THANK GOD FOR MOUNTAINS

Western Star, Issue 1349, 27 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THANK GOD FOR MOUNTAINS

When I turn my eyes upon the M ap of the World, and behold how wonderfully the countries where our faith was nurtured. where our liberties were where our philosophy and literature, the fountain of our intellectual grace and beauty, sprang up—were as distinctly walled out by God’s hand with mountain ramparts from the eruptions and interruptions of barbarians, as if at the especial prayer of the Early Fathers of man’s destinies, 1 am lost in exulting miration. Look at the bold barrens of Palestine ! See bow the infant liberties of Greece were sheltered from the vast tribes of the uncivilised North by the heights of Hrnmus and Rhodope ! Behold how the Alps describe their magnificent crescent, inclining their opposite extremities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhene Seas, locking up Italy from the Gallic and Teutonic hordes till the power and spirit of Rome had reached their maturity, and she had opened the wide forests of Europe to the light, spread far her laws and language, and planted the seeds of many mighty nations!—Wm. Howitt.