Soft,
floating films lifted from the surface and streamed away dissolving.
Strange hues came out on lake and shore, far, far below. The air, the
very air became conscious of a coming change, and the pale tops of
distant Alps sparkled like diamonds. It was night in the valleys. And
we heard the cocks crowing below, and the uneasy stir of a world
preparing to awake. So Isaiah foresaw a slumbering world, while
Messiah's coming glanced upon the heights of Zion, and cried,--
"Behold, darkness shall cover the earth
And gross darkness the people;
But the Lord shall rise upon THEE,
And his glory shall be seen upon thee!"
Hushed the immense crowd of spectators waited; then he came. On the
gray edge of the horizon, under the emblazoned strata, came a sudden
coal of fire, as shot from the altar of Heaven. It dazzled, it
wavered, it consumed. Its lambent lines lengthened sidelong. At
length, not a coal, but a shield, as the shield of Jehovah, stood
above the east, and it was day. The vapor sea heaved, and broke, and
rolled up the mountain sides. The lakes flashed back the conquering
splendor. The wide panorama, asleep no more, was astir with teeming
life.
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