454 ALPINE AND ARCTIC PLANTS 



It might have been written of them, " Though the dry land be 

 removed out of its place, and the mountains cast into the midst 

 of the sea, yet the Lord will not forsake the w^ork of His 

 hands " ; for this has been literally their history. In this they 

 hold forth an omen of hope to the people of God in that once 

 happy land through which these hills extend, and who now 

 mourn the evil times on which they have fallen. The moun- 

 tain plants may teach them that though the floods of strife 

 should rise even to the tops of the hills, and leave but scattered 

 islets to mark the place of a united land, their rock is sure, and 

 their prayers will prevail.^ The power that has waked the storm 

 is after all their Father's hand. For years a cry has risen high 

 above these hills : the cry of the bondman who has reaped the 

 fields and received no hire. That cry is sure to be heard in 

 heaven, whatever other prayers may go unanswered. An apostle 

 tells us that it enters direcdy into the ears of the God of 

 Sabaoth, and is potent to call down the day of slaughter on 

 the proud ones of earth. The prayer of the slave has been 

 answered; and the tempest is abroad, sweeping away his 

 oppressors and their abettors. Yet God rules in all this, and 

 those whom He has chosen will be spared, even like the hardy 

 plants of the hill tops, to look again on a renewed and smiling 

 land, from which many monsters and shapes of dread have for 

 ever passed away. 



But last of all, the Alpine flowers have a lesson that should 

 come near to all of us individually. They tell us how well 

 natural law is observed, as compared with moral. Obeying with 

 unchanging fidelity the law of their creation, they have meekly 

 borne the cold and storms of thousands of winters, yet have 

 thankfully expanded their bosoms to the returning sun of every 

 summer, and have not once forgot to open their tiny buds, and 

 bring forth flowers and fruit, doing thus their little part to the 



^ This paper was originally written at the time when the American Civil 

 War was raging. 



