And in all these we have a striking emblem of the several persons of the Trinity co-operating in the salvation of the sinner. The "plan of salvation" originates with the Father, is elaborated and made manifest by the Son in His redemptive work, and consummated by the Holy Spirit, by whom we are regenerated, and "sealed unto the day of redemption," through whom we receive now the "first fruits" of the Spirit, and by whom we are finally "gathered in to the garner of God."

"God is light," and He is said by the Psalmist to clothe Himself with light as with a garment, and garments are symbolic. As the dress of the policeman distinguishes him from the soldier, so is the private soldier distinguished from his colonel, the colonel from the general, the general from the judge; the "scarlet" robes of pope and cardinal are supposed to represent their holiness, and the "imperial purple," royal rule. And these three colors-the only colors that were permitted to be used in the construction of the Jewish tabernacle-represent, the "blue," the benignity of God; the "scarlet," the holiness of God; and the "purple," the supreme power of God. And as these three colors are found in the solar light, light is very aptly said to be the "garment of God," especially as the "purple," which represents His power, is composed of a blending of the "blue," which represents His love, and the "scarlet," which symbolizes His holiness. Almighty power based on holiness and exercised in love!

CHAPTER VII.

Rock and Mountain Rambles.

OW strange is the story that mountains tell us of our world's early history, the many millenniums of pre-historic times! They tell us that heat and cold, expansion and contraction, have worked strange changes in our planet, and produced upon its surface folds and wrinkles which tell of hoary age; while even now, constant oscillations, upheavals, and depressions are perpetually modifying its conformation and changing its outline. It has been constantly heaving and falling, almost like the tides of the ocean, if not with the same regularity nor with the same constant appeal to the senses. The disturbances of the ocean and the daily advance and retreat of the tides are phenomena with which we are all familiar. We have seen the sea wrought into lofty and tempestuous billows by storm and tempest, or placid as a lake when undisturbed. But the crust of the earth also has had its storms, to which the tempests of the sea are as nothing, which have thrown up mountain waves twenty thousand feet high, and fixed them where they stand, perpetual memorials of the convulsions that upheaved them. Conceive an ocean wave that should roll

up for twenty thousand feet and be petrified at its greatest height! Such are the mountains! gigantic waves raised on the surface of the land by the geological tempests of past times. Besides these sudden storms of the earth's surface there have been its gradual upheavals and depressions, going on now as steadily as ever, and which may be compared to the regular action of the tides.

The mountain ranges upheaved by ancient eruptions are folds of the earth's surface produced by the cooling of a comparatively thin crust upon a hot mass. The valleys represent the subsidences of the crust; the domes are the corresponding protusions resulting from these subsidences. Plutonic action has indeed played the most fantastic tricks with the crust of the earth, which seems as plastic in the grasp of the fiery power hidden within it as does clay in the hand of the potter. Some mountain masses have been upheaved so irregularly, and tossed about so grotesquely, that, as it has been remarked, one can hardly help thinking of these extraordinary contortions as a succession of frantic frolics; the mountains seem like a troop of rollicking boys, hunting one another in and out and up and down in a gigantic game of hide and seek.

What can afford greater pleasure to the eye and to the mind, or what can be more exhilarating to the spirits, than from some lofty mountain top, or from one of the tors of Dartmoor, to look down upon some widespread landscape, beholding the pomp of man and the pride of man lying at our feet? Who can refrain from being charmed when observing those innumerable sections which divide a long extent of country into mountains and

vales, and which in their turn subdivide into fields, glens, and dingles, containing trees of every height, cottages of the humble and mansions of the rich; here groups of cattle, there shepherds tending their flocks; and, at intervals, viewing with admiration a broad, expansive river, sweeping its course along an extended vale; now encircling a mountain, and now overflowing a valley; here gliding beneath large boughs of trees, there rolling over rough ledges of rocks; in one place concealing itself in the heart of a forest, under huge massy cliffs which impend over it, and in another washing the walls of some ivied ruin embosomed in wood? How beautiful is that passage in Pope, imitated from Drummond of Hawthornden, where he compares the progress of man in the attainment of knowledge to the enlarged views that are spread progressively before the eye in climbing lofty mountains!

From the summit of Snowdon a scene presents itself magnificent beyond all the powers of language. From this point are seen more than five and twenty lakes. Seated on one of the crags, it is long before the eye unaccustomed to measure such elevations can accommodate itself to scenes so vast and wonderful, the whole appearing as if there had been a war of the elements, and as if we were the only inhabitants of the globe permitted to contemplate the ruins of a world. Rocks and mountains which when observed from below bear all the evidences of sublimity, when viewed from the summit of Snowdon are blended with others as dark, as rugged, and as elevated as themselves, the whole resembling the swellings of an agitated ocean. The extent of this pros

pect appears almost unlimited. The four kingdoms are seen at once, Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland, forming the finest panorama the empire can boast. The circle begins with the mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland; those of Ingleborough and Peny-gent, in the county of York, and the hills of Lancashire follow; then are observed the counties of Chester, Flint, and Denbigh, and a portion of Montgomeryshire. Nearly the whole of Merioneth succeeds, and drawing a line with the eye along the diameter of the circle, we take in those regions stretching from the triple crown of Cader Idris to the sterile crags of Carnedds David and Llewellyn. Snowdon rising in the centre appears as if he could touch the south with his right hand and the north with his left.

From Cader Idris the eye, pursuing the orbit of the bold geographical outline, glances over the Bay of Cardigan, and reposes for a while on the summit of the Rivel. After observing the indented shores of Carnarvonshire it travels over a long line of ocean till, in the extremity of the horizon, the blue mountains of Wicklow. terminate the perspective. These mountains gradually sink along the coast till they are lost to the eye, which, ranging along the expanse, at length, as weary of the journey, reposes on the Isle of Man and the distant mountains of Scotland. The intermediate space is occupied by the sides and summits of mountains, hollow crags, masses of rock, the towers of Carnarvon, the fields of Anglesea, with woods, lakes, and glens scattered in magnificent confusion. A scene like this commands our feelings to echo, as it were, in unison to its grandeur and sublimity; the thrill of astonishment and the transport of