard, sonorous cadences ! wliercby 
 To liis belief the Monitor expressed 
 Mysterious union with its native sea. 
 E'en such a shell the Universe itself 
 Is to the ear of Faith." Exounsiox. 
 
 --f&i
 
 336 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 The thought thus hcautifuUy expressed (and it is au exqui- 
 sitely beautiful image) is but the reiteration of repeated decla- 
 rations in the Scriptures in regard to the purpose and mean- 
 ing of the visible creation of God, Their line is goiie out through 
 all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. 
 
 In all God's works there is heart, God's heart, for God is 
 Love ; and he is happy who feels this, for though every man 
 sees God with his mind, his understanding, no man sees him 
 with the heart, or hears the tone of the heart of Love in crea- 
 tion, who has not something of that love within him. Li man's 
 works, heart is the rarest ingredient, the most precious, the 
 most costly, the most seldom to be met with. In God's works, 
 love is the universal element, though power is almost the only 
 element which man notices. But love is the element that 
 speaks to the heart, and happy is the heart that hears its bliss- 
 ful lancjuao-e. 
 
 Hence the beauty of that sonnet imitated by Montgomery 
 from the Italian of Gaetana Passerini. 
 
 f'i 
 
 Hs^ 
 
 " If in tlie field I meet a smiling flower, 
 
 Methinks it whispers, ' God created me, 
 
 And I to Him devote my little hour, 
 
 In lonely sweetness and humility.' 
 
 If where the forest's darkest shadows lower, 
 
 A serpent quick and venomous I sec, 
 
 It seems to say — ' I too extol the power 
 
 Of Ilim who caused me at his will to be.' 
 
 The fountain purling, and the river strong, 
 
 The rocks, the trees, the mountains, raise one song ; 
 
 ' Glory to God !' ro-echoes in mine ear : 
 
 Faithless were I, in wilful error blind, 
 
 Did I not Ilim in all his creatures find, 
 
 His voice through heaven and earth and ocean hear." 
 
 But what poetry can give a human utterance to the voice 
 that speaks from that dread mountain-rift of Switzerland, the 
 Pass of the Splugen ? Milton should be here to describe it, as 
 he has the war in heaven, with lano;uao;e, feelinof, thoufjht, 
 imagery, all, as it were, winged with red lightning and impe- 
 tuous rage. All the images of grandeur, power, energy in na- 
 ture. Oceanic, Titanic, Volcanic, the whirlwind, the fiery 
 tempest, the earthquake, elemental war, deluges, convulsions,
 
 ^m 
 
 t^'\ 
 
 TIIE VIA MALA. 
 
 337 
 
 ^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 avalanches, crashing ice-bergs, chained lightning, leaping from 
 crag to crag, and thunder bellowing through the vast and 
 boundless deep, might be exhausted, and yet fail to convey to 
 the mind an adequate impression of this sublime pass. Four 
 or five miles of it are called the Via Mala, constituting one 
 continued, tortuous, black, jagged chasm, split through the 
 stupendous mountain-ridge from the summit to the base, in 
 perpendicular, angular, and convoluted zig-zag rifts, so nar- 
 row in some places that you could almost leap across, yet so 
 deep that the thunder of the Rhine dies upon the ear in strug- 
 gling and reverberating echoes upwards. 
 
 Sixteen hundred feet at least the precipices in some places 
 rise perpendicular to heaven, so serrated and torn, the one side 
 from the other, that if the same Almighty Power that rent them 
 should spring them together, they would shut as closely as a 
 portcullis in its sockets, as a tomb upon its lid. Down in the 
 depths of this fearful fissure thunders the mad river, some- 
 times lost from sight and scarcely audible in its mufSed, sub- 
 terranean, booming sound, sometimes desperately plunging, 
 sometimes wildly, swiftly, flashing in white foam, sometimes 
 whirling like a maelstroom. 
 
 You enter upon this savage pass from a world of beauty, 
 from the sunlit vale of Domschleg, under the old Etruscan Cas- 
 tle of Realt, spiked in the cliff like a war -club, four hundred 
 feet above you, and totally inaccessible on every side but one. 
 Passing this from Thusis, you are plunged at once into a scene 
 of such concentrated and deep sublimity, such awe-inspiring 
 grandeur, such overwhelming power, that you advance slowly 
 and solemnly, as if every crag were a supernatural being 
 looking at you. The road is with great daring carried along 
 the perpendicular face of crags, being cut from the rock 
 where no living thing could have scaled the mountain, ami 
 sometimes it completely overhangs the abyss, a thousand feet 
 above the raging torrent. Now it pierces the rock, now it runs 
 zig-zag, now spans the gorge on a light dizzy bridge ; now tho 
 mountains frown on each other like tropical thunder-clouds 
 about to meet and discharge their artillery, and now you como 
 upon mighty insulated crags, thrown wildly together, covered 
 VI V 
 
 \^l
 
 ^«t'/ 
 
 ^of 
 
 witli fringes of moss and shrubbery, and constituting^ vast 
 masses of verdure. 
 
 I must here speak of the folly of passing through a scene so 
 magnificently grand in any other way than leisurely on foot. 
 My friend being an invalid, we took a barouche at Thusis, and 
 a fat, surly guide for a driver, but we had no sooner started 
 than with my friend's consent I cleared myself of this incum- 
 brance, and resumed my old lonely pilgrimage, letting the car- 
 riage pass on out of sight before me. Mr, H. soon followed 
 my example, and I could see him now and then Avith his sketch- 
 book in his hand, leaning over the parapet, and endeavouring 
 to transfer with his pencil some little likeness or portrait of the 
 sublime scene. Now and then I got up with him, and found 
 him vexed with the impatient hurry of the coachman, who was 
 very much disposed to drive on alone without us. Without me 
 he did go, and I enjoyed the pleasure of walking back again, 
 to the opening of the gorge at Thusis, admiring the grand fea- 
 tures of the scene in the reverse order. And nothing can be 
 finer than the effect, where you look through the ravine as 
 through a mighty perspective, Avith the Realt Castle hanging 
 to the cliff at its mouth, and the sunny air and earth expand- 
 ing in such contrast with the frowning, gloom-invested, tre- 
 mendous passage behind you. We leaned over the parapet, and 
 by dropping stones in the roaring torrent below, and comput- 
 ing by our watches the time they took to reach the water, en- 
 deavoured to guess at the depth of the chasm. It was dizzy 
 to look at it. The tall black fir forest on the mountain shelves, 
 and the blasted pines on inaccessible peaks, seemed to gaze 
 gravely at us, as if we had come unauthorized into a sanctuary 
 of nature too deep and awful to be trodden by the foot of man. 
 
 Just after the entrance from Thusis, the mountain is pierced 
 bj the first gallery, at a point where of old the chasm was im- 
 passable and never passed. The peasants gave the unfathoni- 
 ed profound abyss at this place the name of the Verlohren Loch, 
 or Lost Gulf, because no man could trace it, and to get to the 
 valley above they had to ascend high mountains from Thusis, 
 and come down in a long fatiguing circuit. After some hun- 
 dreds of years, the engineer of the present road, Pocobelli, un- 

 
 f 
 
 In 
 
 PASS OF THE SPLUGEN. 
 
 (lertook to cut through the overhanging mountain along this 
 Lost Gulf a dark tunnel of 216 feet, and then hlasted a groove 
 for a thousand feet farther, under the rocky canopy, where your 
 carriage passes as on a shelf, with the tremendous gulf beneath 
 you at your left. Now and then the precipices on one side 
 actually hang beetling over the road on the other, and looking 
 up to heaven, it is as if you gazed out from the keep of a dun- 
 geon, and one would think you might almost see the stars at 
 noon-day as from the bottom of a well. 
 
 Looking up the pass from below the second bridge, perhaps 
 the view is finer than in any other part. The bridge itself, 
 with the appalling depth spanned by it, adds to the sublimity. 
 You gain this bridge by a gallery in an overhanging projection 
 of the mountain, and then cross to the other side, looking down 
 and up, as in the central position of the gorge. Owing to the 
 recent heavy rain while we were at Ragatz, the river was now 
 higher than usual, and from the beetling precipices above us 
 the white streams, new born, were leaping like jets of foam. 
 We passed a most singular and daring, but very simple air 
 bridge that hung above us for the purpose of getting the tim- 
 ber from one side of the gulf, where almost perpendicularly it 
 clothes the mountain, over to the road on the other. A range 
 of cables was suspended from the trunks of enormous pines, 
 some hundreds of feet above the road, and being fastened se- 
 curely on the other side of the gulf, the timber being cut and 
 trimmed for the purpose, was thus swung high in its cradle of 
 air to the place of landing for transportation. 
 
 How tremendous would a falling avalanche be in this place! 
 But here the moimtains, one would think, are too steep for the 
 snow and ice to congregate in sufficient masses. In a dread- 
 ful stoi-m in 1834, the river being dammed up by the fragments 
 of rock and timber wedged into the jagged narrow cleft, tho 
 water rose nearly four hundred feet. It poured down the gorge 
 as if an ocean had burst into it, but its ravages were com- 
 mitted principally in the vales above and below the Via Mala. 
 At the village of Sjilugen twelve houses were swept away, so 
 Budden and violent was the inundation, in some of which, an 
 hour before, the peasants had been quietly seated at their sup-
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 •^ 
 
 per. The same terrific storm <aiul Inuiulatioii covered some 
 ether of the valleys with a half century of desolation. 
 
 At Andeer 1 rejoined my friend, whose care had provided a 
 good dinner, hesides making all arrangements for getting on to 
 Splugen for the night. There was nothing for me to do but 
 to sit down and rest myself. I had passed and repassed almost 
 the whole of the Via Mala, and would have been glad, if pos- 
 sible, to return through the same stupendous pass the next day, 
 but our course was direct for Italy. 
 
 -Ol 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 NATUPwVL THEOLOGY OF THE SPLUGEN. 
 
 Now, dear friend, what thinkest thou of the moral of this stu- 
 pendous scene in the preceding chapter ? Dost thou set down 
 this mountain-rift, in thy natural theology, as a chapter of the 
 scars and vestiges of sin, one of the groans of nature in this 
 nether world, wrung out by man's fall, or is it to thee an in- 
 structive, exalting, exciting scene of Power, magnificently 
 grand, almost as if thou hadst witnessed the revealed Arm of 
 Omnipotence, and lifting thy heart, mind, soul, thy whole be- 
 ing, up to God ? 
 
 Methinks you answer, that if God meant the world to be a 
 great solemn palace for the teaching of his children, on the very 
 walls of which there should be grand inscriptions and hiero- 
 glyphics productive of great thoughts, rousing the mind from 
 slumber, rearing the imagination with a noble discipline, he 
 would have scattered here and there just such earthquake-rifts 
 of power and grandeur. We are immortal children in the 
 school-house of our infancy. It is not necessary to suppose 
 that every scar on the face of Nature, deep entrenched and jag- 
 ged, is an imperfection or a mark of wrath ; for it may be a 
 scene where an angel passing by would stop and admire it as 
 a symbol of God's power, a faint comma, as it were, in the 
 revelation of his attributes ; it may be a scene which awakens 
 great thoughts in an angel's bosom, as a hidden lowly daisy 
 
 4'i 
 ¥ 
 
 
 I
 
 e^^^^r^^^ 
 
 ^s^ 
 
 I 
 
 h 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE SPLUGEN. 
 
 tloes tlie more gentle ones ; the daisy being a flower whicla an 
 angel might stop to gaze at as an emblem of sweetness and hu- 
 mility. 
 
 And in this view, as a hieroglyphic of Power, this fathom- 
 less dread gorge is also a proof of Love. It was Love that ap- 
 pointed it as an emblem of Power. So is the great wide Sea, 
 and that Leviathan whom Thou hast made to play therein. So 
 are the volcanoes, the ice-continents, and the burning deserts. 
 All may be works of Love, though they show nothing but 
 Power. And even if it be Power in exercise for the avenging 
 and punishment of sin, even then it is Love ; for every lesson 
 of God's wrath is Love, and where there is sin, Avratli is a proof 
 of Love, of Love saving by wrath the lookers on from rushing 
 into wrath. 
 
 There are places in our world where we may suppose that ' 
 beings from another planet, conversant with the history of ours. 
 Avould stop and gaze solemnly, and speak to each other of God's 
 retributive justice. Such is that black dead sea with arid 
 shores that rolls where Sodom stood. If angels went to take 
 Lot from the city that was to be burned, how often, when an- 
 gels pass the place, scarred now with retribution, do they think 
 with shuddering of the evil of sin ! Yet even that retribution 
 Avas invested with the atmosphere of Love, and had not God 
 been Love, he might have let Sodom stand, he might have let 
 the guilty go unpunished. If God were not Love, then there 
 might be no future retribution of misery to the wicked. But 
 justice only does the work of Love, and Love works for the pu- 
 rity and blessedness of the universe. Where there is sin. Love 
 without wrath would only be connivance with iniquity. 
 
 It is a fact, therefore, tliat in your natural theology sin be- 
 ino- given, pain is absolutely necessary, in order to prove the 
 benevolence of God. So that the problem and the answer 
 might be stated thus : Given, the fact of sin, how will you 
 demonstrate that God is a good being ? Answer : Only by 
 proving that God punishes sin. In tliis view, the misery with 
 which earth is filled, so far from being a difficulty in God's go- , 
 vernment, goes to establish it as God's. A malevolent being 
 would have let men sin without making them miserable; there- 
 
 V 

 
 "b, 
 
 342 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM 
 
 fore God could not be proved benevolent unless, in a world of 
 sin, tbere were the ingredient of misery. 
 
 Then as to the other problem : Given, a race of sinful 
 creatures: What sort of a -world shall they be placed in ? You 
 would certainly answer. Not a world of unminglcd softness and 
 beauty, not a Paradise of enjoyment, not the early and undis- 
 eased Eden of innocence and love, but a world, in Avhich there 
 shall be enough of storm and tempest, enough of painful cli- 
 mate, and of the curse of barrenness, and of the element of 
 disaster and ruin, to show God's frown and evident curse for 
 sin; but yet enough of the means of enjoyment, if rightly used 
 to draw men to industry, to show God's kindness and love, and 
 enough of beauty and sublimity to impress, delight, and educate 
 the soul. It is just a world so mingled, a world scarred with 
 evil, as well as bright with good, that we, a sinful race, do 
 really inhabit. 
 
 The view which men take of the argument for the goodness 
 of God from the works of creation will vary much according to 
 their own states of mind. A man suffering the consequences 
 of sin, or a man under a cloud of care, and destitute of faith, 
 or a man bm-dened with present miseries, without any consola- 
 tion from divine grace, would see things very differently from 
 a calm mind, a quiet mind, a happy mind, a mind at peace with 
 God. The universe takes its colouring from the hue of our own 
 souls ; and so, in a measure, does the solution of the question 
 whether the universe, so far as we are acquainted with it, 
 proves a God of love. A heart that loves God, and rejoices in 
 the happiness that fills the world around it, will say instinc- 
 tively that it does, and will sympathize with God in his own 
 feelings of delight in the happiness of creation. A misanthro- 
 pic heart, a sinful heart, a rebellious heart, will perhaps be 
 disposed to say No, or will overlook, and cannot understand 
 and appreciate the power of the argument. For a mind dis- 
 posed to make difiiculty, plenty of difficulty exists. For a 
 mind humbly disposed to learn of God, there is confirmation 
 of the soul's faith even in difliculties themselves, which are as 
 buttresses supporting the spire that subUmely points to heaven. 
 
 ^Il
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 
 <% 
 
 PASS OF THE SPLUGEN INTO ITALY. — THE CARDINELL AMD MAC- 
 DONALD 's ARMY. — CAMPO DOLCINO AND CHIAVENNA. 
 
 FiiOM the little wild village of Splugen, overhanging the young 
 Rhine -river, where there is an excellent mountain inn, having 
 supped, slept, and breakfasted, 4711 feet above the sea, you 
 take your departure at pleasure for either of the two Alpine 
 passes into Italy, the Splugen or the Bernardin. Both of them, 
 carry you across scenes of the greatest wildness, winter, and 
 sublimity, into almost perpetual loveliness and summer. You 
 pass the snowy recesses, where Nature holds the nursling rivers 
 to her bosom of glaciers, feeding her infants with ice; you go 
 down into Elysian fields, where the brooks sparkle and dance 
 like laughing children amidst flowers and sunshine. The 
 whirlwind of war has poured across each of these passes, in 
 the most terrific of the seasons, driven by the French General 
 Lecourbe at the Bernardin, and by Macdouald at the perillous 
 gorge of the Cardinell. They marched in the midst of fierce 
 tempests and falling avalanches that swept whole phalanxes as 
 into the depths of hell, as if the avenging genii of Switzerland 
 were up in arms, the ministers of wrath against the oppressor. 
 The pass of the Splugen, rising more than 2000 feet above the 
 village of Splugen, and 6814 above the sea, brings you out at 
 Chiavenna and the Lake of Como. That of the Bernardin 
 rising 7115 feet above the sea, and about 2400 above Splugen, I; 
 opens upon Bellinzona and the Lakes of Magiore and Lugano. J; 
 We take the Splugen road, and following it through four /- 
 miles and three quarters of laborious ascent, come to the uar- / 
 row mountain ridge, which traces the boundary line between (J 
 Switzerland and Lombardy. The steepest ascent is effected )V 
 by a great number of zigzags, so gradual, that they turn al- ^ 
 most parallel on one another. The pedestrian will do well to ^ 
 scale across them, as one might cut a coil of rope across tho ^ 
 centre, instead of running round it; and climbing from crag to '''T' 
 crag, he will speedily see his carriage and friends far below /^ 
 him, toiling slowly along, while he himself seems to be mount-
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PIT.GRIM. 
 
 ing into heaven. The labourers were at work npoii the road if} 
 above these zigzags, constructing a tunnel or gallery for safety 
 from the avalanches, so as to let them shoot over the roof into 
 the gulf below without harm to the passengers. But a man 
 would not wish to he present either in the tunnel or on the 
 zigzags, when an avalanche thundered down. One would sup- 
 pose it would sweep gallery and all before it, tearing a trench 
 in the mountain, like the furrow of a cannon ball across rough 
 ground. 
 
 You reach the summit of the pass, the highest ridge, and as 
 usual there is little or no intermediate space, no debateable J^ 
 level, but you descend as instantly, almost, as from one side of ' 
 the steep roof of a house to the other. The fierce wind cutting 
 your face, and sometimes blowing as if it would hurl you back 
 bodily into the inn at Splugen, or the thundering Rhine, tells 
 you at once, as well as the extreme cold, when you have reached 
 the culminating point, for you get nothing of Italy here except 
 an Austrian bayonet, sharp and watchful as the ice-breeze. 
 Perhaps you may have been expecting to meet the warm breath 
 of the South, and to look down from the peaks of winter into 
 the verdure of sunny Italian landscapes. As yet the Italian 
 side is as savage as the Swiss, and there is an element of gloom 
 besides, almost sensible in the air itself, and visible as a sym- 
 bol, in the awful desolation around you, — grim despotism, vi- 
 gilant, insolent, remorseless. So pass on, if you please, and 
 enter some of its guard-houses, built as much like dread prisons 
 as may be, and where you feel as if in prison yourself, while 
 your passport and your baggage are under examination. How 
 different this, from the pleasant, hospitable reception on the 
 Grand St. Bernard ! 
 
 The old road from this point passed through the terrific 
 gorge of the Cardinell, where Macdonald, at the will of Napo- 
 leon, undertook a five days' fight with the rage of the elements. 
 It was winter and storm, but there was no retreating. He 
 advanced Avith his army in the face of a cannonade of avalan- 
 ches, on the brink of unfathomable abysses, where many a 
 score of despairing men and struggling horses, buficted and ^\ 
 blinded by the wings of the tempest, and wrapped in a Avinding 
 
 fjg^fy
 
 '«b, 
 
 MACDONALD S ARMY AND THE CARDINELL. 
 
 i45 
 
 i 
 
 sheet of ice and suow, were launclied off bj the crashing moun- 
 tain masses, and buried for ever. Over this gorge the avalan- 
 ches hang- balanced and brooding, so that a -whisper may pre- 
 cipitate them. They have sometimes fallen like a thunderbolt, 
 and swept away one traveller, leaving another in safety by his 
 side. The mail carriers have seen their horses shot into the 
 abyss, not indeed from under them, but Avhen they had dis- 
 mounted for an instant. It seems to be a pass shrouded in 
 more absolute terrors than any in Switzerland. 
 
 There are indeed more avalanches annually in this Canton of 
 the Grisons than in any other, and a greater number of lives 
 lost every year. There is no avoiding the peril, because no 
 foreseeing when it may fall. A story is told, with all the evi- 
 dence of truth, of the whole village of Rueras in 1749 being 
 swept off by an avalanche so immense, taking such vast deep 
 masses of earth all at once, that the inmates in some of the 
 iiouses were not even awakened by the rush of the mountain, 
 and when they did awake buried, lay abed and wondered that 
 the night was so long ! Tired mountaineers sleep very sound- 
 iy, but I do not demand credit for this, though it is not abso- 
 lutely incredible. There are incidents enough, terrible and 
 grand, and escapes almost miraculous, which do not so tax 
 faith's faculties. 
 
 In the passage of Macdonald's army through this frightful 
 region, so far from being surprised at the number of men swept 
 to destruction, we only wonder that whole regiments were not 
 buried at once; the amazement is, that passing in a winter's 
 storm, with avalanches repeatedly shooting through these co- 
 lumns, so large a portion of the army escaped, not more than 
 a hundred men and as many horses, being lost. One of the 
 drummers of the army, having been shot in a snow bank from 
 the avalanche into the frightful gulf, and having struggled 
 forth alive, but out of sight and reach of his comrades, was 
 lieard beating his drum for hours in the abyss, vainly expecting 
 rescue. Poor fellow! the roll of his martial instrument had 
 often roused his fellow-soldiers with fierce courage to the at- 
 tack, but now it Avas his own funeral march that he was beat- 
 ing, and it sounded like a death summons for the whole army 
 
 ^ ^^^ ^ ^^^- ^^"""^^ ^
 
 into this frightful Hades, if another avalanche should thunder 
 down. There was no reaching him, and deatli with icy fingers 
 stilled the roll of the drum, and beat out the last pulsations of 
 hope and life in his bosom ! 
 
 Macdonald was struggling on to Marengo. The army suf- 
 fered more from fatigue and terror in the passage than in all 
 their battles. Had they perished in the gorge of the Cardinell 
 the victory at Marengo would perhaps have been changed into 
 a defeat, which itself might have changed the whole course of 
 modern history. What might not have been, had such and 
 such things not been! and what mighty things might never 
 have been if such and such things had been. Give me but the 
 power to have put a pin where I might choose, twice in the 
 last forty years, and I could have revolutionized all Europe. 
 If is a great word. How many at this moment are saying, 
 If I had but done so and so, or, if this circumstance were onlj' 
 so, or, if\ had but avoided doing so and so ! Sometimes ifs 
 are fearful things, especially on a dying bed, when they ba- 
 lance the soul between hell and heaven. One half the sentence 
 presents it at the gates of Paradise, the other thrusts it through 
 the portals of the world of wo. 
 
 We passed now above the village of Isola, with the deserted 
 and unused zigzags leading to it, whijch you overlook com- 
 pletely, as if you could jump down upon the clustered houses. 
 The laborious constructed roads and great gallei-ies tell you, if 
 you are at all sceptical, what dangers lie in wait from the ava- 
 lanches, which you find it difficult to conceive, when crossing 
 the pass in the depth of simimer and in fine weather. A space 
 of about three thousand feet, where the avalanches roar across 
 the passage every year, and would plough up an open road like 
 the wedge of the descending pyramids of Dgizeh, is nearly 
 covered with these massive galleries, one of them 700 feet in 
 length, a second G42 feet long, and a still longer gallery of 
 1530 feet by fifteen high and wide. The solid smooth roofs 
 slope outwards, and the traveller beneath them, if he is there 
 at a proper time, may hear above him the sublime roar of the 
 descending masses of ice and snow, impetuously sweeping the 
 roof and shooting into the gulf like a tornado. 
 
 m 

 
 ■^ 
 
 ^^'j 
 
 The road crosses the stream of the Medissimo, at the very 
 verge of the precipice, where the little river takes a sheer 
 plung-e, of nearly 800 feet high, down into the vale of the Lira, 
 making one of the most truly magnificent cascades in all Swit- 
 zerland. But you should see it when the stream is well swol- 
 len with rains. You command the whole fall from ahove; you 
 have also the most admirable points of view sideways and half 
 in front, as you wind your way beyond the river down into the 
 Vale, by the rocky zigzags turning and retm-uing upon the 
 scene. It is indescribably beautiful. 
 
 If the day itself did not begin to be cloudy and severe, you 
 would have, even thus far up the mountains, a taste of the 
 sweet air of Italy, as well as an experience of its bitter, deso- 
 late and dirty inns. Its golden delicious names begin to win- 
 now the air like winged words upon yoiu' ear at every step, 
 and from the village of Splugen, with its clattering conson- 
 ants, and its comfortable, excellent hotel, you pass to the vil- 
 lage of Campo Dolcino, a paradisaical name, a dirty hamlet, 
 and an execrable inn. This was the Post inn, and here we had 
 been promised a new carriage and horses, not being able, on 
 any condition, to persuade our obstinate or faint-hearted young- 
 driver from Splugen to carry us in to Chiavenna. The gover- 
 nors of the stable at Campo Dolcino either could not or would 
 not provide us a voiture, whereupon, as we would have ridden 
 a rail rather than stay in this dram-drinking, oath-swearing 
 place over the Sabbath (and it was now Saturday evening) a 
 peasant's hay cart, that stood in a melancholy out-house, was 
 hai'nessed, the postilions and horses of two carriages that had 
 just arrived on the way to Splugen were appended, and in this 
 sumptuous style we set out for Chiavenna. We came into Italy 
 in the fog and rain, and into Chiavenna upon the vcrtebraj of 
 a cart, drawn by two horses, with six more fastened behind, 
 and three yellow and red-coated postilions on the seat in front 
 of us, with their bi-azcn music-breaking horns of office slung 
 over their shoulders. 
 
 The pass down the valley is the very sublimity of desolation, 
 a chaos of huge blocks of rocks from tho surrounding mouji- 
 tains, thrown and piled disorderly from ago to age, in aijuarcs
 
 ■it^JLi^Sg^g^ ^ i^f-fi<^V=^^A._ 
 
 348 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 i 
 
 and parallelograms, and now covered partially, and richly vail- 
 ed, with mosses and verdure. The rock is of a kind that red- 
 dens in the air after long exposure, so that the colour of the 
 scene is dark and rich, and the many magnificent chestnut 
 trees, with their thick, luxuriant foliage, amidst the precipices, 
 along which the road winds downwards, make the landscape 
 most impressive for its solemnity and beauty. Two or three 
 miles before arriving at Chiavenna, this narrow vale of Lira 
 opens out into an expansive combination of the lovely luxuri- 
 ance of Italy with the grandeur of Switzerland; glorious moun- 
 tains broken into picturesque red crags, embosomed in foliage, 
 so that the sun, shining on them with the slant golden light 
 of setting day, turns them into jasper; green vineyards purjiled 
 with the luscious ripe grapes ; overshadowing chestnuts, leafy 
 figs, pomegranates, mulberries, almonds, and everywhere the 
 record of an inexhaustible life and fertility, in the richest, 
 most consummate vegetation. Here lies, romantically situated, 
 on the river Maira, at the mouth of the Val Bregaglia, under 
 the overawing mountains, the Italian town of Chiavenna. 
 
 You drive up to the Inn Conradi, if you come genteelly and 
 properly into the town; but we had to walk as if we had drop- 
 ped from the clouds, for our roguish postilions were afraid 
 their owners should see them with the peasant's hay-cart, and 
 kindness to them, as well as respect for ourselves, prevented us 
 from insisting that they should parade our queer establishment 
 in the great square, so we got out at a proper distance and 
 threaded our Avay to the Hotel, leaving them to follow Avith our 
 luggage. Hard by the Inn rises a most romantic ruined old 
 castle, on the summit of a grottoed cliff, and a few steps from 
 it are the antique ecclesiastical structures of the town, amono- 
 which the most singular are a couple of human skeleton-houses, 
 with grated doors, through which you see piled innumerable 
 skulls and cross-bones grinning at you; an order of architect- 
 ure more antique and solemn than any other in the world. The 
 priests are busy with their processions, the bells are ringing, the 
 world is singing, and the whole population, especially of women, 
 seem to be church choristers. The two guardian genii of Italy 
 are perpetually at work around you, Music and Superstition. 
 
 l-..ffs:r7^. 
 
 %^^^^^f^S
 
 THE BrRIED TOWN OF TLEURS. 
 
 There are in Cliiaveuna about three thousand people. The 
 great interest of the surrounding region is in the beauty of the 
 Valley of Bregaglia, above the town towards the pass of the Ma- 
 loggia, most grand and beautiful. About an hour's walk brings 
 you to a spot, which was to me one of the most interesting iu 
 all my rambles, the spot where the village of Pleurs, with about 
 twenty-five hundred inhabitants, was overwhelmed in the year 
 J6i8, by the falling of a mountain. This terrific avalanche 
 took place in the night, and was so sudden, complete, and over- 
 whelming, that not only every soul perished, but no trace what- 
 ever of the village or of any of the remains of the inhabitants 
 could afterwards be discovered. The mountain must have 
 buried the town to the depth of several hundred feet. Though 
 the all-vailing gentleness of nature has covered both the moun- 
 tain that stood, and that which fell, with luxuriant vegetation, 
 and even a forest of chestnuts has grown amidst the wilderness 
 of the rocks, yet the vastness and the wreck of the avalanche 
 are clearly distinguishable. Enormous angular blocks of rocks 
 are strewn and piled in the wildest confusion possible, some of 
 them being at least sixty feet high. The soil has so accumu- 
 lated in the space of two hundred years, that on the surface of 
 these ruins there are smooth, grassy fields at intervals, and the 
 chestnuts grow everywhere. A few clusters of miserable ham- 
 lets, like Indians' or gipsies' wigwams, are also scattered over 
 the grave of the former village, and there is a forlorn looking 
 chapel that might serve as a convent for banditti. The moun- 
 tains rise on either side to a great height in most picturesque 
 peaks and outlines, and the valley is filled up with a snowy range 
 at the north. 
 
 On this spot I read with great pleasure the Bcncdicite in the 
 Book of Common Prayer, which my friend lent me. yo moun- 
 tains and all bills, praise the Lord ! There is but one verso 
 in it inconsistent with the sublimity of the whole, and that is 
 tlie appeal to Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, which is as if the 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 "^^
 
 350 
 
 WAXDEUIN'GS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 i 
 
 bellows of an organ had burst in the middle of an antbem; he 
 that can tell me what it means will have more knowledge than 
 any man I have yet encountered. My friend, though an Eng- 
 lish Clergyman, could not solve the problem. Ananias, Az- 
 arias, and Misael, praise ye the Lord ! Who are, or were, these 
 people, or are they saints or angels, or how came their names 
 in the Beuedicite ? The Romish Missal, from which it was 
 doubtless copied, may perhaps tell. 
 
 On the other side of the ilaira, one of the most beautiful 
 cascades in the world was falling from the mountains. There 
 are four falls, close upon the foam of one another, two higher 
 up, and two lower down. Seen against the setting sun, noth- 
 ing could be more beautiful. Always falling, alwaj-s falling, 
 only beautiful by falling and being lost! Yet not lost, for all 
 streams reach the sea, and so it is an emblem of those acts of 
 faith and self-sacrifice, in which men lose their lives and find 
 them, making as it were a perillous loss, for the kingdom of 
 heaven, which is admired of the world and rewarded in God 
 for ever. 
 
 It was a solemn thing to stand upon the tomb of twenty-five 
 hundred beings, all sepulchred alive. No efforts have ever dis- 
 covered a trace of the inhabitants, not a bone, not a vestige. 
 The mountain that covers them shall be thrown off at the resur- 
 rection, but never before. It was the Mount Conto that fell ; 
 the half that was left behind still rises abrupt and perpendicu- 
 lar over the mighty grave. It is singular enough that the town 
 was situated itself on the tomb of another village, which had 
 previously been overwhelmed by a similar catastrophe. For 
 that reason it was named Pleurs, The Town of Tears. From 
 the times of old, as often as in Italy one city has been buried, 
 another has been built upon the very same spot, except indeed 
 in the case of Pompeii, so that it is no uncommon thing for the 
 same earth to be leased to the dead and the living. 
 
 The Town of Tears was one of the gayest, richest, laughing, 
 pleasure-loving, joyous little cities in the kingdom. It might 
 have been named Tears because it laughed tiU it cried. It had 
 palaces and villas of rich gentlemen and nobles; for its lovely, 
 romantic situation, and pleasant air, attracted the wealthy fam- 
 
 i\
 
 -S?^^ 
 
 'r 
 
 y 
 
 
 THE BCRIED CITY. 
 
 351 
 
 ilies to spend especially the summer months in so delightful a 
 retreat. I wonder that no poet or romance-writer has made 
 this scene the suhject of a thrilling story. The day before the 
 lid of their vast sepulchre fell, the people were as hajjpy and 
 secure as those of Pompeii, the night of the Vesuvian erup- 
 tion — and much more innocent. There had been great rains. 
 Vast masses of gravel were loosened from the mountains, and 
 overwhelmed some rich vineyards. The herdsmen came hurry- 
 ing in to give notice that strange movements had been taking 
 place, with alarming symptoms of some great convulsion; that 
 there were great fissures and rents forming in the mountain, 
 and masses of rock falling, just as the cornice of a building 
 might topple down in fragments, before the whole wall tumbles. 
 The cattle were seized with terror, and probably perceiving the 
 trembling of the ground beneath their feet, fled bellowing from 
 the region. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was no dream of what was to follow. 
 The storm cleared brightly away, the sun rose and set on the 
 fourth of September, as a bridegroom; the people lay down se- 
 curely to rest, or pursued their accustomed festivities into the 
 bosom of the night, with the plans for to-morrrow ; but that 
 night the mountain fell and destroyed them all. At midnight 
 a great roar was heard far over the country, and a shock felt as 
 of an earthquake, and then a solemn stillness followed; in the 
 morning a cloud of dust and vapour hung over the valley, and 
 the bed of the Maira was dry. The river had been stopped 
 by the falling of the mountain across its channel, and the 
 town of Pleurs with the village of Celano had disappeared for 
 ever. All the excavations of all the labourers that could be 
 collected, failed to discover a single vestige of the inhabitants 
 or of their dwelling-places. The miners could not reach the 
 cathedral for its gold and jewels, and there they lie at rest, 
 churches and palaces, villas and hovels, priests, peasants, and 
 nobles, where neither gold, nor love, nor superstition, nor piety, 
 can raise them from their graves, or have any power over 
 them. 
 
 How many a tale this green and rocky mound doth tell of 
 expectations blasted, of plans suddenly broken, of domestic 
 
 '-■^cs- 
 
 V
 
 /=^^_ ^_ 
 
 352 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGIllM. 
 
 tra<^"eilies and comedies interrupted In tlic midst; — of pleasure 
 and prayer, of loss and gain, of poverty and wealth, of sickness 
 and health, all overtaken at once ; the dying and the living 
 cut off together, their death and burial being one and the same. 
 They did eat, they drank, they were marrying and giving in 
 marriage, as in the day when Noah entered the ark. The gate 
 of the Eternal World received a crowd of spirits ; but that gate 
 is always crowded, for the stream of life is not more full and 
 uninterrupted on earth, than it is deep and ceaseless in its pass- 
 age out of Time into Eternity. And not a man in all this tide 
 of unbroken life (for dying is not ceasing to live but living 
 anew), knows the hour of his destiny, though the tide is as 
 immutable, as fixed, as regular, as the laws of the Universe, 
 as Eternity itself. Therefore, sudden deaths, deaths by tem- 
 pests, by avalanches, by "the all-dreaded tbunder-stroke, " 
 deaths at a word, and deaths witliout detected cause, in the 
 midst of health, deaths like the burning of a forest, and deaths 
 like the dropping of the autumn leaves, all have their place 
 calmly and quietly in this tide of life, and as little interrupt or 
 agitate its flow, as tbe ripples that die beneath the weary worn- 
 out winds upon its surface. 
 
 Almost as fixed as the certainty of death, and the uncertainty 
 of the time of death, is the habit of procrastination in preparing 
 for death. Men still reckon on time, amidst all warnings, and 
 on a better time. "The lying spirit," remarks John Foster, 
 "which bad promised to meet them at the assigned spot, to 
 conduct them thenceforward towards heaven, appears not on 
 the ground when they arrive there, unless to tell them that ano- 
 ther stage, still further on will be more advantageous for com- 
 mencing the enterprise." Youth, especially, deems it not pro- 
 bable that life will terminate in youth. And yet, many die 
 young, and vanish as suddenly as a broken dream, so that 
 there is no reliance to be placed even on the most favourable 
 account of probabilities. 
 
 "And," says Foster, with that thougbtful and imperative 
 solemnity, for which bis sentences are often so remarkable, "a 
 few examples, or even 07ie, of the treacherousness of the calcu- 
 lation, should sufiice to warn you not to hazard anything of 
 
 Ml
 
 V 
 
 LESSONS OF DEATH, 
 
 great moment on so menacing an uncertainty. For, in all 
 reason, when an infinitely important interest is depending, a 
 mere possibiliti/ that your allotment may prove to he like theirs, 
 ia to he held of far greater weight on the one side, than the 
 alleged probability of the contrary is on the other. The possi- 
 bility of dying unprepared, takes all the value from even the 
 highest probability that there will be prolonged time to prepare : 
 plainly, because there is no proportion between th.G fearfulness of 
 such a hazard, and the precariousness of such a dependence. So 
 that one day of the certain hazard may he safely asserted to 
 be a greater thing against you, than whole imaginary years 
 promised you by the probability, ought to be accounted of 
 value ^or ?/om." 
 
 Many a man is brought to the gates of death, and even of j. 
 sudden death, and yet forgets it at once, so soon as he is wli 
 brought back again. How beautiful is that old ode of Mason 
 expressing a better purpose in a like deliverance. 
 
 Methought Death laid his hands on me, 
 
 And did his prisoner bind ; 
 And by the sound, methought I heard 
 
 His Master's feet behind. 
 Methought I stood upon the shore, 
 
 And nothing could I see, 
 But the vast ocean, with mine eyes, — 
 
 A vast Eternity ! 
 
 Methought I heard the midnight cry. 
 
 Behold the Bridegroom comes ! 
 Methought I was called to the bar, 
 
 Where souls receive their dooms. 
 The world was at an end to me, 
 
 As if it all did burn: 
 But lo! there came a voice from heaven, 
 
 Which ordered my return. 
 
 Lord, I returned at thy command, 
 
 What wilt thou have me do? 
 let me wholly live to Thee, 
 
 To whom my life I owe ! 
 Fain would I dedicate to Thee 
 
 The remnant of my days: 
 Lord, with my life renew my heart, 
 
 That both thy name may praise. 
 
 X
 
 
 354 
 
 WANDERINGS OK A riLGIlIM. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 BEAUTY OF THE LAKE OF COMO. — COMO TO MILAN. — 
 LEONARDI DA VINCI. 
 
 How strange it is that the beauty of Italy is so mingled with 
 decay and death ! Between Chiavenna and the Lake of Como, 
 if you stop anywhere by night, you do it at your peril. The 
 malaria fever lies in ambush where the mountain streams from 
 the Val Bregaglia, the vale of Lira, and the Valteline, have 
 slowly intruded their marshy shoals in plains that may of old have 
 been covered by the Lake of Como. We started from Chiavenna, 
 through this desolate region, early in the morning by the dili- 
 gence, and in a few hours arrived at Colico on the Lake, for the 
 purpose of embarking in the steamer, that daily about noon 
 departs for Como. You bid adieu to the companionship of 
 mountains, that have so long been personal friends, with great 
 regret, though you are launched upon one of the most beauti- 
 ful water-scenes in the world, and one of the grandest also; 
 for the mountains that invest the Lake of Como give it an air 
 of sublimity and grandeur as impressive as its beauty is attrac- 
 tive. It is about forty miles in length, bordered by a moun- 
 tain landscape of perpetual richness, magnificence, and beauty. 
 But let no man, who has leisure to explore its beauties, cross it 
 in a steamer. There are row-boats and sail-boats, and you 
 should take a day or two with a dear friend, or in quiet soli- 
 tude, to run into its nooks, its enclosures, to land at its pic- 
 tm-esque cliffs svod recesses, and to watch the clouds, the rocks, 
 and the foliage reflected in its bosom, with nothing but the dip- 
 ping oar to break its silence, or ruffle its smoothness. There 
 is great enjoyment in such a sail, and it is only thus that you 
 can become acquainted with the genius loci, the soul and spirit 
 of the lake and the landscape. 
 
 A.t the town of Como you feel that you are in Italy, and 
 how vast the change from the mountains of Switzerland to this 
 Bunny clime ! We were in haste to reach Milan, and there 
 being nothing to detain us at Como, we secured the only two 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 i&^ 
 
 i!^'
 
 COMO TO MILAN. 
 
 remaining seats in tlie diligence, and passed on. A tree fell 
 directly across the road in one part of our way, and falling 
 between the horses and the carriage, stopped us completely, so 
 that the lahourers were obliged to cut through the tree on both 
 sides of the road before we could be extricated. Besides this, 
 we were delayed by an angry altercation between our conduc- 
 tor and an English coachman with whom he got into a squab- 
 ble, raising the whole populace, together with the officers of 
 justice, in a little village on the road. Such a clatter and 
 storm of fierce words and furious gesticulations would have 
 been rare to meet anywhere else out of Bedlam; but after all, 
 we arrived safe, though late, the same evening at Milan. 
 
 How heavenly the enchantment which, from the Italian side, 
 distance lends to the mountains of Switzerland ! Every step 
 we departed from them seemed to render the view more beauti- 
 ful. They began to appear like another world floating in mid- 
 heaven ; it was as if we were coasting a neighbouring planet, 
 battlemented and turreted with crags of diamond, and divided 
 from us by fields of cerulean space. Meantime, the open coun- 
 try through which we are travelling is full of luxuriance. One 
 can never forget the transcendent glory of the horizon, with 
 the evening sun against it. It is the picture drawn by Milton, 
 but reduplicated in broad space in the heavens. 
 
 " Meanwhile in utmost longitude, whore heaven 
 With earth and ocean meets, the setting sun 
 Slowly descended ; and with right aspcet 
 Against the eastern gate of Taradise 
 Levelled his evening raj's : it was a rock 
 Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds. 
 Conspicuous far." 
 
 The day shuts upon such scenery, just as the thickening 
 thoroughfares, the passing and repassing peasantry, with 
 wains and donkey-waggons, and the glimmering of suburban 
 liglits, tell you that you are nearing a great city. At length 
 you drive under its proud arches, and in the strange romance 
 that surrounds you on first being set down at dusk among new 
 ranges of buildhigs and faces, as in the transitions of a dream, 
 you wait for the examination of your passports. That done, 
 you drive on again through streets now deserted and murky,
 
 and now gay and crowded, into the wcU-liglitcd centres of even- 
 ing life and activity; perhaps you are whirled past the blaze of 
 the great theatre. What creature in all the crowd cares for 
 1/ou, or knows of your existence ? You are as a water drop 
 falling into a great river. But you need not fear ; you are to 
 be carefully sponged up and preserved separate. There is now 
 a watch over you, on earth as well as in heaven. 
 
 But if you find as much difficulty in getting lodgings as we 
 did, you will begin to wish you had stayed away from Italy. 
 It was past midnight before we found any other shelter than 
 the ante-room of the post-house, for the city was literally cram- 
 med with strangers ; but we did at length, by dint of runners, 
 discover a fine range of rooms over a common pot-house, where 
 we established ourselves very pleasantly. A fine range of rooms 
 over a common pot-house, and established pleasantly ! What I 
 and decently also ? Yes, and far more respectably and com- 
 fortably than just at that time we could have been at any of 
 the crowded hotels at which we applied in vain for entrance. 
 The juxta position of the extremes of refinement and of low life 
 is no uncommon thing in these countries. You may have lux- 
 ury and quiet, unsuspected and unenvied, far enough away from 
 palaces. It was amusing to us to see the goings on of life in 
 the tavern below our suite of apartments. The common peo- 
 ple seemed to enjoy themselves as freely and heartily as if tlicy 
 were eating and drinking in an atmosphere of genuine liberty. 
 But no man can forget that the quiet here is maintained by 
 Austrian bayonets. 
 
 Milan is one of the first cities in Italy, though there is not 
 so much of curious and beautiful sight-seeing as in Florence or 
 Naples, nor so fine a climate, neither a volcano with Pompeii 
 at its feet, nor a splendid bay in the Mediterranean. It is 
 more healthful than many places in the kingdom. One might 
 find many things of the deepest interest to say of its legendary 
 history, but we cannot dwell upon this, nor upon the statisti- 
 cal province of the guide-books, I Lad visited Milan some 
 years before, but had entered it in the rain, stayed in it through 
 the rain, and passed from it in a rain-storm; circumstances not 
 the most favourable for seeing a fine city. Almost the only
 
 -^f 
 
 SIGHTS IX MILAN. 
 
 thing I remembered was its wliite glittering Catbetlral, and its 
 college of fine old paintings, the College of Brera. 
 
 Then there is the dim shadowy spectre of Leonardo da Vi- 
 cini's great painting of the Last Supper. No man would visit 
 it, if it were not for what it had been ; it is like visiting the 
 house in which Shalcspere lived, or the room in which Milton 
 died; the occupant is gone. Li looking at the picture you find 
 yourself gazing not so much at what is there, but endeavour- 
 ing to see what is not there. It is as if one led you to a dim 
 room filled with apparitions, some ante-chamber to the land of 
 shades, and you should vainly strain your sight for some known 
 image, but you only see 
 
 " the shadowy forms 
 
 That seem things dead and dead again." 
 
 Sixteen years did the Artist labour upon this painting with 
 slow and patient toil, the fruit of intense contemplation. He 
 was one of the most universal and commanding geniuses of 
 Italy, and doubtless the painting was in all respects the most 
 perfect the world ever saw. It would have matched the Trans- 
 figuration by Raphael had it been painted on canvas, in unde- 
 caying colours. But one half century and a little more sufii- 
 ced, by various accidents and exposure, for its almost complete 
 destruction ; and by so many hands has it been retouched, 
 mended, and painted anew, that it would probably be impos- 
 sible for the most consummate judge of art to find in it a trace 
 of the pencil of the original author. 
 
 ;-£>- 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. THE GOSPEL IN ITALY. 
 
 You have Nature in Switzerland and Art in Italy. The tran- 
 sition is great from cloud and snow-capped mountains and 
 thundering waterfalls to the ribbed chapels and aisles of cathe- 
 drals, with saints and angels sculptured upon slender spires, 
 and the organ solemnly pealing. The Duonio of Milan is tlie
 
 %^^^*4 
 
 WANDEUINOS OF A I'lLGRIM. 
 
 first full introduction for the stranger from the North into the 
 Ecclesiastical splendours of a past artistic world. From great 
 mountains to some gigantic supernatural structure, like the 
 colossal Temple of Karnak in Thebes, would be a change more 
 fitting tc the feelings ; but coming from the cities or the plains 
 of Lombardy, the sight of the architectural pile at Milan is 
 truly Imposing and majestic. 
 
 The Cathedral is claimed by the Milanese as the eighth won- 
 der of the world. It rises in the very heart of the city, a mag- 
 nificent broad pile of white marble, sculptured and cntablatured 
 on the face and sides with groups of statuary, and pinnacled 
 at every angle and corner with lofty and delicate spires, which 
 bear upon their summits each a majestic statue of white mar- 
 ble. One hundred and sixteen of these spires are visible at 
 once, and the sculptured forms springing from their slender ex- 
 tremities look as if suspended in the air by magic. The great 
 tower of the Cathedral is an almost interminable labyrinth of 
 marble statuary and tracery at so great a height, and so light 
 and delicate, that it seems as if the first strong wind would 
 prostrate the whole, or scatter its rocky lace-M'ork like leaves 
 in autumn. 
 
 If you can conceive of a river of liquid white marble shot in- 
 to the air to the height of five hundred feet, and then suddenly 
 petrified while falling, you will come to some approximation of 
 the beauty and rareness of this magnificent vision. It seems 
 like a petrified oriental dream, and if it had stood in Venice, 
 opposite St. Mark's Church and the Doge's palace, it would 
 have been more in keeping. There is a broad, ample, open 
 space in front of it, so that you command a full satisfactory 
 view from a sufficient distance, uninterrupted. The first time 
 I saw it, I came upon it suddenly and unexpectedly, on turn- 
 ing a corner in the street, as if it had sprung from the earth 
 before me like an exhalation, and it instantly reminded me, 
 with its multitudinous white spires and images, of the very 
 imaginative reference to it by Wordsworth in his poem on an 
 eclipse of the sun. This is one of the most exquisitely beauti- 
 ful compositions in all the volumes of this great poet, and the 
 measure in which it is written is most melodious and perfect. 
 
 I
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 
 
 But Fancy, with the speed of firo, 
 Hath fled to Milan's loftiest spire, 
 And there alights, 'mid that aerial host 
 Of figures human and divine. 
 White as the snows of Appenine 
 Indurated by frost. 
 
 Awe-stricken she beholds the array 
 
 That guards the Temple night and day; 
 
 Angels she sees that might from heaven have flown ; 
 
 And Virgin Saints, who not in vain 
 
 Have striven by purity to gain 
 
 The beatific crown. 
 
 Far-stretching files, concentric rings, 
 Each narrowing above each ; — the wings, 
 The uplifted palms, the silent marble lips, 
 The starry zone of sovereign lieight, 
 All steeped in this portentous light, 
 All sufl'ering dim eclipse. 
 
 Look now abroad at evening from this starry zone, over the 
 horizon around you. The sun is. sinking towards the Mediter- 
 ranean, and the long snowy ranges of the Alps on one side 
 and the Appenines on the other, are burning with almost crim- 
 son radiance. The city and the vast luxuriant plains lie be- 
 neath you. Can the human imagination conceive a sight more 
 glorious than those distant flashing mountains, ascending pile 
 after pile, chain behind chain, whiter and more brilliant into 
 the heavens ? How immense and magnificent the ranges com- 
 manded from this centre ! From this pinnacle of art in Italy 
 could we fly " with the speed of fire " to that of nature on Mont 
 Blanc, it seems as if the change from Time into Eternity would 
 hardly bo greater. Yet it is little more than three days since 
 we were in the midst of those snows, that in this setting sun 
 blaze like the walls of heaven. And now we long to be there 
 again. The sight of such mountains makes the Cathedral 
 dwindle, makes you feel as if, while Art can indeed be beauti- 
 ful, there is nothing but Nature that can be truly sublime. 
 
 Now we turn again upon the marble tower, along its wilder- 
 ness of spires and statues. How admirably the sculptures are 
 finished ! Half way up the grand spires you have the best 
 view of them, more than four thousand in all, though not all 
 at once visible. The immense size of the building, and its in- 

 
 360 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGRIM. 
 
 w 
 
 uumeraLle recesses, admit of their distribution in siicli a way tliat 
 you would not dream there were more than five hundred in all. 
 
 The structure is indeed a master-piece of gorgeous art, and 
 in speaking of it Wordsworth observes that "the selection and 
 arrangements of the figures are exquisitely fitted to support the 
 religion of the country in the imaginations and feelings of the 
 spectator." But does the piety of the people, does the religion 
 of the Cross, as well as the Religion of the country, increase 
 and strengthen by the beauty of such gorgeous churches ? It 
 has been remarked that the age of great architectural splendour 
 in churches is also an age of decline in spiritual worship. The 
 beaut}^ and glory of the form are far more considered than the 
 indwelling spirit. Take Wordsworth's Avords as a definition, 
 and call the Romish Cathedral a series of figures selected and 
 arranged to support the religion of the country^ and you have a 
 most accurate description. Whether the satire were intended, 
 or the writer was unconscious of it, makes but little difference. 
 It is the religio loci, and not the preaching of the Gospel, for 
 which these great edifices were destined ; it is the half-pagan- 
 ized system of superstition, instead of the Gospel, for which 
 they are best adapted. 
 
 This magnificent pile, when Lanfranc undertook to rebuild 
 it, Avas styled a Church for the Mother of God, and on her ac- 
 count the people brought their offerings. Then afterwards did 
 the fierce Galeazzo Visconti take up the work of rebuilding, in 
 order to expiate his great crimes. Then another uneasy sin- 
 ner, on his death-bed, paid, for the same purpose, the enormous 
 expiatory gift of 280,000 crowns. After all this, Napoleon took 
 up the work, as a matter of imperial taste, splendour, and ambi- 
 tion, and nearly finished it. So, though it has been centuries 
 in building, no man can be said to have put a stone in it out 
 of love; it is all the work not of Faith, but of Superstition; so 
 that, instead of regarding these Gothic architectural piles as the 
 consequence or proof of a sense of religion in the Middle Ages, 
 or as the natural growth or expression of a devout spirit, they 
 must rather be considered as the price paid by an age of super- 
 stition, for a vast insurance on the world to come. It is not 
 the Gospel in a believing heart, but the Law acting on a guilty 
 
 ^
 
 ^ 
 
 ^• 
 
 k 
 
 conscience, that lias reared such structures. So, though some of 
 them are a great material Epic, full of beauty and grandeur, yet 
 they cannot be considered as a true product of the Gospel, or of a 
 simple religious spirit, any more than the Iliad of Homer itself. 
 
 If they were religious edifices, then ought the ceremonies of 
 religion in them to be of such august simplicity and grandeur, 
 so free from mere human artifice, so superior to all supersti- 
 tion, so shaped and imbued by the spirit of the Gospel, that 
 every man on entering might feel irresistibly that it is the Gos- 
 pel. But as Wordsworth says, it is tbe rehgion of the country. 
 You are made to feel that while there is a great deal of worship 
 in the Roman Catholic religion, there is very httle religion in 
 the Roman Catholic worship. You are compelled to make this 
 distinction, by observing the round of superstitious ceremonies, 
 and studying the crowds kneeling before the multitudinous altars, 
 pictures, efiigies and images. 
 
 As to the effect of the Gospel of Christ, preached simply, 
 plainly, boldly, fervently, amidst all this power of superstition, 
 I believe it would be irresistible. The hearts of the Italians are 
 human hearts, as good naturally as any other hearts in the 
 world, and perfectly accessible. Doubtless God will yet raise 
 up native preachers of the Cross among them, who will be as 
 successful as Paul ever was at Rome. He whose grace kindles 
 the fire in such hearts can keep it burning, can make it spread 
 like the summer lightning from cloud to cloud. No conclave of 
 Inquisitors can stop it, no persecution can put it out. The word 
 of God shall "yet have free course and be glorified" m Italy, and 
 when it does, then will that Man of Sin, that Son of Perdition 
 (and I leave it with my readers according to their own pleasure 
 to say who or what he is) be consumed by the Spirit of the Lord's 
 mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming. 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 SILVIO PELLICO, AND THE BIBLE IN ITALY. 
 
 MaAN was the city of one of Silvio Pellico's prisons. What 
 a touching account he gives of the power of the Bible over 
 
 ^^^^
 
 -3 
 
 J 
 
 362 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A riLGUIM. 
 
 him ! The time is hastening- when it shall no longer he a strange 
 book in Italy, nor its doctrines hidden. For six or seven 
 days Silvio had heen in a state of doubt, prayerlessness, and 
 almost desperation. Yet he sang Avith a pretended merriment, 
 and sought to amuse himself with foolish pleasantries. " My 
 Bible," he says, " was covered with dust. One of the children 
 of the jailor said to me one day, while caressing me, ' Since 
 you have left off reading in that villain of a book, it seems to 
 me you are not so sad as before.' " Silvio had been putting 
 on a forced gayety. 
 
 •' It seems to you ?" said he. 
 
 " I took my Bible, brushed away the dust witli a pocket- 
 handkerchief, and opening it at hazard, my eyes fell upon these 
 words : 'And he said to his disciples. It is impossible but that 
 offences will come, but woe to that man by whom the offence 
 Cometh. It were better for him that a millstone were cast 
 about his neck, and he thrown into the sea, than that he should 
 offend one of these little ones. ' 
 
 " Struck with meeting these words, I was ashamed that this 
 little child should have perceived, by the dust with which my 
 Bible was covered, that I read it no more, and that he should 
 have supposed that I had become more sociable and pleasant 
 by forgetting God. I was completely desolate at having so 
 scandalized him. You little rogue, said I, v/ith a caressing 
 reproof, this is not a villain book, and during the several days 
 that I have neglected to read in it, I am become much worse. 
 My singing that you have heard is only a force-put, and my 
 ill humour, which I try to drive away when your mother lets 
 you in to see me, all comes back when I am alone. 
 
 " The little child went out, and I experienced a degree of 
 satisfaction at having got my Bible again in my hands, and at 
 having confessed that without it I had grown worse. It seem- 
 ed as if I were making some reparation to a generous friend, 
 whom I had unjustly offended, and that I was again reconciled 
 to him. 
 
 "And I had abandoned thee, my God ! cried I, and I was 
 perverted ! and I could even believe that the infamous laugh of 
 the cynic and sceptic was suited to my despairing condition ! 
 
 ^A^
 
 SILVIO PELLICO AND HIS BIBLE. 
 
 " I pronounced these words with indescribable emotion. I 
 placed my Bible on a chair, I kneeled down upon the earth to 
 read it, and I, who weep with so much difficulty, burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " These tears were a thousand times sweeter than my bru- 
 tish joy. I saw my God again ! I loved him ! I repented that 
 I had so insulted him in degrading myself, and I promised 
 never more to be separated from him, never. How docs a 
 sincere return to the path of duty comfort and elevate the 
 soul ! 
 
 " I read and wept and lamented during more than an hour, 
 and arose full of confidence in the thought that God was with 
 me, and that he had pardoned my delirium. Then my misfor- 
 tunes, the torments of the trial, the probahility of the torture, 
 appeared to me a very little thing. I could rejoice in sulFer- 
 ing, since I might fulfil a sacred duty, which was to obey the 
 Saviour, in sufi'ering with resignation." 
 
 There are still hearts like Silvio Pellico's in Italy, and when 
 the word of God comes to this people, it will have all the great- 
 er power for having been so long kept from them. When the 
 spirit of the mouth of the Lord kindles the fire, it will spread 
 among Italian hearts hke a flame in the dry grass of the prai- 
 ries. Under this fire the superstitions of Romanism would 
 perish. The idolatry of forms can no more stand against the 
 burning spirit of God's word than the seared leaves and wither- 
 ed branches of the woods in autumn could stand before a forest 
 conflagration. 
 
 Frank-hearted Silvio Pellico I How many a man has let the 
 dust grow thick upon his Bible, not in prison merely, but even 
 his family Bible, even with dear children around him, and 
 never confessed his sin, never gone back with tears of contri- 
 tion to that Holy Book, nor taught it in his household, nor had 
 the light of Truth Divine, the light from Heaven shining on 
 it ! How like a dungeon with false and foul thoughts must 
 every heart be out of which God and the dear light of his word 
 are excluded ! Yea, though there may be laughter there, it is 
 like poor Silvio's false and forced despairing merriment, it is 
 like the crackling of thorns under a pot. Heavy laws arc up- 
 
 ■&f- 
 
 '■^f^S-
 
 364 
 
 .jifee 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM. 
 
 on siicli a man, and when friends depart, and he sees himself 
 in prison, sees liow he is in prison, even though he walks in the 
 open air, then there is desolation indeed. 
 
 " If there be one who need bemoan 
 His kindred laid in earth, 
 The household hearts that were his own, 
 It is the man of mirth." 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 THE FAREWELL. SWISS CHARACTER AXD FREEDOM. 
 
 We arc no longer under the Shadow of the Jungfrau, and 
 therefore it is high time that I close this second /asc/cw/Ms of 
 the leaves of our pilgrimage. I might have extended it into 
 the Cottian Alps, amidst the intei'esting Churches of the Wal- 
 denses, hut such a ramhle ought not to come at the end of a vol- 
 ume. We will stop at Milan, in full sight of the glorious Alps, 
 among which we have been wandering. From a splendid spire 
 in the midst of a region of despotism, we are gazing across up- 
 on the mountain shrines of liberty. My readers Avill listen with 
 pleasure to the parting reflections of a young and gifted Eng- 
 lish lady in regard to the Swiss character, the Swiss freedom, 
 and in spite of all disastrous omens, the hopes of Switzerland, 
 and of the hearty friends of that glorious country, for future, 
 settled, permanent, well-ordered liberty. 
 
 " You are not to suppose," says Miss Lament, in her inter- 
 esting volume of letters on France and Switzerland, " that I 
 have taken up my opinions about the Swiss from occasional 
 gleanings by the eye and ear as I went along. I got a history 
 of Switzerland to read, since I have been here ; not indeed, so 
 extended a history as I should like on such a subject, yet it still 
 helped me a little. At first I did not like it much — it seemed 
 to me nothing better than war after war of tribes and Indians. 
 It improved towards the last, yet still was but a detail of bat- 
 tles, year after year, of the people against the nobles ; this can 
 only interest when the characters of individual leaders are por-
 
 SWISS CHARACTER AND FREEDOM. 
 
 "•^9 
 
 trayed — It does not do so in masses. However, I was glad to 
 have, even from that history, a reason for the faith that was 
 iu me respecting the ohstinate prowess of the Swiss, and their 
 honest love of independence. And, had I wanted anything to 
 confirm me in the love of freedom which, untaught by any one, 
 has become an essential portion of my mind, I should have 
 found it in my Swiss book, and my Swiss journey. Not that 
 there is here a more advanced social state than in any other 
 country of Europe, nor a greater progress in science, the arts, 
 and education; but there is what is a hundred-fold better — 
 there is a general diffusion of substantial happiness, so to speak. 
 After all, it is not disheartening to look over the map of Eu- 
 rope, and behold only this one spot on which liberty is to be 
 found ? And what, though it was brought forth amidst the 
 contests of barbarian hordes, and baptized, re-baptized, and 
 baptized again on battle-fields reeking with blood, it is liberty; 
 and if the Swiss be but true to themselves, and permit this 
 child of theirs to grow to its full stature, it may become a 
 guide to the nations ! Yet, disheartening as it is, to see but 
 one free land, it is more so to reflect that ages must roll on be- 
 fore others can be free ; for the more we know of the state of 
 Europe, it becomes the more evident that the chains which 
 have been centuries in forming, it will take centuries to break 
 effectually. Look at Grermany, bound down by emperor, king, 
 prince, duke, and noble of every kind, each bond so weak in 
 itself, yet all so impossible to rend ! Look at Russia, where 
 the barbaric forms of the undisguised despotisms of the 
 East are adding to themselves the astuteness of modern tyran- 
 nies. Look at England, where the despotism of castes, a social 
 despotism exists, of even a worse sort than that of a tyrannical 
 monarch; and in France, where the contending elements of so- 
 cial corruption raised so terrific a storm, there is little hope of 
 the speedy establishment of liberty. Let the Swiss bless their 
 mountains, crags, and torrents, which, making their men har- 
 dy in body, made them incapable of being trodden into slaves; 
 made them able to renew the battle from year to year, from 
 age to age, until all has been gained ! and, now, let them dread 
 tlic love of gain; they coxdd be courageous and virtuous, being 
 
 ^a^s^^S
 
 
 ^Oc 
 
 WANDERINGS OF A IMLGRIM. 
 
 poor, I dibtrust thciii if thcj slitill become rich ! Here is de- 
 clamation enougli, you will say; but I know you hope M'itb mc, 
 that now that they have gained all they desired, they will pro- 
 ceed in the march of improvement. They have bought their 
 freedom by six hundred years of contest and bloodshed (not 
 too high a price for what is immortal worth), and now they 
 liave to do something more difficult than what they have done, 
 they have to use their freedom wisely. They have to make it 
 the guide, the aid, to piety, humanity, liberality, knowledge ; 
 if wealth — if power, be what it inspire them to seek, their free- 
 dom will slide from their hold, when the nations now so far be- 
 hind them have attained it." 
 
 But more than all this, what Switzerland needs to make the 
 country a centre of light and hope in all Europe, is true Reli- 
 gious Liberty-. God grant there may be no more conflicts of 
 armed men about religion. There can be none, when the ques- 
 tion of a man's ci"ced and clergyman is once totally separated 
 from the question of his civil and political obligations and du- 
 ties, and made the business solel}' between his conscience and 
 his God. The choice of one's church is a civil right, in which 
 all that any government has to do, is to protect the subject in 
 its unmolested enjoyment. It is also a religious obligation, but 
 an obligation towards God, with which no government on earth 
 has any right to interfere. Eveiy man has a right to the pro- 
 tection of the civil government in the performance of his reli- 
 gious duties; no government has any right to prescribe or en- 
 force those duties. When the State attempts to stand in the 
 place of God, and to legislate for the church, it becomes a des- 
 potism; when the church attempts to use the state for the en- 
 forcement of its own edicts, and the support of its establish- 
 ments, it also becomes a despotism ; but where the spirit of 
 the Lord is, there is Libertt. 
 
 Farewell now to Alpine nature, that world of such glorious 
 images and thoughts ! He who has visited it with a wakeful 
 soul, and felt the steadfast eye of its great mountains upon 
 him, whether beneath the glittering sun or the mild melancholy 
 moon, whether at day-dawn or in the flush of sunset, and seen 
 the rush of its white avalanches, and heard their thunder, and
 
 SWISS FREEDOM. 
 
 the billows of its glaciers, with the invulnerahle life and far-off 
 roar and fury of their cataracts, and the living flowers that 
 enamel the valleys and skirt the eternal frosts, has a book of 
 glory in his heart, where, in the words of Dante, Memory 
 mocks the toil of genius, a book which no man can write, a 
 book on which the light from Heaven is shining, and which he 
 will carry with him even to his grave. For him " Remem- 
 brance, like a Sovereign Prince, maintains a stately gallery;" 
 and there are, within the silent chambers of his soul, treasures 
 
 " More precious far, 
 Than that accumulated store of Gold 
 And orient gems, which, for a day of need, 
 The Sultan hides within ancestral tombs." 
 
 In gathering the treasures and receiving the suggestions of na- 
 ture, we need, more than all things else, a prayerful, kind, and 
 open heart. Mountains, to such an one, are as the stepping- 
 places of angels; the forms and influences that inhabit them 
 seem supernatural. 
 
 " Less than divine command thoy spurn ; 
 But this we from the mountains learn, 
 And this tlie valleys show, 
 That never will thoy deign to hold 
 Communion whore the heart is cold 
 To human weal and wo. 
 
 The man of abject soul in vain 
 Shall walk the Marathonian plain, 
 Or thread the shadowy gloom, 
 That still invests the guardian pass 
 Where stood sublime Leonidas 
 Devoted to the tomb." 
 
 THE KND. 
 
 M 
 
 If*' 
 
 (; L A S (} O W : 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS AND CO., IMlINTEIiS. 
 
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