THE QUEST OF THE POLES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 81

THE QUEST OF THE POLES.

By a Banker.

From the time of King Alfred, who li&j left on record the account of an Arctic expedition made b; one of the old. Vikings, polar exploration has presented a great attraction to many a brave and adventurous spirit. But although, with a few notable exceptions, all of these undaunted explorer* have been British, yet it has been reserved to a brave American to gain the crowning victory, and to stand upon the • very axis of the earth, upon the spot where, if he remained stationary for 24 hours, he would revolve completely round; a spot where there is no east and -no west, for in whatever direction, except zenithward, he may look it must be towards the south. But what a dreary, joyless, and dismal region .is this melancholy waste of frozen waters and snow-covered land. No trees, no shrubs, no flowers to beautify the scene; no verdure to gladden the eye; no songsters of the wood to carol forth their love songs. Naught but a lifeless, icebound, huelesa wilderness, in winter no day, in summer no night, though a summer without warmth, a sun without heat, while the cruel, gelid winds pierce and stab, and utterly benumb and paralyse. But although so unlovely and so dismal, yet Nature has provided some compensation, for the long absence of the sun, and fcr tha woeful lack of all the adornments and all the picturesque loveliness, which, with such lavish hand, she has bestowed upon more favoured parts of this beautiful earth. For those monotonous, endless nights, month, after month, month after month, of dreary darkness, are from time to time favoured! with a gorgeous pageant of many-hued! splendour, the dome of the heavens arched over with an overhanging pillared canopy of ever .varying colour, every column throbbing and quivering, now in fires of flashing emerald, now changing to azure, now with a rapid spasm pulsating into a iovely amethyst or into a fiery vermilion, uwtil at length, the sublime spectacle,.gradually fades away, and once more all is darkness and gloom. And, judging from the vague references in Holy Writ to the material glories of heaven, the flashing splendours of those celestial Realms may perhaps, though of coarse on a far more transplendent scale, include displays of refulgent lustre of Somewhat similar character. But be that as it may, we know that the homeland of the redeeniecl is a realm of glory such as the mind of man is utterly unable to conceive, and all are legal inheritors of that Kingdom who rely upon the mediation of the Saviour of the world, who on Calvary satisfied the claims of Justice on behalf of all who supplicate Him for eternal life, and who lay their sins upon Him.