The Progress. (Shreveport, La.) 1892-1900, 1898-10-29
BIBLICAL TRUTHS GIVEN
AN I'M eReSTlNG SERMON DELIVERED BY
An ABLE DIVINE
Subject: "Across the Continenr'-SpirItual
Thoughts Suggested While Viewing
Scenes of Majesty and Grandeur
Wrought by the Hand of God.

TEXTS: Streams in the desert. "-IsaiaT
XHXv" b. He toucheth the hills and they
smoke. Psalms civ, 80.
My first text means irrigation. It means
the waters OF the Himaaya, or the Pyre
nees or the Sierra Nevadas poured througl
canals and aqueduct, 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 Il wheat field. or a cotton planta.
tloh, ora streams in the desert"
| My second text means a volcano like Vesu-
Vius or Cotopaxi, or it means the geysers
OF Yellowstone Park or of California. You
see hill calm and still, and for ages i'm
movable, but the Lord out OF the heavens
puts his finger on the top oft. and from it
rise thick and impressive vapors: He
toucheth the hills and they smoked"
Although my journey across the cOnti-
nent this summer was for the eighth time,
moro and moro am l impressed with the
| divine hand in its construction, and with
It's greatness and grandeur, and more and
more am thrilled with the fact that it is
all to be irrigated, glorifed and Edenized
what change from the time when Daniel
webster on yonder Captoline Hill said to
the American Senate In regard to the centre
Ottnls 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?
10 what use could we ever put these great
deserts or these great mountains, impene-
trab'e and covered with eternal snow?
What can we ever hope to do with the
western coast, rock-bound, cherries and
uninvting, and not harbor on il? I will
never vote one cent from the public treasury
to place the Pacific coast one inch nearer
Boston than it now isl What a mistake
the great statesman made when he said
that! All who have crossed the continent
realize that the States on the Pacific Ocean
VIII have quite as grand opportunities as
the States on the Atlantic, and all this
realm from sea to sea to be the Lords Gull
tlVated possession.
D0you know what, in some respects. is
the most remarkable thing between the
Atlantic and Pacific? 1t is the figure of
cross on mountain in Colorado. 1t is
called the Mount Of the Holy Cross"
A horizontal creyice filed with perpetual
snow, and perpendicular crevice filed
with snow, but both the horizontal line
and the perpendicular line so marked. so
all who pass in the daytime within manv
miles are compelled to see it. There ara
some figures, some contours, some noun
tam appearances that you gradually make
out after your attention is called to them,
so mans face on the rocks in the White
Mountains. So maiden's form cut in
the granite OF the Adirondacks. So city
IN the moving clouds. Yet you have to
look under the pointing Of your friend or
guide for some time before you can see
the similarity. But the first instant YOU
glance at this side Of the mountain in
colorado, you cry out: "a cross! A |
cross!' DO you say that this geological in
scription just happens so? No! That cross |
on the Colorado mountain is not human
device, or an accident of nature, or the
freak OF an earthquake. The hand of God
cut it there and set it up for the nation
to look at. Whether set up In rock be-
fore the cross of wood was set up on the
bluf back of Jerusalem, or set up at some
time since that assassination, 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 in 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 Cruciflxion?
supposed in my boyhood, from its size
on the map, that California was a few
yards across, a ridge Of land on which
one must walk cautiously lest he hit his
mead against the Sierra Nevada on one side,
or slip OIL into the Pacific waters on the
the thin slice of land, as
! supposed 1t to be in my boyhood, I have
found to be larger than all the States Of
New England and all New York State and
al pennsylvania added together; and if
you add them together their square miles
'all far short of California. And then all
hose newborn States Of the Union, North
md South Dakota, Washington, Montana,
idaho and Wyoming. Each State an en-
oire in size.
'Bnt," says one, Sin calculating the i'm
nensity OF our continental acreage YOU
must remember that vast reaches OF our
public domain are uncultivated heaps of
Try sand, and the Bad Lands of Montana
md the Great American Desert" | am
,lad you mentioned that. Within twenty
i've years there will not be between the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts a hundred miles
u land not reclaimed either by farmers
,lough or miners crowbar. By irrigation,
he waters of the rivers and the showers of
eaven, in what are callsd the rainy sea.
on, will be gathered into great reservoirs,
nd through aqueducts let down where and
Then the people want them. Utah is an
blect lesson. Some parts OF that Terri
Dry which were so barren that spear OF
rass could not have been raised there in a
undred years, are now rich as Lancaster
county farms Of Pennsylvania, or West
hester farms OF New York, or Somerset
ounty farms Of New Jersey. Experiments
ave proved that ten acres of ground irri- !
ated from waters gathered in great hydro
ogical basins will produce as much as fifty
cres from the downpour of rain as seen In
ur regions. We have our freshets and our s,
roughts, but In those lands which are to
9 scientifically irrigated there will be J
either freshets nor droughts. As you take !.
pitcher and get 1t full Of water, and then :
It 1t on table and take drink out OF it !
hen you are thirsty and never think OF !
rinking pitcherful all at once, so Mon :
ma, and Wyoming and Idaho will catch
10 rains OF their rainy season and take UP