Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/453

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 213 CHAPTER XV. This is thy lesson, mighty sea ! Man calls the dimpled earth his own, The flowery vale, the golden lea ; And on the wild gray mountain-stone Claims nature s temple for his throne ! But where thy many voices sing Their endless song, the deep, deep tone Calls back his spirit s airy wing, He shrinks into himself, when God is king !" FOR some months after the change of government, Mark Woolslon was occupied in attending to the arrangement of his affairs, preparatory to an absence of some length. Bridget had expressed a strong wish to visit America once more, and her two eldest children were now of an age when their education had got to be a matter of some soli citude. It was the intention of their father to send them to Pennsylvania for that purpose, when the proper time arrived, and to place them under the care of his friends there, who would gladly take the charge. Recent events probably quickened this intention, both as to feeling and time, for Mark was naturally much mortified at the turn things had taken. There was an obvious falling-off in the affairs of the colony from the time it became transcendantly free. In religion, the sects ever had fair-play, or ever since the arri val of the parsons, and that had been running down, from the moment it began to run into excesses and exaggera tions. As soon as a man begins to shout in religion, he may be pretty sure that he is " hallooing before he is out of the woods." It is true, that all our feelings exhibit themselves, more or less, in conformity to habits and man ners, but there is something profane in the idea that the spirit of God manifests its presence in yells and clamour, even when in possession of those who have not been