heart assimilates itself with that soft repose which has spread over the face of nature ! "I love thee, twilight-as thy shadows roll, Still as the hour-enchanting as the scene— I have often had occasion to remark, in the course of my travels, how well the mind is prepared to enjoy the beauties of nature, when assured of the favour of Heaven. "The mind that feels no smart, Scenery the most enchanting, can impart but little pleasure to a mind smarting under a sense of the disapprobation of God. A consciousness of insecurity with regard to the threatening aspect of eternity, is a very bad travelling companion. When all is right respecting another world, we are equally prepared to take pleasure in the picturesque and beautiful, as to sustain the ills peculiar to this changeable and transitory world, and still be happy. Lord Byron, when making the tour of Switzerland, kept a journal for the amusement of his sister. I met the other day with a mournful passage, extracted, it was said, from that document. "In the weather, for this tour of thirteen days, I have been very fortunate,-fortunate in a companion, [Mr. Hobhouse,]-fortunate in our prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays which often render journeys, in a less wild country, disappointing. I was disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty. I can bear fatigue, and welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views in the world. But in all this, the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, has preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity, in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and beneath me. The lake of Zurich is about thirty miles long, and its greatest breadth only five miles. The river Limmat, which divides the city into two parts, discharges itself into the lake at Zurich. As I have occupied so much of this letter in the discription of scenery, there is little left for that of the public buildings. The Maison des Orphelins looks well; its back and front are similar in form, graced with six Ionic pilasters, and a pediment. The Meiser is a neat edifice, three stories high, fronted by six Ionic columns. The Maison de ville is the same in height, and displays more elegance and taste than we generally observe in buildings of a mixed architecture. The Greek and the Gothic are ingeniously blended in this building. Each of the windows in front is surmounted alternately by a semi-circular and triangular pediment. The pediments above the windows of the first story are occupied by the statues of eminent men, principally Swiss. The front is enlivened by Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian pilasters, each in their appropriate stories. As to the features, complexion, dress, and behaviour of the inhabitants, I saw little different from what you have had so minutely described in the various books of travels now in circulation in America. The population of the city is chiefly of the Calvinistic persuasion. We leave for Bâle to-morrow; thence to Strasburg, and so down the Rhine, and across Prussia into Belgium. As ever, in Jesus, J. C. LETTER VIII. Mayence, Germany, Oct., 1843. MY VERY DEAR SIR, WE had a pleasant ride back to Bâle, and thence to Strasburg, where we spent last Sabbath. It rained most of the day, and my mind partook of the general gloom; and had many buffetings from the great adversary. About half-past four in the afternoon, it cleared up, and I wandered out beyond the fortifications, into some pleasant walks "fit for meditation sweet." But, ah! we need not visit pagan lands to realize those mournful lines of Bishop Heber :— "What, though the spicy breezes Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle; In vain, with lavish kindness, I arrived at a cluster of houses, devoted to what the French call pleasure; some have named them, “The hells of France." Clusters of men were sitting outside, drinking, smoking, and gaming; while the interiors were crowded by men and women, some drinking, and others dancing to the sound of a variety of instruments. These houses are fitted up, if one might judge by the exterior, for I did not enter any of them,-in such a manner as to make vice fascinating, and the way to hell pleasant and respectable. Could I have spoken in French, with the readiness I can read that language, these Sabbath-breakers should have heard the truth, for once in their lives, whatever might have been the result; but I was glad to take refuge in a cemetery close by. The evening was calm, and the air refreshingly sweet. The sentiment of Tholuck, the German poet, would recur to any one who had read it, on entering the precincts of this deep and delicious solitude : "How still is the grave, How cool is the air about it! What a contrast, I murmured, between the silence that rests upon the sleeping dead, and the shouts and uproar of the sons and daughters of folly over yonder ! The cemetery is of considerable extent, and tastefully planted with luxuriant trees and shrubbery; and "funeral foliage" shades the monuments of the dead. "Methinks the monster Death Wears not such visage here, so grim and gaunt An hour was spent very agreeably among the tombs, reading inscriptions, and forming a hasty estimate as to the proportion (which is very large) of the citizens, who had been consigned to the grave in "early youth." I counted nearly thirty broken columns, indicating that those to whose memory they were erected, had been cut down in the prime of life; that their hopes and purposes were suddenly broken off by death, as the column is shattered by the lightning-stroke, or overturned and severed by the throes of an earthquake. Ah! if one could say of such, "The less of this cold world, the more of heaven!" it would be a relief; but how could such a hope exist, when the voice of music and revelry again fell upon my ear, and called forth the reflection, "Perhaps most of these unconscious ones joined in the same excess of riot, on the Lord's day." Again the noise of music and dancing intruded upon the solitude of the dead, and I prepared to flee from the sound, as from a hell, exclaiming, "No wonner if the red lightnings were to shoot forth in sudden vengeance against these French sinners, as a retribution for the desecration of the holy Sabbath." On my return to the entrance, I noticed here and there a solitary mourner, leaning over a grave, disconsolate. This was a pleasing contrast to the thoughtlessness without; but on arriving at a huge cross, upon which was suspended a gigantic effigy of our Saviour, and beholding a number of people kneeling around it, and adoring their wooden god, I retreated in sorrow from the place. Idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, and Popery, are synonymous. The Lord blessed me abundantly on returning to the city. My soul was so caught up into communion with God, that instead of passing through one of the gates, I turned to the right, and by the side of some fortifications, I received another and larger manifestation of the love of God. My heart was filled to overflowing, as "the Lord passed by," and recalled to my view a train of mercies, which grateful memory recognized as having been all mine, through a long succession of years. I wondered, admired, and adored! After tea, Mr. Holgate and I spent a short time in social prayer, and retired to rest. Next morning we left Strasburg, by steamer, for this city; the day turned out rainy, but it cleared off in the afternoon. A few miles below Manheim, we obtained a view of |