The national leader., 1889-09-28
Gushing midnight shadows. Auroras crouch.

ing among rocks.
Yonder is an eagles nest on q shaft of
basalt Through an eyeglass we see it among
the young eagles but the stoutest arm of our
group cannot hurl stone near enough to
disturb the feathered domesticity. Yonder
are heights that would be chilled with hor-
ror but for the warm robe of forest foliage
with which they are enwrapped. Affairs of
worship at which nations might kneel
Domes Of chalcedony on temples of por-
phyry. See all this carnage of color up and
down the cliffs; it must have been the bat
tie field 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
jascinth, nor the amethyst nor the jasper
nor the twelve gates of twelve pearls, want
ing. If spirits bound from earth to heaven
could passup byway of this canyon, the dashof
heavenly beauty would not be so overpower-
ing. 1t would only be from glory to glory.
Ascent through such earthly scenery in
which the crystal is so bright and the red SO
flaming 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 9, for the most part we held our
peace, but after while it flashed npon me
with such power l could not help but say to
my comrades: What Hall this would be
for the last Judgmentw See that mighty
Those waters congealed and transfxed with
the agitations of that day, what place they
would make for the shining feet of Judge
of quick and dead. And those
rainbows look now like the crowns
to be cast at his feet. At the
bottom of this great canyon is a floor on
which the nations of the earth might stand
and all up and down these galleries of rock
the nations of heaven might sit And what
reverbration of archangels trumpets 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 grand
est scenery Omnipotence ever built?
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, ] said: This is the Mediterra-
mean of America" Visiting Portland and
Tacoma and Seattle and Victoria and Fort
Townsend and Vancouvers and other cities
to myself These are the Bos-
tons, New Yorks, Charlestons and Savannahs
of the Pacific coast But after all this sum-
mers journeying and my other journeys
westward in other summers, L found that l
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,
tinent is San Francisco.
1 have said these things about the magni-
tude of the continent and given you 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 salvation 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 another
century closes, and probably long before
that. The thirty-six miles of water between
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 America -Asiatic bridge which will
yet span those straits will make America,
Asia, Europe and Africa one continent
So you see America evangelical, Asia will bs
evangelical. Europe taking Asia from one
side and America taking it from the other
side. Our great-grandchildren will cross
that bridge America and Asia and
Europe all one, what substraction from
the pangs of seasickness and the prophe-
cies in Revelation will be fulfilled.
''There shall be no more sea-" But do
mean literally that this American continent
is going to be all gospelized? do. Christie
pher Columbus, when he went ashore from
the Santa Maria, and his second brother
Alonzo, when he went ashore from the Pinta,
and his third brother Vincent, when he went
ashore from the Nina, took possession of this
country in the name of the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost.
Satan has no more right to this country
than / have to your pocketbook. To hear
him talk on the roof of the Temple, where he
proposed to give Christ the kingdoms of this
world and the glory of them, you might sup.
pose that Satan was @ great capitalist or that
he was loaded up with real estate, when the
old miscreant never owned an acre or an inch
of ground on this planet. For that reason !
protest against something l heard and saw
this summer and other summers in Montana.
and Oregon and Wyoming and Idaho and
Colorado and California. They have given
devilistic names to many places in the West
and Northwest
AS soon as you get in Yellowstone Park or
California, you have pointed out to you
places cursed with such names as THE Devils
Slide" ''The Devils Kitchen" "The Devils
Thumb, F" "The Devils Pulpit" ''The Devil.
Mush Pot " "The Devils Tea Kettle" ''The
Devils Saw Mill" 1.-THE Devils Machine
Shop" ''The Devils Gate, =" and so on. Now,
it is very much needed, that geological sur
veyor or congressional committee or group
of distinguished tourists go through Mon
tana and Wyoming and California and Col.
orado and give other names to these places.
All these regions belong to the Lord and to
Christian nation, and away with such Plu-
tonic nomenclature
But how is this continent to be gospelized?
The pulpit and Christian printing press har
messed together will be the Hlightiest team
for the first plow. Not by the power of cold,
journalistic theology, not by ecclesiastical
technicalities. / am sick of them and the
world is sick of them. But it will be done by
the warm hearted, sympathetic presentation
of the fact that Christ is ready to pardon all
our sins and heal all our wounds and save us
both for this world and the next Let your
religion of glaciers crack off and fall into the
Gulf Stream and get melted. Take all your
creeds of all denominations and drop out of
them all human phraseology and put in only
scriptural phraseology and you will see how
quick the people will jump after them.