No June day ever opened with a fairer promise. Not a single cloud
flecked the sky, and the sun coursed onward through the azure sea
until past meridian, without throwing to the earth a single shadow.
Then, low in the west, appeared something obscure and hazy, blending
the hill-tops with the horizon; an hour later, and three or four
small fleecy islands were seen, clearly outlined in the airy ocean,
and slowly ascending--avant-couriers of a coming storm. Following
these were mountain peaks, snow-capped and craggy, with desolate
valleys between. Then, over all this arctic panorama, fell a sudden
shadow. The white tops of the cloudy hills lost their clear,
gleaming outlines and their slumbrous stillness. The atmosphere was
in motion, and a white scud began to drive across the heavy, dark
masses of clouds that lay far back against the sky in mountain-like
repose.
How grandly now began the onward march of the tempest, which had
already invaded the sun's domain and shrouded his face in the smoke
of approaching battle. Dark and heavy it lay along more than half
the visible horizon, while its crown invaded the zenith.
As yet, all was silence and portentous gloom. Nature seemed to pause
and hold her breath in dread anticipation. Then came a muffled,
jarring sound, as of far distant artillery, which died away into an
oppressive stillness. Suddenly from zenith to horizon the cloud was
cut by a fiery stroke, an instant visible. Following this, a heavy
thunder-peal shook the solid earth, and rattled in booming echoes
along the hillsides and amid the cloudy caverns above.
At last the storm came down on the wind's strong pinions, swooping
fiercely to the earth, like an eagle to its prey. For one wild hour
it raged as if the angel of destruction were abroad.
At the window of a house standing picturesquely among the Hudson
Highlands, and looking down upon the river, stood a maiden and her
lover, gazing upon this wild war among the elements. Fear had
pressed her closely to his side, and he had drawn an arm around her
in assurance of safety.
Suddenly the maiden clasped her hands over her face, cried out and
shuddered. The lightning had shivered a tree upon which her gaze was
fixed, rending it as she could have rent a willow wand.
"God is in the storm," said the lover, bending to her ear. He spoke
reverently and in a voice that had in it no tremor of fear.
The maiden withdrew her hands from before her shut eyes, and looking
up into his face, answered in a voice which she strove to make
steady: "Thank you, Hartley, for the words. Yes, God is present in the
storm, as in the sunshine."