SEPTEMBER. 255 



sound of his fiery and lamenting appeal to 

 Heaven will be echoed in every generous soul 

 to the end of time. 



Thanks be to God for mountains ! The va- 

 riety which they impart to the glorious bosom 

 of our planet were no small advantage ; the 

 beauty which they spread out to our vision in 

 their woods and waters, their crags and slopes, 

 their clouds and atmospheric hues, were a splen- 

 did gift ; the sublimity which they pour into our 

 deepest souls from their majestic aspects; the 

 poetry which breathes from their streams, and 

 dells, and airy heights, from the sweet abodes, 

 the garbs and manners of their inhabitants, the 

 songs and legends which have awoke in them, 

 were a proud heritage to imaginative minds ; 

 but what are all these when the thought comes, 

 that without mountains the spirit of man must 

 have bowed to the brutal and the base, and pro- 

 bably have sunk to the monotonous level of the 

 unvaried plain. 



When I turn my eyes upon the map of the 

 world, and behold how wonderfully the coun- 

 tries where our faith was nurtured, where our 

 liberties were generated, where our philosophy 

 and literature, the fountains of our intellectual 

 grace and beauty, sprang up, were as distinctly 

 walled out by God's hand with mountain ram- 

 parts from the eruptions and interruptions of 



