The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-09-24

Los Angeles, Cal, September 17.-In this sermon the preacher takes as his theme the mountains, now assuming the hues of autumn, and finds in them a les son of Gods strength and providence and the love and care he has for all his children. The text is Amos iv. 1S, He that formeth the mountains.
 Have you ever visited the Schroon lake of the Alps? Have you ever slept under the shadows of the snow capped Rigi, with its horizon sweep of 300 miles in cir oumferenoe? Then you have visited Lake Lucerne, one of the most romantic and picturesque lakes that ever lapped the foot of a hill or nestled to sleep like smiling babe in the lap of a gigantic mountain. The old poet sings of the charms of Lake Geneva, another of Switzerland's scenic wonders, with it's battle scared castle standing sentinel over 1t a castle whose walls are scanned with defying the cannonading of the ele- ments, as well as resisting the attacks of man. This is his song;
 A thousand feet in depth below
 The massy waters meet and flow;
 So far the fathom line was sent
 
 But, though others may sing about the beauties of Lake Geneva Lake Win dermere or Lake Samia of Finland or Lake George of New York or the Lake of the Woods of Minnesota, all of them beautiful lakes, still believe that Lake Lucerne is the queen of romantic lakes for many of us. There we not only saw some of the most beautiful of all scenes, |. lfcaFa e greatest masterpiece, "The Lion of Lu- cerne." Most of you know the history of that marvellous piece of statuary. When the French throne was tottering amid the upheaval of the awful revolu- ton which has made the names of Robe spierre and Marat and Barere infamous for all time, Louis XVI, and Marie An tonette dare not trust their lives and those of their children to the loyalty of their own soldiers. They sent across the northern border and hired some Swiss soldiers to be their bodyguard. Eight hundred of these were quartered in the Tuileries. Fatal August 10, 1792. came, and the mob broke loose and started for their royal prey. They battered down the gates and doors of the kings resi- dence. They slew the Swiss soldiers wherever their hated uniforms were seen as mercilessly as the Sioux Indians tom ahawked Custer and his little handful of followers the Little Big Horn river. They literally annihilated the whole band in order to get at their hated rulers. Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, to commemorate the death of these brave soldiers of the Swiss guard, chiseled into the solid rock of Lucerne the colossal form of the dying Swiss lion struck to the heart by a spear, yet in his death agony still defending the filled shield of France. What a wonderful statue is that, which thousands of tourists every 4rux Hoe rs.I fa -fa fHxrf
 But as I stood before that marvellous piece of stone under the shadow of the overtowering Rigi I said to myself this: "Yes, many Swiss soldiers have been struck down by foreign bullets, but more. far more have brooded their lives away because their hearts have pined under homesickness when they have been re- moved from the sight of wonder hills.' When Nebuchadnezzar took his bride, Amytis, to the glorious capital of Baby lon she could not get over her longing for the hills of her childhood Babylon was built in flat country. To satisfy her longing for the mountain scenes of her youth her loving husband erected for his queen the famous Hanging gardens" But what earthly king could erect for his loved ones such gigantic hills as those which cradle the youth of the Swiss peas- antry? We who were born in the noun tainous countries of the west east can sympathize with those Swiss peas ants If we have been compelled to live on prairie lands and can never overcome our longing for the mountains. As the hills the mighty hills, have spoken of God to Amos, the herdsmen. they have also spoken to us living among the moun- tains of the western hemisphere. thought today I would try to find God among the mountains.
 The Strength of God.
 The gigantic hills in the first place teach us to omnipotent strength of the God who created them. They seem to speak to us something like this: 70 man, why wilt thou not look upon me even as thou wouldst regard the works of human hands? When thou standeth before the huge pyramids of Egypt with their great blocks of stone thou dost not say they were built by race of pygmies, about whom Homer and Hesiod wrote. Thou dost not go in the moonlight and dream dreams upon the Metropolis overlooking old Athens and see there visions of its ancient splendor, with its Parthenon and its columns and its statuary and it's mar ble of purest white. and say there lived not giants in those days Thou dost not walk through the corridors of the All hambra, with its mosaic floors and it's magnificent walls and say that the an- cient Moors were not master architects and master designers and master work men. Thou canst not study the foot prints of the Aztecs without icing there the indentation of a great Ice. Is not a watchmaker greater than his own watch? Is not the naval constructor greater than the iron and steel warship he sets afioat? Is not the creator greater than the thing he creates? Therefore, 0 man. is not the Creator of the moun- tains a mighty, omnipotent God pe- cause he has created me?" "Yes, yes," we answer, 'the God of the hills must be an omnipotent God, for none but om- impotence could have laid their founda- tions and erected their heights'
 Great is the omnipotent power of God. No one man and no one race of men could live long enough to do what is nec-