American Republican and Baltimore daily clipper. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1844-1846, 1846-07-27
From the New York Observerl
SACRED MOUNTAINS; MOUNT SIN

NA WHICH, the duNdllCo pdyfntut expires
From the New York Observer.l
E SACRED MOUNTAINS: MOUNT SINAI.
BIT THE REV. j. t. HEADLsY.
Standing in the midst of some of the most
|olate scenery in the world, Mount Sinai lifts
huge form into the heavens, like some mon
slumbering in conscious strength. Its bald
naked summit-its barren and rocky sides,
all its sombre features, correspond perfect
to the surrounding scene. 1t is a wild and
ISOLATE spot, and were there even no associa-
ms connected with it, the loneliness and
bonn that surround it would arrest the tray
Ter, and cause him to remember it long after
ards But Mount Sinai has associations that
hder it chief among the Sacred Mountains
he moral, the divine instructions given to
pa from its summit, are of course the things
chief Importance, but as these are always
holly dwelt upon, speak only of the out
hrd scenes amid which they were impaired.
or is this without its use; for we, half the
ne, lose the freshness, ] might say the natu-
ness, of much that is said in the Bible by in
living it in sort of supernatural indefinite
SIS. We remove the persons and the objects,
d in doing it lose the power which familiar
enes always have over the mind. There can
a no more striking illustration of this truth
an in the different effects produced on con-
egation'by the different manner in which
me descriptive scene in the Bible is read
ne will read in strained monotonous voice.
if natuTaLnesS betokened too great familiarity
18th sacred things, and is astonshed that men
hre so little for the reading of the Scriptures.
mother reads as if he himself were narrating
be facts for the first time, and every eve and
: hr is fixed. If the cfucilixion could be made
ehnlte as common murder scene, and the
&gony in the garden as familiar as the throes
nd torture ola friend in the EXTREMIST agony
human nature, they would not, they could
lot, be read with 80 little feeling as they are.
paid lawyer to me once, 'You Christians
*bse half the beauty Of the Bible by putting
#our minds into such strained, solemn atti-
ude the moment you open it. take it up as
you'd law book, and new truths, new beauty,
ind new sublimity appear on every page. p
Dur senses are the inlets to our minds. The
Deity acts on this principle when he accompa-
les all developments of himself with such re-
harkable outward appearances. Even the Son
f God must die amid the throbs of an earth
uake, the Iending of graves and the blotting
but of the sun. The giving of the law, too,
vas done amid scenes that were designed never
o be forgotten.
Behold the white tents ofIsrael scattered like
snow fakes at the base of that treeless, barren
mountain. The hum of mighty population
S there, and those flowing tents on which the
parting sun is leaving his farewell glories are
he only pleasing objects that meet the eye in
this dreary region. A solemn hush is OH every
Thing as the moon sails up the heavens, food
Moses has declared that on the third morning
ha of mol Nnd ;cf Mo al. !.
liant mountain top in presence of all the people.
|Awe-struck and expectant, the sons of Jacob
|go from tent to tent to speak of this strange e.
vent, and then come out and look on the mys-
ferrous mountain on which it is to transpire -
Unconscious of its high destiny, the distant
summit leans against the solemn sky, and moth
ling there betokens preparation for the stipend
Gus scene. But at length the morning comes
and that vast encampment is filled with the
murmur of the moving multitude, all turned
anxiousy to distant Sinai. And 10! solitary
cloud comes drifting along the morning sky and
catches against the top of the mountain. So
have seen cloud caught by an Alpine sum-
init and held firmly there. But the most WV
id impression l ever got of Sinai was from
Mount Vesuvius. The mysterious cloud it
wraps around its own head, concealing the
brightness and terror within, always reminded
me of the cloud on Sinai. And then the tena-
city with which it would cling there. When
the midnight heavens were black with tempests
and the sea was one wild waste of waves, and
the clouds were dashing like madened spirits
over the sky before the blast-wth every flash
of lightning that llumined the gloom, have
caught the distant top of Vesuvius with that
cloud around its head, moveless as rock amid
the furious blast, while thunder and fame and
motion were within. So did the cloud rest on
Sinai as the people looked, and suddenly the
thunder began to speak from its depths, and the
fierce lightning traversed its bosom, cleaning
and flashing through every part of it. That
cloud was Gods pavilion; the thunder was it's
sentinels, and the lightning the lances' points
as they moved around the sacred trust The
commotion grew wilder every moment till the
successive ciaps of thunder were like the explo-
sion of ten thousand cannon shaking the earth.
Amid this incessant firing of heavens artillery
suddenly from out the bosom of that cloud
came single trumpet blast Not like the
thrilling music of a thousand trumpets that
heralds the shock of cavalry; but one solitary
clarion note with no sinking cadence or rising
swell, but an Infinite sound rising in its ascen-
sion power, till the universe was filled with the
strain. The incessant thunders that rock the
heights cannot drown it, for clearer, fuller, loud
ers it peals on over the astonished spectators,
till their hearts sink away in fear, and nature
herself stands awe-strucS and trembling before
it. And 10! columns of smoke begin to rise,
fast and furious, from that myterious cloud, as
if volcano had opened in its bosom, and the
pent-up elements, were dseharging themselves
in the upper air; and the steady mountain rocks
to and fro on its base, as if in the grasp of an
earthquake. Sand the smoke thereof assembled
as the smoke of a great furnace, and the whole
mount u,aked greaflu ),