182 



AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



ledge of snow, and — hastily sketched it. ... I breathed freely 

 as I got into the pure air. As far as nature is concerned, I 

 feel disposed to sing my Nunc dimittis" 



When he afterwards looked down from a tower into the 

 middle of the Fall, he remarked that " it was an intensely 

 exciting scene, and exquisitely delightful ; but I have still to 

 confess that, for awful grandeur, the entombment in the mighty 

 Snowdon, looking up its precipitous sides for thousands of 

 feet, made a very far deeper impression on my mind." He 

 fully appreciated the Rapids, which are usually a surprise to 

 those who are familiarized with the Falls by pictures ; but, on 

 the whole, he felt disappointed in the scenery from its same- 

 ness. This sameness, however, as far as the waters were con- 

 cerned, had a wonder and beauty of its own. " In grandeur 

 the storm-tide, rushing on till it discharges in dashing foam 

 against the rocks, appears to me greater. But for beauty, the 

 eternal succession of the same water, in the same forms, 

 throwing off spray-clouds at the same points, ever the same 

 yet ever fresh, filled my soul with reverent delight." 



The beauty of nature could not shut out his thoughts from 

 the crimes of man. On going down the staircase to the Fall, 

 he found that, although it was new, it was covered with names. 

 He thought there was something better to write than a name ; 

 and near a little side door he found space to inscribe — " Ever 

 glorious Niagara ! that stoppeth the slave-catcher in his north- 

 ward pursuit, and separateth the States, United together to 

 afford him a hunting-ground, from the free soil of Canada ! roll 

 onward in thy unchanging and irresistible might ; fit emblem 

 of the power of Divine truth to check the tyranny of sin, and 

 separate it by an eternal barrier from the heaven of God's 

 love." 



On the Sunday, he went with his Irish host to the Catholic 

 chapel — a plain unplastered building, used also as a school- 

 room. "Fancy coming to worship through the snow to this 

 primitive chapel, with the distant murmur of Niagara. I did 

 not wish myself in any cathedral. The extreme simplicity was 

 far more congenial. Nature does all the grandeur here, and 



