THE STORM CLOUD'S CRADLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2424, 30 August 1900, Page 71

THE STORM CLOUD'S CRADLE.

$, By a Banker.

Among&t the most staitling adventiues which the writer has experienced, perhaps one of tue strangest occurred some time ago in Switzerland, in the course of an ascent of one of tla* mountains. The morning broke fail and bright, one of those glorious cays, neither Lot nor cold, but genial and invigorating ; a clay when, tinder the biacmg influence of the pure mountain air, the delightful exe-ciso of walking and clmibmg must ever cieate a sense of supreniG and unalloj-ed exhilara:ion. The first stages oi the asce it led through wide pastures of gay wild flov.-eis. the Alpine ro<=e (which, hovever, is really a rhododendron), with its shapely pink ti limpet flowers; the mountain G-eatiaji, with flowers painted m the most brilliant hive which perhaps exists m nature : Iho Androsace, whose pink flowers become bLio m diying, the lovely Star of Bethlehem, with tall stalks, bearing umbels of white and green, flowers ; with several varieties or lilies, cyciameas, daphnes, nnd other flowers, which at home are only seen in conservatories or gaidens; while higher up the mountain may be found, if fortunate, tho covet ad edelweiss, thai stuking flower with which evory Alpine climber asjjiiss to decorate himself. And now, after passing through a gloomy forest or pines, extending upwards for a considerable distance, a glorious spectacle bursts upo.i the view, the diversified country beneath being laid out as a great map ; blue lakes winding amidst the jutting promontories of mountains, green meadows dotted with chalets and small hamlets, while foaming rivers pursue their sinuous course through the valleys formed by the surrounding snow-capped mountains, from whose slowly-melting glaciers they owe their buth. 6 But the sun is now obscured, and dark, lowering clouds hang threateningly immediately overhead, black and menacing. In a short time the travellers have entered the storm cloud, and find themselves in k heavy, suffocating mist, so evidently charged to the full with electricity that, though still hastening upwards, they. await with some degree of trepidation the inevitable outburst. And now comes a terrific crash, deafening and resonant which appears to shake tlio very mountain, follow cd ever and anon by continued explosions, sometimes a ticmendoas levcrberatmg loar, sometimes a senes of shaip, le-echoing concussions, the terrific uproar cuirnmatmg in a discharge of heaven's artillery so appalling and terrifying that it appears as if the mountain itself must be lent fiom its foundations. And to add to the weird alaim, the mountameeis now perhaps find themsehes surrounded with an aureola or halo of electricity, which imparts to them an unearthly and supernatural appearance, cicating apprehension and awe. (This, however, was not the writci's experience, as the elements did not canonise him with this aureola of glory.) At length the travellers emerge from the black stormcloud into the glorious sunlight, and, as far as tho eye can reach, gieat billows of pure and dazzling whiteness stretch out beneath on ali sides to the horizon, the mountain winds impelling them forward, moulding them into all manner of capricious shapes, the whole appealing like a mighty storm-tossed ocean, over whose rolling, contending singes monster and fantastic foims are ever and anon launched forth, soon to be merged themselves in the glistening radiancy of these lustious snow-like billows. And like as the mountaineer emerges irorn the dismal and lurid obscurity of tho murky stormcloud into the full splendour of this brilliant and radiant scene, even so does ho who has been grovelling in the darkness of doubt and tuicertainty as to his future lot in tho great heraftev emerge into glov/ing tians porta of ecstatic rapture when he reaiiap^ that

by claiming for himself the vicarious atouoment oi the Savioxu oi the world, the recoid kept on high of his misdeeds has beeii obliterated, and that he has secured for hinibolf an inheritance infinitely more glorious than anything this -woiid could offei, eternal and never-end-ing.