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Smooth Places: Peril of

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After crossing the Grimsel, on the way down towards Handeck, the traveller traverses a road cut in red marble, so smoothly polished that, even when it is divested of its usual thin coating of snow, it is dangerous in the extreme. Notwithstanding that steps are hewn, and rough marks made across the granite, he would be foolhardy who should try to ride along the slippery way, which is called Helle Platte, or Hell Place, for reasons which glisten on its surface. 'Dismount,' is the word, and none are slow to obey it. There are many such Hell Places on the road to the celestial city: smooth places of pleasure, ease, flattery, self-content, and the like; and it will be the wisest course if any pilgrim has been fond of riding the high horse, for him to dismount at once and walk humbly with his God. That enchanted ground of which Bunyan tells us that the air naturally tended to make one drowsy, is just the spot to which we refer; men had need be watchful whose path lies through that deceitful country.

It has been said that in a calm sea every man is a pilot, but we take leave to doubt it; calms have dangers quite unknown to storms, and rocks and quicksands are none the less perilous because the deceitful sea which covers them smiles softly on the mariner. Not to be tempted is a great temptation. Safety breeds carelessness, and carelessness is the mother of ruin. When Mansoul was at peace, Mr. Carnal-security invited her citizens to his fatal feasts, and the Prince Immanuel withdrew himself; let the result warn us against a repetition of the evil.