256 SEPTEMBER. 



barbarism, as if at the especial prayer of the 

 early fathers of man's destinies, I am lost in an 

 exulting admiration. Look at the bold barriers 

 of Palestine ! see how the infant liberties of 

 Greece were sheltered from the vast tribes of 

 the uncivilized North by the heights of Haemus 

 and Rhodope ! behold how the Alps describe 

 their magnificent crescent, inclining their oppo- 

 site extremities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhene 

 Seas, locking up Italy from the Gallic and Teu- 

 tonic hordes till the power and spirit of Rome 

 had reached their maturity, and she had opened 

 the wide forest of Europe to the light, spread 

 far her laws and language, and planted the seeds 

 of many mighty nations ! 



Thanks to God for mountains ! Their colossal 

 firmness seems almost to break the current of 

 time itself; the geologist in them searches for 

 traces of the earlier world, and it is there too 

 that man, resisting the revolutions of lower re- 

 gions, retains through innumerable years his 

 habits and his rights. While a multitude of 

 changes has remoulded the people of Europe, 

 while languages, and laws, and dynasties, and 

 creeds, have passed over it like shadows over 

 the landscape, the children of the Celt and the 

 Goth, who fled to the mountains a thousand 

 years ago, are found there now, and show us in 

 face and figure, in language and garb, what their 



