IIo THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 
make man seem as insignificant as the beast he drives. The open 
season lends itself readily to a playful imagination. ‘Travelling 
through the intoxicating morning air, charmed by the view of 
animal and vegetable lifey you are sure an island stretches before 
you a few miles away. That sod house, with its adjoining ‘‘tree 
claim,” is surely surrounded by water; and off yonder a “bunch” 
of bronchos are standing in a lake. You lessen the distance and 
discover the tricks of the fantastic mirage. 
The effect of the clouds in ever-changing variety—cumulus, 
cirrus, or stratified—impresses any observer. Mountains are differ- 
ent things as clouds of varying form and color partially conceal their 
massive fronts, or rest crown-like on the higher peaks, or form a 
magnificent background to the range of snow-capped heights. 
A sunset is everywhere nature’s coronation. From the heart 
of the Rockies, from the prairies of Illinois and Manitoba, from the 
romantic channels of Muskoka, from Mount Royal, overlooking the 
Metropolis of Canada, from Hamilton’s beautiful mountain, I have 
watched the sinking god of day, but nothing can surpass his splen- 
dor as he clothes the sky of the great plains with his royal evening 
robes. Sometimes a huge cloud stands in the heavens, 
‘* A pillar’d bastion, fringed with fire; ” 
then the long-drawn strata appear as the stairway to eternity ; then 
he waves aside each vaporous mantle, filling the firmament with 
indescribable color, as he leads poor, sordid, insensate man in the 
Doxology, ‘‘Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God 
Almighty, in wisdom hast Thou made them all !” 
Whittier might well make his “‘ Barefoot Boy” explain : 
“*O’er me, like a regal tent, 
Cloudy ribb’d, the sunset bent ; 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
Loop’d with many a wind-swept fold. 
x 
a pean tre, ae 
I was monarch ; pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy.” 
You will not likely forget the impression of a drive on the star- 
lit plain, silent and sombre, making you almost question the 
existence of a busy world. You are alone ; no—two prophets, one 
of the older and one of the later time, share your ride; and one 
