irection,--that immediately opposite the pillared vestibule of the
Staffa minster the Abbey tower of the Blessed Isle looms boldly on our
view, the mimic architecture of man paying silent homage to the spot,

"Where, as to shame the temples decked
By skill of earthly architect,
A minster to her Maker's praise!
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less solemn tells
That mighty surge that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone, prolonged and high,
That mocks the organ's melody.
Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona's holy fane,
That Nature's voice might seem to say,
'Well hast thou clone, frail child of clay!
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Tasked high and hard,--but witness mine!'"

And so, with a great lesson behind us and before, we sail away on that
summer sea and bid farewell to Staffa. The timid seal whom we have
disturbed creeps back to her cell, the wild-fowl returns to its nest,
the sea-swell rolls in and out in waves unbroken by our keel, and the
warm sun holds all in his soft embrace. The winter winds will roar
through the cavern erelong, the ocean lash pillar and ceiling with its
foam, tempests will beat and rage against its giant columns, the stormy
petrel will flap its wings in the archway, and the piercing cry of the
sea-gull keep time to the diapason of the deep; but the massive
structure whose corner-stone is hid beneath the waters, and which leans
upon the Rock of Ages, will still defy the tempest and loom in lonely
grandeur, alike in summer's smile and winter's frown the dwelling-place
of the Almighty. Iona's walls, reared centuries ago, and dedicated to
Him by human tribute, have crumbled or are fast crumbling to decay; but
this mighty temple, whose foundations no man laid, has gazed calmly
through all these ages at man's feeble work, and will gaze unchanged
until He who holds the sea in the hollow of His hand shall uproot its
columns.

III.

Now on to Iona, a distance of seven or eight miles, a formidable voyage,
perhaps, for early pilgrims to this sacred shrine, to us barely
affording time for dinner, a meal of which I have no remembrance of
partaking on this eventful day,--though my recollections would doubtless
have been more poignant, if I had failed to do so,--and of which I can
at least certify t