Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-11-04
Teaching of the Mountains.

Rev. \. L. Stone. of San Francisco, in
a sermon published in The Congregation
aliSt and Recorder, the subject of which
was suggested by a recent visit to the ia
nous mountains of the Golden State, thus
ends his eloquent utterance.
The great mountain-ranges of the Old
World are mostly bald and bar; ; if their
lower slopes are covered with vegetation,
il is growth deformed with a meager,
dwarfish and stunted life, and soon the
climbing foot leaves all greenness and shade
behind, and pursues its upward way over
absolute and unrelieved desolatlon. But
our Sierras are crowned with the most mag
uiicent woodland monarchs: not scattered
here aud there, mere local freaks of nature,
5ut her large and liberal custom-vernal
robinG for the loftiest heights. finished above
with white, ermined collars. Noshing sur
prises mountain traveller more than this
wealth of forest magnificence. Up they
tower. these patria rchs of vegetable life, as
though they would emulate the attitudes of
the mountains themselves. 1t is hard to say
whether they are more creatures of earth
or air. They are rooted in the earth, and
you 20 round about their vast trunks,
guessing at the centuries that must have
expended the ministry of their seasons up
On such colossal and stalwart growth;
and then your eve travels upward-upward
-upward-higher, still higher. DO not
their tops make gTeenness and shade in the
paradise of God? !? Are there birds of song
IN the Heavenly Canaan? If so, might they
not find their perch and build their nests in
these tree-tops, and still claim celestial ma
rivity for their young? The harper, David.
never saw such columnar stems, such lordly
crowns, when he sang . The trees of the
Lord are full of sap; tn cedars of Leba-
non which he hath planted.
1t is almost violence to the full soul to
come back from such scene to the walks
Of common life. And yet all common life
; enriched ever after by such an expert
.nce. Earth itself is hallowed by such
grandeur The most thoughtless mind is
made by it more reverent, and hushed into
the silence Of wonder and of worship. You
feel not so much that you have been alone
With Nature as with Natures great Author
I You went TO search out the marvels of Ma
ture You entered into her august temple
and found that Won were in the presence of
God You say-the most worldly and ir-
religious spirit says it-nothing but the
hand of God could have built these stupen-
dous walls, and hung above them these aw-
ful domes, and woke the minstrelsy of these
waterfalls. You have been meas
uriug not the girth of trees and the height
of cataracts and rocky spires, but the power
of God
Omnipotence sits throned in those granite
solitudes. God may be forgotten amid the
city's crowd and beneath the low roof that
shelters our toiling and our resting; but
there his presence is as palpable as to Moses
in the burning bush on Horeb; and voice
as audible calls above the congregated won
ders of the scene, Z" Put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is hoy ground
The God of the mountains, the Omnipo-
tent One, is the universal sovereign. He
is there, He is here, and everywhere the
same. He is strong, not only to build and
uphold the stately forest growths and the
vast tall overhanging cliffs where the clouds
rest: but he is strong as a refuge, strong
as defender, strong champion of the
right, as an avenger of the wrong, as prom
iser, provider and Saviour for his people.
The rocks shall fall. the mountains shall
melt, the earth and all that is therein
shall be burned up; but he who makes
the Almighty God his friend shall stand
on Mount Zion above, beneath the shade
of the Tree of Life, with songs and ever
lasting joy on his head.