, 1889-10-19
ALPINE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
Beautiful Scenes that Lay Before the Oar
ing Climber OF tae Alps.

Beautiful Scenes that Lay Before the Oar
ing Climbers OF tae Alp
The light that plays upon the Alps on
~ttnoally recreates them. They silently
lift their faces heavenward in a repose
which nothing disturbs; but it is a re-
pose, not Of death, but of a life too vast
and high to be affected by the changes
below it. Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn
and the Jungfrau are wrapped in a soli-
tude upon which it is perilous to intrude;
but on those sublime heights the light
glances and fingers as if there it found
its home and disclosed all the miracle of
its revealing power. Fol- in the light
one finds the only revelation Of the
mountains; it is the light which discloses
their infinite resources of strength and
beauty.
At Interlacken l saw not long ago a
wonderful illustration of this power of
revelation. 1t was late in the evening
when l arrived, and only the dark masses
of the hills which hem in the little
valley were visible; one would not have
known that he was within a thousand
miles of the Jungfrau. 1t was n clear,
starlit evening, but between these great
bAahlh IlAI5 ~ nttlItd blIdllktil udIh huu
solemn. There was to be n moon later,
and we sat on one of the balconies of the
hotel and waited for its coming. Pres
emily the lights about us were ex-
tinguished; one by one the houses be-
came dark and the little town became
silent. Then upon the solitude Of the
midnight n wonderful vision slowly
grew.
The sky TO the cas- began TO grow
brighter, and through the mountain
gorge directly in front-the hills on
either side remaining in dense shadow
n mountain defined itself as in the sub
lime silence OF the creative hour. The
light fell on one snowy ridge after an
other, touched successfully pinnacle
after pinnacle, traced imperceptibly the
great outline, until the Jungfrau stood
revealed-a bride indeed, remote, stain
less, sublimely beautiful in n mood
which seemed rather of the spirit than
of the form. 1t was n of those reveia-
tons which leave an ~ineffaceable stamp
on one's life.
Who shall do justice to the shadows of
the Alps? Not less marvellous are they
than the light which they follow, and
whose glory they exalt by relief and con-
trast. One may drive through the Lauter-
brunnen or the Grundelwald or over one
OF the great passes in the morning, and
returning toward evening find himself in
a new country-so vast and transform
ing are the effects which the shadows
produce.
Lingering or walking along the rush.
ing torrent which finds its way through
almost every Alpine valley, one watches
with n sense of awe tho deep shadows
slowly engulfng the world about him.
Above, the long streams of light fall
like silent cataracts over the edges of the
hills, and still higher the snowy SUBMITS
are warm and soft in unbroken light; but
about one there is dense shadow, gather
ing darkness, the night becoming visible
at the base Of the very throne of day.
Then the roaring mountain stream sings
wilder song to the mind which has come
under n kindred spell; and the long lines
of spray leaping noiselessly here and
there down the precipitous rocks, the
echo perhaps of a distant Alpine horn,
the solitude and sublimity of those re-
mote and awful heights are borne in
upon the very soul, and one feels that
among these hills he has found the true
sanctuary, the inmost shrine of nature.
Cor. Christian Union.