The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-10-28
WONDERS OF NATURE.
The Footprints of the Creator as
They Appear Everywhere.
Ab1untaih and Plain show Gods Impress;
Rivers and Deserts Show, Also,
the band work of the
Great Creator.

Isaiah, XNNv., 8; lie toucheth the hills
and they smoke.-Psalms, civ, 30.
My first text means irrigation. 1t
means the waters of the Himalaya, or
the Pyrcnees, 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 a wheat field, or a cotton
plantation, or a vineyard-"streams
in the desert" My second text means
volcano like Nesuvius or CotopaXi,
or it means the geysers of Yellow
stone park or of California. You see
a hill calm and still, and for ages inn
movable, but the Lord out of the
Heavens puts His finger on the top of
il, and from it rise thick and impress
sive vapors: HE toucheth the hills
and they smoke!"
Although my journey across the
continent this summer was for the
eighth time, more and more am l inn
pressed with the Divine hand in its
construction, and with it's greatness
and grandeur, and more and more am
I thrilled with the fact that it is all to
be irrigated, glorified and Edenized.
What change from the time when
Daniel Webster on yOnder Captoline
hill said to the American senate in re-
gard 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
ssvages 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 mountains, impenetrable and
covered with eternal snow? What can
we ever hope to do with the western
coast, rocll-bound, cheerless and I'M
inviting, and not a harbor on it? ]
will never vote one cent from the pub
lie treasury to place the Pacific coast
one inch nearer Boston than it now
is" What a mistake the great states
man made when he said that! All
W no have crossed the continent realize
that the states on the Pacific ocean
W III have quite as grand opportunities
az the states on the Atlantic, and all
this realm from sea to sea to be the
Lords cultivated possession.
Do you know what in some respects
is the most remarkable between the
and Pacific? 1t is the figure
of a cross on Il mountain in Colorado.
1T is called the Mount of the Holy
Gross" \ horizontal crevice filled
with perpetual snow, and a perpendic-
ular crevicc filled with snow. but both
the horizontal line and the perpendic-
rlar line so marked, so bold, so signif-
cant, so Unmistakable, that all who
pass in the daytime within many miles
are compelled to see it. There are
some figures, some ccn{onhs, some
mountain appearances that you grad
ually make out after your attention is
called to them. So mans face on the
rocks in the White mountains. So a
form cut in the granite of the
So Il 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 geologi- |
cal inscription just happens so? No! |
That cross on the Colorado mountain |
is not a human device, or an accident |
of nature, or the freak of an earth |
quake. The hand of God cut it there |
and set it up for the nation to 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, l be- |
ieve the Creator meant it to suggest |
The most notable event in all the his
tory of this planet, and He hung it |
there over the heart of this continent |
TO indicate that the only hope for this |
ration is in the cross on which our |
Emmanuel died. The clouds were vo-
eal at our Saviour's birth, the rocks rent |
IT His martyrdOm, why not the walls |
IF Colorado bear the record of the cru
First, consider the immensely of |
his continental possession. If it were /
1nIy small tract of land capable of !
nothing better than sage-brush, and |
with ability only to support prairie
logs, / should not have much enthu-
,iasm in wanting Christ to have itadd-
ID to His dominion. But it's i'm
nensity and affluence no one can
imagine, unless, in immigrant wagon
IT stage coach, or in rail train of the
Tnion Pacific or the Northern Pacific
II the Canadian Pacific or the South
IN Pacific, he has traversed it.
/ supposed in my boyhOOd, from its
lie on the map, that California was a
ew yards across, Il ridge of land on
Which one must walk cautiously lest
lie hit his head against the Sierra Ne
ada on enc side, or slip off into the
'acific waters on the other-Califor-
lia, the thin slice of land, as l sup
,osed it in my boyhoOd, l have found
o be larger than all the states of New
England and all New York state and
II Pennsylvania added together; and
[ YOU add them together their square
niles fall short of California. And
hon all these newborn states of the
Inion, North and South Dakota,
Montana, Idaho and Wy
ming. Each state an empire in size.
But" says some one, sin caIculat-
ng the immensely of our continental
creage you must remember that vast
caches of our public domain are I'M
cultivated heaps of dry sand, and the
Bad Lands of Montana aud the Great
american Desert" l am glad that you
ne utioned that. Within twenty-five
s.srs there viii not be between the
.tlGntic and Flcific coasts a hundred
iiles of land not reclaimed either by