At half past three in the morning we were roped together--fifteen feet of rope between each two men--for the final three or four hours' work. It is everywhere steep; it is every minute hands and feet on the rocks; sometimes you cling with fingers, elbows, knees, and feet, and are tempted to add the nose and chin. Where it is least steep the guide's heels are right in your face; when it is precipitous you only see a line of rope before you. We make the final pause an hour before the top. Here every weight and the fear that so easily besets one must be laid aside. No part of the way has seemed so difficult; not even that just past--when we rounded a shoulder on the ice for sixty feet, sometimes not over twenty inches wide, on the verge of a precipice four thousand feet high. To this day I can see the wrinkled form of that far-down glacier below, though I took care not to make more than one glance at it. The rocks become smoother and steeper, if possible. A chain or rope trails from above in four places. You have good hope that it is well secured, and wish you were lighter, as you go up hand over hand. Then a beautiful slope for hands, knees, and feet for half an hour, and the top is reached at half past six. The view is sublime. Moses on Pisgah could have had no such vision. He had knowledge added of the future grandeur of his people, but such a revelation as this tells so clearly what God can do for his people hereafter that that element of Moses's enjoyment can be perceived, if not fully appreciated. All the well-known mountains stand up like friends to cheer us. Mont Blanc has the smile of the morning sun to greet us withal. Monte Rosa chides us for not partaking of her prepared visions. The kingdoms of the world--France, Switzerland, Italy--are at our feet. One hundred and twenty snow-peaks flame like huge altar piles in the morning sun. The exhilarant air gives ecstasy to body, the new visions intensity of feeling to soul. The Old World has sunk out of sight. This is Mount Zion, the city of God. New Jerusalem has come down out of heaven adorned as a bride for her husband. The pavements are like glass mingled with fire. The gates of the morning are pearl. The walls, near or far according to your thought, are like jasper and sapphire. The glory of God and of the Lamb lightens it. But we must descend, though it is good to be here. It is even more difficult and tedious than the ascent. _Non facilis descensus_. With your face to the mountain you have only the present surface and the effort for that instant. But when you turn your back on the mountain the imminent danger appears. It is not merely ahead, but the sides are much more dangerous. On the way down we had more cannonades. In six hours we were off the cliffs, and by half past three we had let ourselves down, inch by inch, to Zermatt, a distance of nine thousand four hundred feet.