favoured with a clear sky and glowing sunshine on our ascent, for when we had crowned the mountain, its head was enveloped in clouds. Our prospect was limited to the space of a few yards around us. The surrounding scene from the head of Ben Nevis, on a clear and glowing day, must indeed be delightful. The guide-book says, "Here the tourist sees across the whole island, from the German to the Atlantic Ocean. Eastward he beholds the chain of lakes which occupy the bottom of the Great Glen; and to the south-east, Loch Laggan and Loch Rannoch. All around are lofty mountain summits, among which are seen Bencruachan, at the head of Loch Awe, in Argyleshire; Schehallien, Benmore, and Benlawers, in Perthshire; Bhillan, in Glencoe; Benmore, in Mull; Benwyvis, and other hills, in Ross-shire; each of them surrounded by an assemblage of other mountains. At the distance of ninety miles Colonsay seems to rise from the sea like a shade of mist, over the opening of the Sound of Mull. The verdant Lismore and Shuna, though distant thirty miles, appear as if immediately under the mountain. The whole extent of view is 170 miles, from the horizon of the sea at the Moray Frith, on the north-east, to the island of Colonsay, on the south-west. The vistas, formed by the opening of the mountains, appearing to rise like ramparts from the valleys, are very grand. The eye travels along the course of noble rivers, and marks the relative bearings of different lakes and islands; and the ocean, with its numerous friths and bays, indenting the western shores. Above is spread the vast dome of the sky, and no sound reaches the ear but that of the rushing wind."

Having attained the elevated object of our enterprise, the summit of the mighty mountain, we regaled ourselves with the remains of our provisions. Our guide had taken the provident precaution to fill up our spirit-bottle at the fountain, whence it is said flows the highest water in Great Britain. The professor proposed that we should pledge those dear to us; this we did with all our hearts, and as it happened to be the birthday of an honoured friend of mine, he was not forgotten on the occasion. The professor next proposed, as we were strangers to each other, that we should write our names in each other's pocket-books, that we might be mutually remembered in

after years. The record I then received is now lying before me; it bears the inscription of the clergyman from Magdalen College, Oxford, and that of the professor from Marischal College, Aberdeen, followed by the signature of Hugh Mac Kinnon, and then by my own; duly setting forth the fact that we did together climb Ben Nevis, on Wednesday, the 25th of August, 1847, and there and then respectively sign our names in each other's presence.

The professor expressed some little surprise at my plain signature, having had a suspicion that I should turn out to be some learned doctor. Though old Humphrey was thus taken for his betters, he did not give himself any airs, nor even make himself known to his agreeable companions as the author of any one of the many volumes which have flowed from his prolific pen.

As we stood on the very brink of the fearful precipice, on the north-east side of the mountain, our guide told us that the fall was nearly perpendicular, and that a stone heaved over would be five minutes before it reached the bottom. My companions were inclined to credit this account; but I having avowed my scepticism, the case was brought to trial. I held my watch in my hand while Mac Kinnon dropped a fragment of the rock; it was long before it struck against the craggy side of the mountain, and afterwards it went clinking down a fearful depth. We bent our heads over the dreadful void, rendered to us invisible by the misty cloud, to listen. "There!" said one, when it could hardly be heard. "Again!" exclaimed another, when the sound was still more indistinguishable. "I hear it yet!" cried out Mac Kinnon; and even after this we all heard it, as though rattling among loose stones. the end of two minutes and a half all were satisfied that the descending crag had finished its downward career. Again and again our guide, jealous for his reputation, repeated his experiment, but in vain, for we never extended the time of the descent beyond two minutes and a half.

At

To me, on account of my lameness, the descent was more difficult than the ascent of the mountain. Hour after hour we kept descending, without very sensibly diminishing the distance of the vale below. Though the top of Ben Nevis was still wrapped in clouds, his south and western sides were lit up with sunbeams.

The loose stones that in one part composed the precipitate descent were extremely troublesome, and I had one or two narrow escapes from a fall. The professor's boots were cut by the sharp crags, as if with a knife, nor did mine escape without a few honourable scars.

When we came to the fearful precipice, where poor Macdonnell lost his life, we made a pause, while our guide related the particulars of the sad catastrophe. The following account is taken from a newspaper, published soon after the lamentable occurrence:

"On Thursday, Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, was the scene of a very distressing accident. Mr. Samuel Macdonnell, a fine young man, about twenty, son of captain A. Macdonnell, Fort William, set off for the summit of the mountain, accompanied by two young gentlemen from the south. Mr. Macdonnell having been frequently on the hill, it was deemed unnecessary to engage a guide, and accordingly the party left Fort William about eleven, to task their pedestrian powers upon an excursion from which they promised themselves much enjoyment. They scaled the gigantic precipices with comparative ease, and having satiated themselves with the magnificent prospect from the summit, prepared to descend. They had loitered away a considerable part of the afternoon, and by the time they returned to the point opposite the house of Glen Nevis it was six, and the evening fast setting in. Here the party separated, one in advance of Mr. Macdonnell, the other a little behind. The grass was wet and slippery, and Mr. Macdonnell amused himself by sliding down parts of the hill, to outstrip his more cautious companions. They remonstrated with him on the danger to which he exposed himself, but he persisted, till at length he lost the power of stopping himself, and his foot coming in contact with a stone, he was precipitated headlong down a deep ravine. The gentleman in the rear hurried to where he lay, and found him weltering in blood and insensible. He lifted him from the ground, and carried him to a spot less dangerous in appearance, and then proceeded onwards in search of his companion, whom he overtook at a short distance. He described the accident, and directed him to return to the place, while he went to Glen Nevis to procure assistance. About an hour elapsed before he got there; but

this being accomplished, not a moment was lost in obtaining torch-lights, and individuals ready to render what aid was in their power. Here, however, a most painful cause of delay took place; the young man, not knowing the local bearing of the hill, and being otherwise confused, could not recollect the exact spot where he left his companions. He wandered about in quest of them, imagining every fresh turn or ascent would lead him to the fatal place; and thus four hours were spent in fruitless search. At last one of the men heard a faint cry, which proved to be the moaning of the second party, who was lying exhausted, and in danger of perishing from cold and fatigue. He had also been unable to find the spot where their unfortunate friend lay. Some of the party carried this gentleman to Glen Nevis, where restoratives were promptly administered, and he again revived. A fresh party, cousisting of Dr. Creighton, captain Macdonnell, and the rev. Mr. Gifford, now set out to join those already on the hill; and after a long and anxious search of several hours, they discovered the body of Mr. Macdonnell in the place to which it had been carried by his companion; but every trace of life had fled. There were several cuts on the head, particularly one large wound on the left temple; and it was supposed death must soon have followed the fall, the immediate cause being concussion of the brain. The deceased was a young man of honourable and gentlemanly feelings, and was such an universal favourite in the district, that his death has spread a deep and general gloom over the whole town and neighbourhood."

Oh, what a prospect was that to the south and west on which we gazed on our return, lit up as it was by the declining sun! The impressive and lovely, the sublime and beautiful, were strangely mingled. The sky was blue and clear; the clouds, all but their gilded edges, snowy white, and the sun was bright, beaming, burnished, and unbearable gold!

We came down by the West Pass, to a point at no great distance from Glen Nevis House, and crossed the boggy ground as well as we could. As I had not the power to spring across the running streams, on account of my lameness, my feet and legs were wet enough: at last we reached the side of the river.

It was now growing late, and we were

all of us anxious to enjoy the luxury of comfortable quarters after our toilsome expedition; the professor, therefore, proposed that, instead of walking round to the bridge, we should wade through the river, as the water appeared to be but little more than knee-deep. Immediately I suggested, as an improvement on the plan, that instead of walking, we should ride through the river, as I doubted not that Hugh Mac Kinnon | would willingly play the part of a horse on the occasion. In another minute, mounted on my Mac Kinnon steed, I was making the best of my way through the running river.

Few things are more deceptive than a river, for oftentimes the part that appears to be only a foot deep, turns out to be a yard. The river Nevis afforded us a practical illustration of this on the memorable occasion to which I allude. There was old Humphrey, with the professor's huge staff in his hand, vainly endeavouring to keep his feet out of the water, by crooking up his knees as near as he could to his chin; and there was Hugh Mac Kinnon floundering about, now setting his foot on a loose stone at the bottom, and now popping into a hole that occasioned him to lose his balance. Half a dozen times I expected to be pitched headlong into the running

stream.

All this time we were as merry as crickets; our reverend friend laughed at me heartily—an attention which I amply repaid when he, in his turn, mounted the back of Mac Kinnon. As for the professor, who disdained such an ignoble mode of proceeding, he, to our great entertainment, bravely waded through the rushing tide, emerging therefrom with dripping legs and thighs. Our guide had well earned the recompense we gave him for the assistance he had rendered us in crossing the river.

As we walked on, we fell in with the laird of Glen Nevis, the proprietor of the mountain and the glen, who joined us in conversation very courteously, and expressed his hope that we had enjoyed our arduous undertaking. Our spirits were high, our conversation cheerful; and judging of the emotions of my companions by my own, we were none of us unmindful of His manifold mercies,

Who bade the everlasting hills arise,
And hid their pointed summits in the skies.
My lameness had much impeded our

progress in ascending and descending the mountain, and several times had I urged my companions to leave me behind, for it grieved me to be a drag upon them; but they would not hear of it. They might, certainly, had they been inclined, have reached their hotel two hours before me. After nine hours' hard toil, mingled with intense gratification, with sprays of birdsfoot in our hats and caps, and elated hearts beating in our bosoms, we arrived at Fort William, keenly anticipating the double luxury of a well-spread table, and the delight of living over again in our narrations the adventures of the day.

And where are you now, my companions? Willingly, in a second ascent of Ben Nevis, would I have you as my associates, with the trusty Mac Kinnon for our guide. - Together we engaged in an adventurous enterprise, and much did you contribute to my gratification. We met as strangers, we parted as friends; and an old man's blessing rests upon you. Health and peace be yours on earth, and endless joy above the stars.

LIFE.

"Because I live, ye shall live also.”—John xiv. 19.

THESE are Christ's words, addressed to his dejected followers, in that sublime discourse which St. John seems to have reported at length, uttered on the eve of his passion and death. Let us ponder a while on their meaning.

What is our life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. Assuredly this is not the life of which our Redeemer speaks. What we call life is but a pretence-its realities are but the fancies of a dream. Few days and evil span its poor extension, and form the limits of its little circle. In itself it seems truly insignificant "length without breadth." Yet man is willing to make it his all, to take it as his portion and heritage, fleeting as He hallows its very follies, and

it is.

"Here buries all his thoughts, Inters celestial hopes without one sigh: Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here pinions all his wishes.

And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptured or alarmed At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.'

Such a life is but a secondary state. There is another, which cannot be overrated. Thought may exhaust its own powers, but can never fathom the powers of this endless life. Where to find it, how to obtain it, when to enter upon itthese are surely weighty topics. Christ has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel.

a

Why is it that we so often feel drowsy and indifferent as to the course of life? Whence comes it that everything around us has a dull, leaden hue-that everything seems devoid of power to rouse slumbering energies, and tedious as tale twice told? What causes our frequent lassitude of mind-our want of interest in any object and in all? It is because we have not learned what life really is; because we look at it through a false and narrow medium; because we are strangers to, or at least unmindful of, | the one great absorbing truth, beside which (as Leighton said) all the world ought to appear one grand impertinence, -that God hath taken upon him our nature, and actually visited, in the likeness of sinful flesh, our darkened earth, to redeem it from the death of sin and ignorance to the life of righteousness and light. We have common thoughts of Christ. We forget the Divinity that was incarnate in the man Jesus. We do not feel as the apostle felt when he said, (and imagine with what energy when you remember the mind that was in him,) "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!" We treat the history of Christ like any other history, we dive not below the surface; we hear that in him are riches unsearchable, but leave them unsought. And so our connexion with Christ is not an union with Christ; the relationship is distant; the life is imperceptible, its best signs are wanting: there is no lively beat in the pulse, but all is cold as cold can be.

According to our divinity, then, what meaning have the words, "Because I live, ye shall live also?" Have they any at all? Or if they have, is it not a cramped, ungenerous notion, that never warms us up to high thoughts of God and eternitya poor, earth-creeping fancy, that is too damp and dead to give out a spark of immortal fire?

There is no denying that many of us have very little interest in life. The poor have what they think a dull time of it.

From morning till night a tedious round of labour-ay, and thankful in

hard times to get even that—and this, day after day, week after week, year after year; from boyhood, careless and light-hearted, to manhood; and from manhood, with its sorrows and crosses, to old age. All this has a dash of gloom about it. All this gives a man a pensive look, and robs his step of its elasticity, and quenches the wild-fire in his eye. And well it may !

But now, reader, show we unto you a more excellent way. You want an object to live for. You want something that shall throw an interest over life-over its cares, its wants, its troubles. You want something worth living for, worth struggling for, worth suffering for. And it is here, in Jesus Christ. Life, so blessed that you cannot duly appreciate its faintest developments; life, so vigorous and abiding that it were folly to essay its description; life, crowded with rich glories, beaming with heaven's own light, receiving and reflecting the sunshine of God's smile; life, without the contradictions of life below, without the penury of want, without the sick-bed, without the funeral in the street and the mourners at the grave-life in Christ, by Christ, with Christ! this is the object we propose. And say not henceforth that yours is, of necessity, a dull and heavy routine; for here is proposed to you an aim that can consecrate your weariest hours, and give you something to think of and pray for and pant after, when time seems to hang heavy on your hands.

"He that hath the Son of God hath life." He that hath received Jesus Christ, even God manifest in the flesh, as his Friend and Saviour, hath begun the life that no sickness of the body merely can make to cease. The believer in Christ goes over Jordan dry-shod; death hath no more dominion over him. His body must be changed; for "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God"—their corrupt parts must first be purged away. But his soul, the seat of this new life, is in Christ's keeping, and none shall pluck it out of his hands. Because Christ lives, it shall live also. It comes from him, and returns to him. It is like a circle, where the end runs into, and is lost in the beginning. The believer lives for Christ, and Christ's life is manifested for him; its power is realized within him, transfiguring him, making him meet for glory. His life, in the low sense of common life, is known to all; but in the high and lasting sense of which we speak,

Its

it is "hid with Christ in God." effects are seen of men, but not itself; the practice is apparent, but not the principle; the stream is seen as it runs gently on, refreshing mead and vale with its flowings, but, as the psalmist says, all its fresh springs are in God. When Christ, the source of this life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. So that our life is one with his, cannot be independent of it; it throbs with the same pulsations, circulates through the same means. He has not given us to have life in ourselves, that is apart from him, any more than the ray of the sun has light in itself apart from the great luminary: it is because he lives that we do, and shall live also.

If Christ be verily formed in us, the body will die daily to sin, the inward man will be daily renewed. His life will quicken ours- -will sanctify, spiritualize, gladden it. St. Paul has a strong figure of comparison when he says that we are members of Christ's body, of his flesh, and of his bones; but Christ himself uses deeper language still when he says, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.' He that believes this can afford to smile at the weariness of this work-day world, for he can cheer himself with the faithful saying, "All things are yours ;-whether life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's!"

F. J.

THE CREATION OF MAN. WHEN God in the course of his works came to give man his being, he said, "Let us make man.' Of his other works he merely said, "Let there be," as, "Let there be light," and "Let there be a firmament," etc. But, as if he himself was more concerned, and that in the Trinity of his being, about making man, than any other of his works, he saith, "Let us make man.' Of other creatures, he speaks to the earth and waters to bring them forth; such as herbs, grass, fruits, trees, etc. Or animals, in the several regions of air, earth, or water, which they respectively inhabit. But in the formation of man, he, as it were, sets his own hand to the work, forms him of the dust of the earth, and breathes into him the breath of life, Gen. ii. 7.

Moreover, in the creation of man, we find Jehovah saying, "Let us make man

in our image, after our likeness," Gen. i. 26, language which he did not use concerning his other works,-the light of the firmament, sun, moon, and stars, which are all glorious creatures. Man had this pre-eminence also, that he was created last-which seems to intimate that he is the most perfect part of the whole creation. God showed this respect also to him in this, that he would not call him into existence till he had built and richly furnished the world to be a fit habitation for him. And is it not evident that the adorable Creator had man in his eye when he was erecting, framing, and furnishing the world, which is exactly fitted for the use and delight of man; even as he had Christ in his eye when he made man? And, indeed, when God had finished the rest of his creation, he, as it were, epitomized all in man; for in his constitution we have mortal and immortal, visible and invisible, corporeal and incorporeal, material and immaterial, the superior and the inferior world joined together in the formation of one person. Hence it follows, that there is no such creature as man in the whole creation. Hence David, who well knew his curious frame, thus dilates on the workmanship of God therein: "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well," Psa. cxxxix. Look upon his body; how curiously and skilfully are the several organs, vessels, and members thereof fitted to their several functions in nature, and each of them contributing in their several offices to one general endwhich is the life of man. How do the veins and arteries meet about the heart; nature sending succour from all parts thereunto, as being the chief seat of life! Observe, again, how the heart conveys the blood and spirits to the whole body, it being the chief fountain of life. In every part of man something may be seen of God. So that man need not go far to fetch an argument for the being of God; he carries about with him continually an evident demonstration in his own bodily frame.-Barker.

GOOD AND EVIL DEEDS.

A VERY small page will serve for the number of our good works, when vast volumes will not contain our evil deeds. -Bishop Wilson.