The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1898-10-29
FOOTPRINTS OF GOD.
Rev. Dr.. Talmage Discourses on
Our Natural Wonders.
Ths Footsteps Of the Creator UpoA sse
Mountains and Plains OF tho
west-Ths Salvation OF
. Coatineat.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, In the fol
lowing sermon, takes his hearer
among the mighty wonders of tn,
great west, where he finds everywher,
the footprints of the Creator. The
texts are: Streams In the DESERT
Isaiah, xxxv., 9; He toucheth the hills
and they smoke.--Psalms, civ, 80.
My first text means irrigation. II
means 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 barrenncss will be
made an apple orchard, or an orange
grove, or wheat field, or cotton
In the desert" My second text means
a volcano like Vcsuyius or CotopaXi,
or it means the geysers of Yellow
stone park or oftaalifornia; You see
u hill calm and siilI,' and fdrsages i'm
movable, but the Lord out of the
1t, mad from it rise thick and impress
size vapors: Gle toucheth the hills
and they smoke!"
Although my journey across the
continent this summer was for the
eighth time, more and more am inn
pressed 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, gloriiied and EdeniEed.
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
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 mountains, impenetrable and
covered with eternal snow? What can
we ever hope to do with the western
coast, rock-bound, cheerless and UNI
inviting, and not harbor on it? i
will never vote one cent from the pub
lie treasury to place the Pacific coast
one inch nearer Boston than it now
is" What mistake the great states
man made when he said that! All
who have crossed the continent realize
that the states on the Pacific ocean
will have quite as grand opportunities
rs 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
Atlantic and Pacific? 1t is the figure
of cross on mountain in Colorado.
1t is called the mount of the Holy
Cross A horizontal crevice filled
with perpetual snow, and perpendic-
ular crevicc filed with snow, but bocn
the horizontal line and the perpendic-
ular line so marked, so bold so signif-
cant, so unmistakabe, 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 grad
ually make out after your attention is
called to them. So n mans face on the
rocks in the White mountains. SO
maiden's form cut in the granite of the
Adirondacks. So n 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 ut 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 human device, or an accident
of nature, or the freak of an earth
quake. The hand Of God cut it there
and set II 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, be-
lieve the Creator meant it to suggest
the most notable event in all the his
tory of CHS planet, and He hung it
there ove- the heart of this continent
to indicats that the only hope for this
nation is IN the cross on which our
Emmanuel lied. The clouds were vo-
cal at ourSrviour's birth, the rocks rent
Mt His martyrdom, why not the walls
of Colorado bear the record of the cru
cifxion?
First, CO .sider the immensely of
this contiDsntal possession. If it were
only smstl tract of land capable of
nothing bitter than sage-brush, and
with ability only to support prairie
dogs, l sfruld not have much enthu-
siasm in Wanting Christ to have itadd-
ed to H, dominion. But its inn
mensity sod affluence no one can
imagine, uuless, in immigrant wagon
or stage c6ach, or in rnil train of the
Union Pac' fic or the Northern Pacific
or the Canadian Pacific or the South
ern Pacific, he has traversed it.
l supposed Ia my boyhood, from its
size on the m1p. that California was q
few yarts across, n ridge OF land on
which one must walk cautiously lest
he hit his head against the Sierra Ne
vada on one side, or clip off into the
Pacific waters on the other--Califor-
mia, the thin slice of land, as sup
I. - - n 49, =