It is no easy thing to put the external beauties of Mohonk upon paper.  The estate covers four thousand acres, and is intersected with about fifty miles of fine carriage drives.  The garden, which contains a dozen acres, is ablaze during the most of the season with millions of flowers—­many of them of rare variety.  As the glory of Saratoga is its springs, of Lake George its islands, of Trenton Falls the amber hue of its waters, so the glory of Mohonk is its rocks.  The little lake is a crystal cup cut out of the solid conglomerated quartz.  Its shores are steep quartz rocks rising fifty feet perpendicularly from the water.  The face of “Sky Top” is heaped around with enormous boulders some thirty feet in diameter.  In among them extend rocky labyrinths which can be explored with torches.  On every hand are immense masses of Shawangunk grit hurled together over the cliff as if with the convulsions of an earthquake.  Upon these acres of rock around the lake grow the most luxuriant lichens and the forests in June are efflorescent with laurels and azalias.  The finest point of vantage is on Eagle Cliff; I have climbed there often to see the sun go down in a blaze of glory behind the Catskill Mountains.  The three highest peaks of the Catskills—­Hunter, Slide, and Peekamoose—­were in full view, in purple and gold.  Beneath me on one side was the verdant valley of Rondout; on the other side the equally beautiful valley of the Wallkill.  In the dim distance we could discover the summits of the mountains in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

When I took Newman Hall, toward sunset, to a crag or cliff overlooking the lake, he said to me:  “Next to Niagara I have seen nothing in America equal to this.”

Mohonk has been a favorite summer resort of many of the most distinguished people in our land.  The Honorable Rutherford B. Hayes, after his retirement from the presidential chair, loved to find recreation in rowing his boat on the lake, and in making the ascent of Sky Top.  President Arthur came there during his term of office; and the widow of General Grant, after spending a fortnight there, pronounced it the most fascinating spot she had ever seen on this continent Among all the guests who made their summer home there, none contributed more to the intellectual enrichment of the company than my revered Christian friend, Dr. Philip Schaff.  No American of our day had such a vast personal acquaintance with celebrated people.  Dr. Schaff was the intimate friend of Tholuck, Neander, Godet, Hengstenberg, and Dorner; he was one day in familiar conversation with Dean Stanley in the Abbey and another day with Gladstone; another day with Dollinger in Vienna, and another day with Dr. Pusey at Oxford.  The promise, “He shall stand before kings,” was often fulfilled to him.  The veteran Kaiser William had him at the royal table, and gave him intimate interview.  The King and Queen of Denmark came on the platform to congratulate him after one of his