Connecticut western news., 1898-10-20
THE TROWEL OF GOD.
lDR. TAlMAGE TELLS HOW AMERICA
 WAS MADE.

lDR. TAlMAoE TELLS HOW AMERICA
 WAS MADE.
 The vnstne.s of our Continent-The
 Wonders of the west-The Beauties
 of Yellowstone Park-The Garden
 of the Gods-PIutonic AppeIlations. Icopyright. 1898, by American Press Asso- ciation.l
 WASHINGTON, Oct. 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, ''Streams in the desert;'' Psalms civ. 92, "He touoheth the hills and they smoke"
 My first text means irrigation. It me.rs the waters If the Himalaya or the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevadas poured through canals and aqueducts for the fertilization of tho valleys. It means the process by which the last mile of American barrenness will be made an apple orchard or an orange grove or Q wheatfield or cotton plan- tation or a vineyard-"streams in the desert." My second text means vol oano like Vesuvius or Cotopaxi, or it means the geysers of Yellowstone park or of California. You see hill calm and still and for ages immovable, but the Lord out of the heavens puts his finger on 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 I impressed with the divine hand in its construction aud with it's greatness and grandeur, and moro and more am l thrilled with the fact that 1t is all to be irrigated, slorifed and Edenized. What change from the time when Daniel Webster on yender Capitoline hill said to the Amer icAusenate in regard to the center of this continent and to the regions on the Pauitic coast: "What do you want with this vast, worthless area, this region of sQyaRes and wild beasts, of deserts and cactus. of shifting sands and prairie dposl To what use could we ever put these great deserts or these great noun tsils. impenetrable and covered with etarnal snow? What can we ever hope td do with the western coast, rock hapnd. cheerless and uninviting and not aShorbo on it? will never vote one cent xPo,u the public treasury to place the Moilc coast one inch nearer Boston tGan it now is." What mistake the gkpat statesman made when he said that ! All who have crossed the continent raNlixa that the states on the Pacific o84an will have quite as grand oppor- thalties as the states on the Atlantic, aadla this realm from sea to sea to be tAs Lords cultivated possession.
 -gs, The Colorado Cross.
 Do you know what in some respects is the most remarkable thing between the Atlantic and Pacificr It Is the fig uxe of . cross on . mountain in Colo rsdo. It is called the Mount of the H6ly Cross." A horizontal orevice filled With perpetual snow and perpendicu- lar crevice filled with snow, but both the horizontal line and the perpendicu- lar line Q marked, so bold, so signifi cant, 90 unmistakable, 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 to them. So mans face on the rocks in the White mountains. So maiden's s form cut in the granite of the Adiron- daoka So Q 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 of the mountain in Colorado you cry ont, "A cross, crossp' Do you say that this geological inscription just happens go? No. That cross on the Col orado mountain is not human device, or m accident of nature, or the freak of an earthquake. The hand of God cut 1t tAere and set it up for the nation to look jat. 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 moat 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 Immanuel died. Tho clouds were vocal at our Saviour B birth, the rocks rent at his martyrdom, why not the walls of Colorado bear the rsocrd of the Crucifixion?
 First, consider the immensity of this continental possession. If it were only . small tract of land, capable of noth- 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 immensity and afau- snoe no one can imagine, unless in inn migrant wagon or stagecoaoh or in rail train of the Union Pacific, or the Northern Pacific, or the Canadian Pa cifc, or the Southern Pacific, he has traversed it.
 An Edenised Continent.
 Isupposed in my boyhood, from its sizs on the map. that California was 2 few yards across, ridge of land on which one must walk cautiously lest he hit his head against the Sierra Nevada on one aide or slip off into the Pacific waters on the other. California, tbe thin slice of land, as supposed it to be In boyhood, have found to be large, than all the states of New England and all New York state and all Pennsylva mia added together. and if you add them together their square miles fall far short of California. And then all those new born states of the Union, North and South Dakota, Washington, Montana
 IdSho and Wyoming. Each state an em pire in size.
 "But." says some one, "in calculat ing the immensity of our continental acreage you must remember that vas : reaches of our public domain are uncul tivated heaps of dry sand and the Bat Lands of Montana and the great Ameri can desert I Iam glad you mentioned that Within 25 years there will not be