MOUNTAINS. 
247 
ced by all the influences at the command of Time. This char- 
acter of former action adds inconceivably to the grandeur of the 
moimtains, connecting them as it does with the mystery of the 
past ; upon a plain we are more apt to see the present only, the 
mental vision seems confined to the level uniformity about it, we 
need some ancient work of man, some dim old history, to lead 
the mind backward ; and this is one reason why a monument al- 
ways strikes us more forcibly upon a plain, or on level ground ; in 
such a position it fills the mind more with itself and its own asso- 
ciations. But without a history, without a monument, there is 
that upon the face of the mountains which, from the earliest ages, 
has led man to hail them as the " everlasting hills." 
In ancient times, this expression of individual action in the 
mountains was acknowledged by seer and poet. The fabled wars 
of the Titans, with the uptorn hills they hurled in their strife with 
the gods, may probably be traced back to this source, and sim- 
ilar fables in the form given them, by Scandinavian Sagas, are 
but a repetition of the same idea. We who have the most Holy 
Bible in our hands, may reverently read there also imagery of the 
like character. We are told by those familiar with the ancient 
tongues of the East, that in the early ages of the world the great 
mountains were all called the "mountains of the Lord." The 
expression occurs repeatedly in the Pentateuch. But after the 
supernatural terrors which accompanied the proclamation of the 
Law in the wilderness, the same idea of mountains paying especial 
homage to the power of the Creator, seems to have become 
blended among the Hebrews with recollections of the -quaking of 
Sinai. In the 68th Psalm, written by King David, when the ark 
