Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-10-02

growths, or the dead trees, and vegetation
of other ages, kept through process of ma
tural embalmment. In some places waters
as innocent and smiling as child making
first attempt to walk from its mother's s
lap, and not far off as foaming and frenzied
and ungovernable as maniac in murder
GUS struggle with his keepers.
Bat after you have wandered along the
geyserite enchantment for days and begin
to feel that there can be nothing more of in
terest to see, you suddenly come upon the
peroration Of all majesty and grandeur, the
Grand canyon. 1t is here that it seems to
me-and epeak it with reverence-Jehovah
seems to have surpassed himself. 1t seems
great gulch let down into the eternities.
Here, hung up and let down and spread
abroad, are all the colors of land and sea
aud sky. Upholstering of the Lord God
Almighty. Best work of the Architect of
worlds. Sculpturipg by the Infinite. Ma
sonry By an omnipotent trowel. Yellow!
You never saw yellow unless you saw it
there. Red! You never saw red unless you
saw it there. Violet! You never saw vio-
let unless you saw it there. Triumphant
banners of color. In cathedral of basalt,
SHurise and Sunset married by the setting
of rainbow ring.
Gothic arches, Corinthian capitals, and
Egyptian basilicas built before human arch
itecture was born. Huge Notifications of
granite constructed before war forged its
first cannon. Gibraltars and Sebastopols
that never can be taken. Alhambras.
where kings of strength and queens of
beauty reigued long before the first earthly
crown was empearled. Thrones on which
no one but the King OF heaven and earth
ever sat. Fount of waters at which the
lesser hills are baptized, while the giant
cliffs stand round as sponsors. For thou
sands of years before that scene was unveil-
ed to human sight the elements were busy,
and the geysers were hewing away with
their hot chisel, and glaciers were pounding
with their cold hammers, and hurricanes
we're cleaviug with their lightning strokes,
and hailstones giving the finishing touches,
and after all these forces of nature had done
their best, in our century the curtain drop
ped and the world had new and divinelY
inspired revelation, the Old Testament writ
ten on papyrus, the New Testament written
on parchment, and now tt is last Testament
written on the rocks.
Hanging over one of the cliffs l looked off
Until could not get my breath, then re
treating to less exposed place l looked
down again. Down there is pillar of rock
that in certain conditions of the atmosphere
looks like pillar of blood. Yonder are fifty
feet of emerald on base of five hundred
feet of opal. Wal of chalk resting on ped
estals of beryl. Turrets of light tumbling
on floors of darkness. The brown brighten
ing into golden Snow of crystal melting
into fire of carbuncle. Flaming red cooling
into russes. Cold blue warming into saf-
from. Dull gray kindling into solferino
l;rh s-I1 H.
dows. Auroras crouching among rocks.
Yonder is an eagles nest on shaft of
basalt. Through an eyeglass we sse among
it the young eagles, but the stoutest arm Of
our group cannot hurl stone near enough
to disturb the feathered domesticity. Yon-
der are heights that would be chilled with
horror but for the warm robe OF forest foil
age with which they are enwrapped, Affairs
of worship at which nations might kneel.
Domes of chalcedony on temples of porphy-
ry. See all this carnage of color up aud
down the cliffs; it must have been the bat
tlefeld of the war of the elements. Here
are all the colors of the wall of heaven,
neither the sapphire nor the chrysolite, nor
the topaz nor the jacinth, nor the amethyst
nor the jasper, nor tho twelve gates of
twelve pearls, wanting. II spirits bound
from earth to heaven could pass up by way
of this canyon, the dash of heavenly beauty
would not be so ove1poweripg. 1t would
only be from glory to glory. Ascent
through snch earthly scenery in which the
crystal is so bright and the red so fam ing
would be fit preparation for the "sea of
glass mingled with fire."
Standing there in the Grand canyon of
the Yellowstone park on the morning of
August 6, for the most par. We held our
peace, but after while it flashed 1pon me
with such power I could not help but say to
my comrades: "What Hall this would be
for the last Judgmentp' See that mighty
cascade with the rainbows at the foot of it,
Those waters CONCEALED and transfixed
with the agitations of that day, what place
they would make for the shining feet of a
Judge of quick and dead. Aud those rain
bows look now like the crowns to be cast at
his feet. At the bottom of this great eau
yon is floor on which the nations of the
earth might stand and all up and down
these galleries of rock the nations of heav-
en- might sit. And what reverberation of
archangels' trumpet there would be through
all these gorges and from all these caverns
and over all these heights. Why should not
the greatest of all the days the world shall
ever see close amid the grandest scenery
OmDlDOU6uC6 over UullLf
Oh, the sweep of the American continent!
Sailing up Puget sound; Its shores so bold
| that for fifteen hundred miles ships prov
would touch the shore before its keel
| touched the bottom, l said: "This is the
Mediterranean of America" Visiting Port
| land and Tacoma and Seattle and Victoria
and Fort Townsend aud Vancouvers and
other cities of that Northwest region !
thought to myself: These are the Bostous,
New Yorks, Charlestons aud Savannahs OF
| the Pacific coast. But after all this sum.
mer's journeying and my other journeys
westward iu other summers, I found that
had seen only part of the American con-
| tinent, for Alaska is as far west of San
Francisco as the coast of Maine is east of it,
so that the central city of the American
continent is San Francisco.
| l have said these things about the magni-
tude of the continent and given you a few
specimens of some of its wonders to let you
know the comprehensiveness of the text
when it says that Christ is going to have
dominion from sea to sea; that is, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. Beside that, the
salvation of this continent means the saliva.
ton of Asia, for we are only thirty-six miles
from Asia at the northwest. Only Behring
Straits separate US from Asia, and these will
be spanned by great bridge before anoth-
er century closes, and probably long before
that. The thirty-six miles of water between
these two continents are not all deep sea,
but have three islands, and there are also
shoals which will allow piers for bridges,
and for the most of the way the water is
only about twenty fathoms deep.
The Americo-Asiatic bridge which will
yet span those straits will make America,
Asia, Europe and Africa one continent. So
you see America evangelised, Asia will be
evangelised. Europe taking Asia from one
side aud America taking it from the other
side. Our great. grandchildren will cross
that bridge. America and Asia and Europe
all one, what subtraction from the pangs of
seasickness! and the prophecies in Revela-
ton will be fulfilled, "There shall be no
more sea-" But do mean literally that
this American continent is going to be all
gospelised? do. Christopher Columbus,
when he went ashore from the Santa Ma
ria, and his second brother Alonzo, when he
oboro from, bo pinta oud b;S third