Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader: Being Selections from the Chief American WritersMartin, Benj. N. (Benjamin Nicholas)
General
Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader: Being Selections from the Chief American Writers
Martin, Benj. N. (Benjamin Nicholas)
American literature
For two hours we ascended this wild, narrow pass, enclosed between
stupendous granite cliffs, whose debris encumbered the defile, often
rendering the passage difficult and dangerous. Escaping from the pass,
we crossed the head of a basin-like plain, which declined to the
south-west, and ascending gradually, gloomy, precipitous, mountain
masses rose to view on either hand, with detached snow-beds lying in
their clefts. The caravan moved slowly, and apparently with a more
solemn, measured tread. The Bedouins became serious and silent, and
looked steadily before them, as if to catch the first glimpse of some
revered object. The space before us gradually expanded, when suddenly
Tualeb, pointing to a black, perpendicular cliff, whose two riven and
rugged summits rose some twelve or fifteen hundred feet directly in
front of us, exclaimed, _"Gebel Mousa!"_ How shall I describe the effect
of that announcement? Not a word was spoken by Moslem or Christian, but
slowly and silently we advanced into the still expanding plain, our eyes
immovably fixed on the frowning precipices of the stern and desolate
mountain. We were doubtless on the plain where Israel encamped at the
giving of the law, and that grand and gloomy height before us was Sinai,
on which God descended in fire, and the whole mountain was enveloped In
smoke, and shook under the tread of the Almighty, while his presence was
proclaimed by the long, loud peals of repeated thunder, above which
the blast of the trumpet was heard waxing loader and louder, and
reverberating amid the stern and gloomy mountain heights around; and
then God spoke with Moses.
[Footnote 10: A native of Kentucky; is deemed one of the most eloquent
divines in the Methodist church.]
* * * * *
=_Leonard Bacon, 1802._= (Manual, p, 480.)
From a "Missionary Sermon."
=_32._= THE DAY APPROACHING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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