"It was not necessary," Mr. Whymper says, "to admonish Croz to be quick. He was fully as alive to the risk as any of the others. He told me afterwards that the place was not only the most dangerous he had ever crossed, but that no consideration whatever would tempt him to cross it again. Manfully did he exert himself to escape from the impending destruction. His head, bent down to his work, never turned to the right or to the left. One, two, three, went his axe, and then he stepped on to the spot where he had been cutting. How painfully insecure should we have considered those steps at any other time! But now we thought of nothing but the rocks in front, and of the hideous '_seracs_' lurching over above us, apparently in the very act of falling." [Illustration: PASSAGE OF A CREVASSE, MONT BLANC.] At last they reached the rocks in safety, and, says Mr. Whymper, "If they had been doubly as difficult as they were, we should still have been well content. We sat down and refreshed the inner man; keeping our eyes on the towering pinnacles of ice which we had passed, but which now were almost beneath us. Without a preliminary warning sound, one of the largest--as high as the Monument, at London Bridge--fell upon the slope below. The stately mass heeled over as if upon a hinge (holding together until it bent thirty degrees forward), then it crushed out its base, and, rent into a thousand fragments, plunged vertically down upon the slope that we had crossed. Every atom of our track that was in its course was obliterated; all the new snow was swept away, and a broad sheet of smooth, glassy ice showed the resistless force with which it had fallen." THE SMOKE. FROM "PAUL FABER, SURGEON." BY GEORGE MACDONALD. Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar, But cannot get the wood to burn: It hardly flares ere it begins to falter, And to the dark return. Old sap, or night-fallen dew, has damped the fuel; In vain my breath would flame provoke; Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal, To thee ascends the smoke. 'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavor Coldness and doubt and palsied lack: Such as I have I send thee. Perfect Giver Send thou thy lightning back. THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN. BY C. KINLOCH COOKE.