other. They
come not in scores, but in hundreds. And now the whole chain, from the
snowy dome of the Ortelles in the far-off Tyrol, to the beauteous
pyramid of Monte Viso in the south-western sky, is before you in its
noble sweep of many hundreds of miles, with thousands of snowy peaks,
amid which, pre-eminent in glory, rises Monte Rosa. Turning to the
south, you have the purple summits of the Apennines rising above the
plain. Between this blue line in the south and that magnificent rampart
of glaciers and peaks in the north, what a vast and dazzling picture of
meadows, woods, rivers, cities, with the sun of Italy shining over all!

Ye glorious piles! well are ye termed everlasting. Kings and kingdoms
pass away, but on you there passes not the shadow of change. Ye saw the
foundations of Rome laid;--now ye look down upon its ruins. In
comparison with yours, man's life dwindles to a moment. Like the flower
at your foot, he blooms for an instant, and sinks into the tomb. Nay,
what is a nation's duration, when weighed against thine? Even the
forests that wave on your slopes will outlast empires. Proud piles, how
do ye stamp with insignificance man's greatest labours! This glorious
edifice on which I stand,--ages was it in building; myriads of hands
helped to rear it; and yet, in comparison with your gigantic masses,
what is it?--a mere speck. Already it is growing old;--ye are still
young. The tempests of six thousand winters have not bowed you down.
Your glory lightened the cradle of nations,--your shadows cover their
tomb.

But to me the great charm of the Alps lay in the sacred character which
they wore. They seemed to rise before me, a vast temple, crowned, as
temple never was, with sapphire domes and pinnacles, in which a holy
nation had worshipped when Europe lay prostrate before the Dagon of the
Seven Hills. I could go back to a time when that plain, now covered,
alas! with the putridities of superstition, was the scene of churches in
which the gospel was preached, of homes in which the Bible was read, of
happy death-beds, and blessed graves,--graves in which, in the sublime
words of our catechism, "the bodies of the saints being still united to
Christ, do rest in their graves till the Resurrection." Sleep on, ye
blessed dead! This pile shall crumble into ruin; the Alps dissolve,
Rome herself sink; but not a particle of your dust shall be lost. The
reflection recalled vividly an incident of years gone by. I had
sau