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Show 82 NARRATIVE OF thought immediate] y suggested its opposite, and I found myself more familiar with the evil than the good. It shocked me. But I penetrated deeper an 1 deeper into my own heart-into the iniquity of my soul, until I despaired of ever sounding its depth. l then cried to Gou to have mercy on me. Tic hcorJ my prayer, and Jesus Christ came to my help. I fdt that he had suffered in my stead, and had poured out his blood as an atonement for my sins. I found peace to my soul as I cast myself, a poor, helpless sinner, upon his atoning altar, and bathed myself in his all· cleansing blood." Mary could proceed no farther, for the tears began to flow too rapidly, and her emotion might have been noticed by others than Albert. The wind, too, began to rise, and it blew so fresh that they retired to the cabin, where Albert occupied himself with a game of chess, and Mary read, with evident pleasure, such parts of her dearly·prizcd Bible which suited the state of her mind, occasionally call· ing Albert's attention to some passage particularly striking. ln the afternoon, Mary took her scat in a position to enjoy the best view of the western sky, in which ALBERT AND 11ARY. 83 floated, in all thcjr gorgeousness, the variegated snn-lit clourk Albert soon joinetl her. "Well, Mary, you seem to be meditating; but allow me to participate in the luxury of your I·cficctions upon that splendid horizon." "Inclcccl, Albert, I wns thinking how much more impressive is such scenery than the traveller 011land enjoys. In tlte rapid succession of scenery and variety of faces, as t1Jc coach or tl1c steam car drives rapidly onward, everything one sees increases the mind's confusion. ·whatever he casts his eye upon, worthy of admira!ion, attracts his attention but a moment; ancl tho sublimity of mountn:in heights, the gaudy decorations of fertile valleys, and the frowning grandeur of rocks, as they cast their clark shado1v upon some foaming torrent, flit by !tim as a dream of twilight, and leave upon his memory only pencil out· lines of the beautiful and the sublime. Not so the voyager on tho ocean. Ilcrc the beautiful imprints itself ineffaceably in all its sparkling and its gorgeous variety upon the enchanted mind, and the grand and the sublime raise such a tempest of wonder in the soul that the ocean ever after rolls its foaming waves over the broad expanse of memory." |
