The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1894-10-05


morning looking at the harbor The
window Of my room in the Australia
hotel takes IN the enchantment and /
watched tho coming Of the day into the
harbor. Tho whole sky first took on a
pallor not sickly, but healthful, as
though there were white wings from
the other side shining through. Then
thore came coruscations, and deep indi-
goes, and irradiations, and sadnesses Of
color, and unrolling scrolls prophetic Of
more light, and somber and holy CLEANS,
and rhapsodies of advancing day, and
then banners of victory over the dark
ness. Then in this wall of heaven the
gates began to swing open. 1t was no
sudden swinging back of the panels Of
fire. There was no grinding of the gates
on the amcthystine hinges; there was
no olang Of bolts hurled back from the
imperial portals, but slow and grad
nal and empowering movement that
made me feel thore was more to come,
and | wondered if | could endure the
expanding vision AS | looked into the
gate | saw what ! described to my sen
afterward as scepter, scepter OF great
length and brilliance, such scepter as
no earthly emperor ever had in his
throneroom. The handle of the sccptcr
had all the colors of the prism. The
edges Of it were translucent. The point
of it was tipped with. a waving light all
the time changing. Yet what a scepter!
What king would dare to handle itf
What monarch would dare to lift it?
But while l wondered the question was
answered. The king Of day, the rising
sun, took hold of it, and the scepter
which | had seen few seconds before
lying ON the shelf of heaven was first
hoisted, as though to command the hid
den giories of the skies to come down,
and then it was pointed to the harbor
as the place of their destination, and on
that sapphire of the waves both the
scepter that | had seen and the crown
of the king who took it were put down,
and from green island to green island,
and from beach to beach, and all up and
down the promontories, and from sky to
water and from water to sky, it was
morning in Sydney harbor.
Have you ever realized that there is
only one being in the universe who can
scoop out and mold and buttress and
build harbor? At Napier, New Yea
land, whore we sailed in and staid
only long enough for an hour and a
halfs address, hundreds of thousand
of dollars were expended in building q
hreakwater. And so at Osborne and a
different points on the Australian coass
harbors have been constructed by hu-
man hands, but the storms looked at
these defiant ramparts, aud in the night
tumbled the costly works into the Pa
cifc. Harbor building is the reserved
right of the heavens. Gates of palaces
and gates Of fortresses may be turned
out from earthly foundries or pounded
together by hammers of human mechan
ism, but an ocean gate like that near
which am now seated needs omnipo
tence and omntscience and infinity to
plan and construct it.
No one but the Eternal knows where
such gate is needed. He sees the his.
tory Of continent before it is populat
ed, and he only can decide where its
front door ought to be hoisted and
swung. Besides that the gate must cor
respond with the size and greatness Of
the main building The door of the
Madeleine church, would be absurd at
the front Of Quaker meeting house.
Bronze and geld would make an map
propriate entrance to rookery. Such
All entrance to Australia as Sydney har-
Dor would be something for all time
and eternity to jeef at if the country
thus entered were not something i'm
measurable for wealth, resource and
grand opportunity. Had known moth
ing of the history of Australia what
saw between the doorposts Of this har-
Dor and the wharf of our disembarka-
ton would have convinced me of the
present and coming opulence of this
fffth continent of the world.
With such an ocean gate am not sur
prised that Australia Is / A times as large
as France and 33 times as large as Eng
land, Scotland and Wales. 1t has been
estimated as capable Of supporting 100,
900, 900 people. All wealth of mining
and agriculture and commerce and art
and scenery are here. Caves larger than
the Mammoth cave of Kentucky; lakes
like Como, Lucerne and Geneva; bot
any SO rich in flowers that Captain
Cook called one Of the entrances Bot
any bay; whole Pennsylvania of coal
mines, discovered by shipwrecked sail
or in 1907, but now defying the crow
bars Of the earth to take one-half Of
their treasures and having enough ma
terial to warm continent and keep
aglow the steamship furnaces of an
ocean; enough sheep pasture in the wales
and on the hills to clothe with their
wool whole nations. These sheep, kill
ed and frozen in refrigerators here, are
transferred in carts which are refrigera-
tors into. ships which are refrigerators
and carried across the seas to the refrig
orators of Europe and Asia, so that
while write this letter, almost within
sound of the bleating flocks'of this sheep
raising country, the legs of Australian
mutton hang in London markets, and
the inhabitants of India are breakfasting
ON lamb chops brought from the banks
of Sydney harbor. One sheep paddock
nearly 200 miles square!
So much of these colonies is in the
tropics that they will have capacity
when fully developed to yield enough
sugar to sweeten the beverages Of the
earth, and raise enough tea to soothe the
nerves and stimulate the conversation
Of the social groups of all zones, and pro
duce enous cotton to clothe hemis-
pheres; enough iron to be brought up
from the cellar of these colonies to rail
track the planet; copper and lead. sill
yer and gold waiting for resurrection;
sapphircs and rubies, topaz and chryso-
beryls ready to flash and burn on the
bosom of the worlds beauty. Cope's
creek yielded in one year $4,000 dia-
monds.
Do you say that vast regions are net
arabic, but desert? Yes, but boring
underneath the sand and rock discover
ed water which is only waiting to b