For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep. Psalm 92:4, 5.

The scenery through which we passed*Ellen White is here describing a carriage journey in Switzerland. was altogether too majestic, too awfully grand, to give anything like a description that can compare to the scenery as it really is. The battlements of rocks—the timeworn rocky walls that have stood since the Flood, washed with the mountain torrents—stand out smooth as if polished, while rocks diverse from these in shape are seen in regular layers, as if art had fashioned them. Here ... we viewed the most interesting, grand scenery that our eyes ever looked upon. The rocks ascend higher and still higher from the earth, and growing from these rocks are beautiful, dark-colored pines intermingled with the lighter and most beautiful living green of the maple and beech.... Such wild grandeur, such solemn scenery, carries one back to the period when the waters rose to the highest points of land, and the unbelieving antediluvians perished for their great wickedness in the waters of the Flood.

As we look upon ... the rocks of every conceivable shape, we say, “How wonderful, O Lord, are thy works in all the earth.” The softening, subduing touches penciled by the great Master Artist in the beautiful arrangement of dress of dark and living green, this beautiful combination of colors to cover the rugged, time-seamed rocks! Then the deep gorges, the noisy, fast-rushing streams, and the grand mountains covered with forest trees in their beautiful summer robes!

The view is grand in the extreme, and presents to the senses such high and holy and strong and sacred ideas of God our Maker. And then the thought that we may call Him Father! ... If anyone can look upon this scenery without being impressed with the greatness and majesty of God, his heart must indeed be unimpressible. I do so long for a closer connection with God. This God of majesty and might may be our Father, our Friend, our hope and crown of rejoicing.25Manuscript 56, 1886.

From That I May Know Him - Page 146



That I May Know Him