om the mountain at your
side; in the valley you see the sweet, calm lake, or you hear the
torrent, sounding among shadowy woodlands, never weary, never still.
Stand on a lofty ridge, and look abroad on the vast, snowy heights that
appear in the horizon;--then let the 'mind's eye' look beyond the
horizon, and behold similar peaks stretching three thousand miles along.
Then bend reverently before Him who has made earth so grand.

Go to the galleries of Rome and Florence. It is wise to gather new
beauty to the soul from works of art, and to study the exquisite graces
which the great masters have gathered from nature and delineated in
glowing canvas or in lasting marble; yet, here is a gallery of paintings
by the Great Master and Author of all sublimity and beauty in heaven and
earth, extending, not from room to room of buildings made with hands and
roofed with cedar, but from hall to hall of nature's colossal cathedral,
roofed by the infinite sky. Look at these pictures, ever changing, yet
ever grand, of majestic mountains, of reposing valleys, of fertile
plains, of rural homes, of streams and waterfalls, of vast forests, of
myriad forms of life and beauty, of sunrise, sunset, and the glittering
moon. What a marvellous variety in the objects portrayed! What surprises
at every turn! Colors more brilliant than Titian or Allston could
combine, join in harmonious effect on every side, and grace and vigor,
beauty and grandeur, are blended in every scene and almost in every
outline. Would you examine the famous statues of the world, and admire
the symmetry of form and power of expression drawn forth by human skill
from the hard, white stone? Or will the fragments of ancient art give
delight for their expressive beauty, visible though in broken forms?
Behold here a gallery of statuary, a line of divine masterpieces, whiter
than Parian marble, wrought by the 'ANCIENT OF DAYS.' Will you
admire Michael Angelo's colossal 'Day and Night'? and revere the mortal
genius that can so impress the soul? Give homage, then, for the majesty
of power with which He who created and adorned the universe has
displayed, among the Andes, Day and Night--Day robed with unutterable
splendor, Night with transcendent awe.

Mountains!--the grandest of nature's visible works--ye are also the
figures of majesty, of strength, of loftiness of soul! Ye are the raised
letters which record on the great globe the history of man! Ye are the
mighty scales in which t