Franz understood his business of guide too well to let me loiter as I wished.  “These fissures are the chief danger,” he said; and, holding out his small hand, he grasped mine with the tenacity of one not accustomed to let anything slip through his fingers.  A girdle of imperfectly frozen snow borders this sea; and Franz never planted his feet till he had first ascertained the nature of the surface with his pole.  Some of these fissures are of an amazing depth, and, taking out my watch, I tried to fathom one of them by dropping large fragments of granite; and calculating by the time that elapsed before reaching the bottom, we judged it to be over five hundred feet.

Franz had hurried us; now, he stopped, and bade us look above us.  We did so, and were amply repaid for all our toil.  To try to describe it would be in vain; and still the distinct outline is indelibly impressed upon my mind, and I am confident will never be effaced.  We were standing in the midst of the rough waves and yawning abysses of this frozen sea; while almost perpendicularly from its brink the mountains rose, clothed with scanty herbage, and adorned with the tiny crimson blossoms of the rhododendron that bloomed upon their sides.

As the eye looked up the valley, every trace of vegetation died away; and the snowy mountains appeared to meet and mingle with each other.

We left the glacier, and ascending again to the hospice of Montanvert, I sat down by the side of Franz upon a block of granite, and looked again upon a scene the equal of which I never expect to see again.  There was a far away look in Franz’s eyes.  Was he thinking of the little cottage far up the mountain, and of Annette watching by the bedside of his sick father?  Perhaps so; in any case I was glad that we had taken him.  His could not be an everyday story, there must be some particular motive why he should want so earnestly to come.  I would not question him then; but I determined to stop at the little cottage and learn for myself.

With all the untold glory above and beneath me, I felt oppressed with the littleness, as well as the greatness of my nature.  How insignificant I appeared amid these gigantic forms; and still I exulted in the consciousness that “My Father made them all, that Father with whom I could commune, and whose Son I was privileged to love.”

“And this God is our God,” I was constrained to say aloud.  Franz turned his speaking eye upon me.

“If it was not for this, how could we endure it?” he said, while there was a grave, calm look on his face, so little to be expected in a guide.

“How could we endure this grandeur, or our own littleness?” I asked.

“To know that God rules, giving each his place, to the mountains theirs, and to us ours.  Insignificant we may be, and still we are each of us of more value than all the mountains in the universe.  Jesus created mountains; but he died for us.”