Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-10-17
THE TROWEL OF GOD.
DIR. TALMAGE TELLS HOW AMERICA
WAS MADE.

Wonders of the West-The Ben
of Yellowstone Tark-The Garden
Of the GOds-PIutonic AppeiIatiOns.
ciatOn.l
WASHINGTON, Get 16.-Dr. Talmage,
in this discourse, takes US with him on
Journey TO the Pacific and finds ''the
footsteps of the Creator" everywhere
as Hugh Miller found them in the old
red sandstone; texts, Isaiah xxxv, 6,
f'Streams in the desert;' Psalms civ,
80, ''He toucheth the hills and they
smoke"
My first text means irrigation. It
mears the waters of the Himalaya or
the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevadas
poured through canals and aqueducts
for the fertilization Of the valleys. 1t
means the process by which the last
mile Of American barrenness will be
made an apple orchard or an orange
grove or wheatf1eld or cotton plan
tation or a vineyard-tstrea in the
desert. My second text means vol
cano like Vesuvius or Cotopaxi, or it
means the geysers Of Yellowstone park
or Of California. You see a hill calm
and still and for ages immovable, but
the Lord out of the heavens puts his
finger Oh the top of it and from it rise
thick and impressive vapors. "He
toucheth the hills and they smoke!''
Although my journey across the con-
tinent this summer was for the eighth
time, more and more am / impressed
with the divine hand in its construction
and with its greatness and grandeur,
and more and more am | thrilled with
the fact that it is all to be irrigated,
glorified and Edenized. What a change
from the time when Daniel Webster on
yonder Capitoline hill said to the Amer
lean senate in regard to the center Of
this continent and to the regions on the
Pacific coast: "What do you want with
this vast, worthless area, this region of
savages and wild beasts, of deserts and
cactus, of shifting sands and prairie
dogs? To what use could we ever put
these great deserts or these great noun
tains, impenetrable and covered with
eternal snow? What can we ever hope
to do with the western coast, rock
bound, cheorless and uninviting and not
a hartor on It? will never vote one cent
from the public treasury to place the
Pacific coast one inch nearer Boston
than 1t now is. What q mistake the
great statesman made when he said that!
All who have crossed the continent
realize that the states on the Pacific
ocean Will have quite as grand oppor-
tunities as the states on the Atlantic,
and all this realm from sea to sea to be
the Lord cultivated possession.
The Colorado Cross.
Do you know what in some respects
is the most remarkable thing between
the Atlantic and Pacific? It is the fig
ure Of cross on a mountain in Colo
RADIO. 1t is called the Mount of the
Holy Cr0cS. " a horizontal crevice filled
with perpetual snow and a perpendicu-
lar crevice filled with snow, but both
the horizontal line and the perpendicu-
lar line 50 marked, SO bold, so signifi-
cant, so unllistakable, that all who
pass in the daytime within many miles
are compelled to see it. There are some
figures, some contours, some mountain
appearances that you gradually make
out after your attention is called tc
them SO mans face on the rocks in
the White mountains So a maiden's
form cut in the granite of the Adiron-
dacks. So o city in the moving clouds.
Yet you have to look under the point
ing Of your friend or guide for some
time before you can see the similarity.
But the first instant you glance at this
side CT the r:Ountain IN Colorado you
cry out, "a cross, q crossn' Do you
say that this geological inscription just
happens so? No. That cross ON the Col
orado mountain is not human device,
or an accident of nature, or the freak
of an earthquake The hand of God cut
C-,I HO,- +L,o
look at. Whether set up in rock before
the cross Of wood was set up on the bluff
back of Jerusalem or set up at some
time since that assassination I believe
the Creator meant it to suggest the
most notable event in all the history of
this planet, and he hung it there over
the heart OF this continent to indicate
that the only hope for this nation is il
the cross on which our Emmanuel died.
The clouds were vocal at our Saviours
birth, the rocks rent at his martyrdom,
why not the walls of Colorado bear the
record of the Crucifxion?
First, consider the immensely of this
continental possession. If it were only /
small tract of land, capable of moth
ing better than sagebrush, and with |
ability only TO support prairie dogs, |
should not have much enthusiasm in |
wanting Christ to have it added to his |
dominion. But its immensely and aff1U-
ence no one can imagine, unless in i'm
migrant wagon Or stagecoach or in rail
train of the Union Pacific, or the
Northern Pacific, or the Canadian Pa
cific, or the Southern Pacific, he has
traversed it.
An Edenized Continent.
/ supposed in my boyhood, from its
size on the map, that California was a