“breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain’s top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect’s wing
Flit o’er the herbless granite.”
We should, in fact, have reached the climax of the sublime in natural scenery.
Thus far I have described, almost without exception, only what I have seen. But let us now venture into regions where we have only the description of others to guide us. Let us enter the region of ancient Armenia, a country composed of wide plains, bounded and intersected by precipitous mountains. As we journeyed south-easterly over one of these plains, a remarkable conical summit would arrest our attention, at the distance of sixty miles. Day after day, as we approached, it would creep up higher and higher above the horizon, developing its commanding features, and rivetting more intensely the attention upon it. As we came near its base, we should see that its top rose far into the region of eternal ice, whose glassy surface would reflect the light like a mirror, and whose lower edge had shot forth enormous glaciers as far as the heat would allow them to descend. In the plain below, we should be sweltering in a tropical heat; but the same sun that melted us would make no impression upon the wintry crown of the mountain. We could not keep our eyes or thoughts turned away from an object so sublime. And it would deepen the impression to learn that this gigantic cone, shooting up three and a half miles, was once a volcano; and still more would it deepen our interest to learn that this is the mountain which universal tradition in that region regards as the Mount Ararat, the resting-place of the ark. It would strike us forcibly to realize that what seems to us now to be a pillar of heaven, was the patriarch’s stepping-stone from the antediluvian into the postdiluvian world.
One more example may suffice. Go with me to the Sandwich Islands, and we shall get an impressive glimpse of the principal agency by which the earth’s crust has been ridged, furrowed, and dislocated. As we land upon Hawaii, we perceive it to be composed mainly of lava of no very ancient date. We ascend a lofty plateau, and many a league in advance of us we see a column of smoke rising from a vast plain. Directing our course thither, while yet some miles from it, we descend a steep slope to a broad terrace, and then another slope to a second terrace. These slopes and terraces extend circularly around the pillar of smoke like the seats of a vast amphitheatre.
Coming near to this column, our steps are arrested on the margin of a vast gulf, fifteen hundred feet deep, and from eight to ten miles in circumference, whose bottom is the seat of the most remarkable volcano on the globe;—I mean Kilauea. Wait here till night closes around us, and we shall witness a scene of awful sublimity. Over the immense area of that gulf will the volcanic agency beneath be exerted. Ever and anon, and mingling in strange discord, will hissings and groanings, mutterings and thunderings, be heard rolling from side to side, and making the earth tremble around. Then from one and another volcanic cone—perhaps from fifty—will the glowing lava burst forth; red-hot stones will be driven furiously upward; vapor, and smoke, and flames will be poured out, and the dark and jagged sides of that vast furnace will glow with unearthly splendor; and here and there will lakes of liquid lava appear, one or two miles in extent, heaving up their billows, and dashing their fiery spray high into the air. O, there is not on earth a livelier emblem of the world of despair; and yet we know it is not the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, nor the abode of lost spirits. We know it to be only one of the safety-valves of our globe, and an exhibition of that mighty agency within the globe which has heaved and dislocated its crust; and, therefore, as we gaze upon the scene, and forget our fatigue and sleep, we experience only the emotions of awful sublimity, which can hardly fail to rise into adoration of that infinite Being who can say, even to this agency, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.
These are samples only of those delightful emotions which he experiences, who possesses a taste for natural scenery. And kindred emotions will be awakened within him, wherever he wanders among the works of God. They form some of the purest and most satisfying pleasures which this world affords. They constitute pleasant oases along the dreary journey of life; and so deeply does memory engrave them on her tablet, that no change of time or circumstances can hide them from our view. Now, it is obvious that if the Author of nature and of the human soul had been malevolent, instead of making every thing which man meets in creation “beauty to his eye, and music to his ear,” he would have made all offensive and painful. Instead of the delightful emotions of beauty and sublimity which now rise within us as we open our eyes upon nature, feelings of aversion and fear would haunt us. Every sound would have been discordant, and every sight terrific. He could not have been even indifferent to our happiness, when he commissioned those desolating agencies of nature, fire and water, to ridge up and furrow out the earth’s surface as the groundwork of the future landscape. For he has taken care that the result should be a scene productive of pleasure only to the soul that is in a healthy state. Benevolence only, infinite benevolence, could have done this.
My third argument in favor of the divine benevolence is founded on the arrangements for the distribution of water on the globe.
We should expect on so uneven a surface as the earth presents, that this element, which forms the liquid nourishment of all organic life, and which in many other ways seems indispensable, must be very unequally distributed, and fail entirely in many places; and yet we find it in almost every spot where man erects his habitation. And those places where there is a deficiency are usually extended plains; not, as we should expect, the mountainous regions. The latter are usually well watered; and this is accomplished in three ways. In the first place, in most mountainous countries, the strata are so much tilted up, as to prevent the water from running off. In the second place, the pervious strata are frequently interrupted by faults sometimes filled by impervious matter. In the third place, the comminuted materials that cover the rocks as soils, are often so fine, or of such a nature, as to prevent the passage of water; and thus much of the water that falls upon elevated land remains there, while enough percolates through the pervious materials to water the valleys and supply the streams. These carry it to the lakes and the ocean, where it is returned by evaporation in the form of clouds, and thus an admirable system of circulation is kept up, whereby this essential element is purified, and conveyed to every part of the surface where man or beast require it.
There is one recent discovery, which deserves notice here, because it depends upon the geological structure of the earth. When pervious and impervious strata alternate, and are considerably inclined, water may be brought from great depths by hydrostatic pressure, if the impervious stratum be bored through and the water-bearing deposit be reached. A perpetual fountain may thus be produced, and water be obtained in a region naturally deficient in it. An Artesian fountain of this description, in the suburbs of Paris, has been brought from the enormous depth of eighteen hundred feet![16]
Now, just consider that to deprive the earth of water is to deprive it of inhabitants, and you cannot but see in the means by which it is so widely, nay, almost universally, diffused, and made to circulate for purification,—the most decided marks of divine benevolence. Why is it not as striking as the curious means by which the blood and the sap of animals and plants are sent to every part of the system to supply its waste, and give it greater development?