of life, she was nearing the port of eternal peace. When I called again, she was speechless; at night she became insensible; and next day, she entered into the world of spirits. Her only child and the other passengers had meanwhile landed, and all were deeply affected at the mournful event.

The wind changed, the sea lulled down, and the captain said he must sail next day. But as the bereaved family had a good deal of furniture and property on board the smack, he offered to remain till the evening, provided the interment could take place in the afternoon. To this the clergyman of the parish assented.

The Sabbath again dawned, on a bright summer's day, so different from the preceding one. Never did the sanctuary seem to me more sweet and blessed; never were its solemn services more in unison with the tone of my own heart. But now the bell tolled; the funeral procession was formed; and, attended by a crowd on foot, several of the passengers, with myself, rode after the hearse decked with its sable plumes. In all manner of ways did I try to raise the thoughts of those beside me to the great realities of the unseen world, selecting an impressive text from the solemn ceremony in which we were engaged"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust." Tears fell from some of the bystanders over the stranger who had been brought to lay her bones among them, so mysteriously and unexpectedly. "If I land here again, I shall come and visit this grave," said the captain.

"All ready; the vessel is under weigh;" and I accompanied the widower and motherless girl to the boat which was waiting to take them on board. A number of the passengers were here assembled, and amongst them the one who had behaved so rudely after our controversy. He cordially bade me farewell, thanking me for my efforts to do them good; and distributing a parcel of tracts amongst them, I

returned with a sigh, and walked along the shore, watching the boat till it reached the ship, and the latter till its white sails only could be seen in the distance-like a mortal form appearing on earth for a short time and then vanishing away into the gloom of eternity. It all seemed like a dream; but there was the new-made grave, and I was myself in a strange place. The evening twilight soon bade me return to my lodging, musing upon an eternal Sabbath in the sanctuary above, where there are no ships, no storms, no funeral processions, no darkness and night.

THE SOUL'S YEARNINGS FOR PURITY AND
REST.

WHY was this glorious boon of being

Given to me?

And how can I, all danger fleeing,

Unsullied be?

This troubled dream of life

Is but a constant strife,

Earth struggling with the spirit-thirst for purity!

Oh! but for power, with heart unbending,

Sin to defy !

Steadily for the prize contending,

Stifling each sigh.

What though the march be long?

What though the foe be strong?

Courage, faint-hearted one! thy rest shall be on high.

Yet sometimes when the soul is weary,

Sad and oppressed,

Earth seems to its bound wing so dreary,

So void of rest:

Then doth it sadly yearn,

E'en from itself to turn,

To sleep all quietly upon the green earth's breast.

Poor weary one! the Rock of Ages

Shall shelter thee;

That love which knows no bound

Shall compass thee around,

Through all the countless cycles of eternity.

K. Q. X.

ACROSS THE ALPS BY THE SIMPLON

PASS.

BY REV. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D.*

THE Alps open upon the traveller little by little. One who has never climbed these hills imagines himself standing at their feet, and looking up the long unbroken vista of fields, vineyards, forests, and naked rocks, to the eternal snows of their summit. No so. They do not come marching thus upon you in all their grandeur to overwhelm you. To see them thus, you must stand afar off-at least fifty miles away. There you can take in the whole at a glance, from the beauteous fringe of stream, and hamlet, and woodland, that skirts their base, to the white serrated line that cuts so sharply the blue of the firmament.

As we approached the mountains, they offered to the eye a beauteous chain of verdant hills, with the morning mists hanging on their sides. The torrents were in flood from the recent rains; the woods had the rich tints of autumn upon them; but the charm of the scene lay in the beautiful festoonings of the vine. The uplands before me were barred by what I at first took to be long horizontal layers of fleecy cloud. On a nearer approach, these turned out to be the long branchy arms of the vine. The vine-stock is made to lean against the cut trunk of a chestnut or poplar tree, and its branches are bent horizontally, and extended till they meet those of the neighbouring vine-stock, which have been similarly dealt with. In this way, continuous lines of luxuriant foliage, with

* Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber.

pendulous blood-red clusters in their season, may be made to run for miles together along the hill-side. There might be from thirty to forty parallel lines in those I now saw. Tinted with the morning sun, and relieved against the deep verdure of the mountain, they appeared like stripes of amber, or floating lines of cloud fringed with gold.

It was the Mount Cenis route I was traversingthe least rugged of all the passes of the Alps, and the same by which Hannibal, as some suppose, passed into Italy.

The valley where we now were was a complete cul de sac. It was walled all round by limestone hills of great height, and the eye sought in vain for visible outlet. At length one could see a white line running half-way up the mountain's face, and ending. in an opening no bigger than a pigeon-hole. We slowly climbed this road for road it was; and when we came to the diminutive opening we had seen from the valley below, it expanded into a tunnel-one of the great works of Napoleon-which ran right through the mountain, and brought us out on the other side. We now traversed a narrow rocky ravine, which at length expanded into a magnificent valley, rich in vines and fruit-trees of all kinds, and overhung by lofty mountains. On this plain, surrounded by the living grandeur of nature, and the faded renown of its monastic and archiepiscopal glory, and half-buried amid foliage and ruins, sits Chamberry, the capital of Savoy.

At Chamberry our route underwent a change. Beauty now gave place to grandeur; but still a grandeur blended with scenes of exquisite loveliness. These I cannot stay to describe at length. The whole day was passed in winding and climbing among the hills. We toiled slowly to rise above the plains we had left, and to approach the region where winter spreads out her boundless sea of ice and snow.

We

followed the magnificent road which we owe to the genius of Napoleon. The fruits of Marengo are gone. Austerlitz is but a name; but the passes of the Alps remain. "When will it be ready for the transport of the cannon?" inquired Napoleon respecting the Simplon road. War is a rough pioneer; but without such a pioneer to clear the way the world would stand still. Look back. What do you see throughout the successive ages? War, with his red eye, his iron feet, and his gleaming brand, marching in the van; and commerce, and arts, and Christianity, following in the wake of this blood-besmeared Anakim. Such has ever been the order of procession.

The road was comparatively solitary. We passed at times a waggoner, who was conveying the produce of the plains to some village among the mountains ; and then a couple of pedestrians, with the air of tradesmen, on their way, perhaps, to a Swiss town to seek employment; and next a cowherd, driving home his herds from the glades of the forest; and now an occasional gendarme would present himself, and force you to remember, what you would willingly have forgotten amid such scenes, that there were such things as armies in the world; and sometimes the long, dark figure of the curé, reading his breviary to economize time, might be seen gliding along before you, representative of the murky superstition that still fills these valleys, and which, indeed, you can read in the stolid face of the Savoyard, as he sits listlessly under the broad easings of his cottage roof.

Anon the evening came, walking noiselessly upon the mountains, and shedding on the spirit a not unpleasant melancholy. The Alps seemed to grow taller. Deep masses of shade were projected from summit to summit. Pine forest, and green vale, and dashing torrent, and quiet hamlet, all retired from view, as if they wished to go to sleep beneath the friendly shadows. A deep and reverent silence stole over the Alps, as if