WHEN we forget the scene before our dazzled eyes as we stepped out upon the balcony of the hotel Bellevue at Lucerne, earth will have passed away. There lay the fair lake, the emerald hills rising from its blue depths on every side, save where the queer old town sweeps around its curve, or beyond Pilatus, where the chain is broken, and a strip of level land lies along the water's edge, sprinkled with red-roofed farm-houses set in the midst of grain-fields, and with rows of tall, straight poplars extending to the water. This sight of peaceful homes among the heavenly hills is like a vision of earth in mid-heaven. Beyond, above, overlapping each other, rise these delectable hills. No earthly air envelops them. No earthly feet tread their fair summits. Upon the highest, among the eternal snows, rest the clouds. Truly, the heavens declare the glory of God; but Switzerland showeth his handiwork!
Beautiful was the lake in the hazy morning light, when the hills cast purple and green shadows over its bosom, when the breeze rippled its surface, and the path in the wake of the little steamer widened into an endless way; beautiful in the glare of the noonday sun, when a veil of mist half hid the far-off mountains, and the water gleamed like molten gold; but most beautiful of all when the mountains wrapped themselves in the shadows of night, and stole away into the darkness, while upon their white, still faces shone the rays of the setting sun. Then grim Pilatus stepped forth; the moon, like a burnished globe, hung over the water, across which the little steamer ploughed silver furrows, or tiny boats, impelled by flashing oars, shot over the still surface, now near, now far away; but dim, unreal, always.
It was a place of rest to us--this city of Lucerne; the "House Beautiful," where we tarried for a time before setting out again upon our pilgrimage. We wandered about the narrow streets, visited the dingy shops full of wood carvings or ornaments cut in the many-hued crystals; strayed over the low hills behind the town, through fields set with painted shrines; paused before Thorwaldsen's Dying Lion, cut in the living rock--the grandest monument that heroes ever won; and once, in the stillness of a summer morning, sat in the cathedral and heard the angels sing, when the old organist laid his hands upon the keys. Sabbath mornings we sang the old versified psalms, and listened to the exposition of a rigid faith from the lips of a Scotch Presbyterian minister, in an old Roman Catholic church--the walls hung with pictured saints and martyrs, the high altar only partially concealed, and a company of women kneeling by the door to tell their beads. Not only rest, but Christian charity, had we found here.