The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-07-02
DIR. TALMACE'S SERMON.


, asked: Were you spealing?" mo, did
YOU hear any one taIlSingY' she replied.
Yes" I answered; IT thought I heard
voice and that it must be the voice
of the Lord"
Then the mysterious voice seemed to
address me In these words: when you
go back to your pulpit you will walk
the stone streets of a great city You
will climb these, the beautiful noun
tains from the tops OF which you can
see the sun setting among the heaving
waves of the western Pacific. To the
east you can see the sunbeams OF the
early morning burning themselves into
the golden nuggets of many orange Or
chards. You can hear the moving ma
chimes fighting their way through the
harvest fields at your feet. But remem-
Der underneath you is the same rock,
the same depths of rock the same immen-
stiles of rock you now see from Glacier
point In Yosemite valley. Remember, o
man, that I put those rocks underneath
thee that the waters of the Pacific might
be an aquarium for thee and that the
fields might feed thee and that thy home
might not be built upon the sinking
sands Even in the unseen rocks l am
ever near thee. loving, caring. sustain
ing and protecting my children
Voice of the Unseen Rocks.
/ Does this voice of the unseen rocks
speak to you of Gods love- as on the
panoramic rocks seen from Glacier point
1t seemed to speak to me of the divine
love when I stood In old Yosemite?
But the heights of the hills and the
depths of the valleys of Yosemite teach
more than the ever present, sustaining
care Of Divine Father. Those rocks were
to me libraries of the past centuries and
of the milienniums. You and have read
about the famous libraries of ancient
Alexandria and Nineveh and Babylon
We have heard that these ancient books
were so many that in Alexandria alone
1t took six months to destroy part of
them when those parchments and man
uscrpts were used for common fuel to
light the fires of the four thousand bath
rooms of that great city. But | want to
tell you that when man rides through
Yosemite valley and climbs its dizzy
heights he is looking upon the historic
pages of books older than the oldest
tablets of stone exhumed from amid the
ruins of an ancient Troy. He is looking
upon the millions of open leaves of rock
written upon by the pen of but one au-
thor and that pen is 1.-The finger of
God'
If the recorded pages of the books of
rock found among the shelves of rock and
upon the floors of rock and lying open
upon the tables of rock of Yosemite val
ley 90 not Ieacn us IndI GOu as an
author has been living centuries upon
centuries and millenniums upon millen-
NUNS ago and that he will also live and |
work through the centuries and the mill |
lenniums to come, then l say the Yosemite |
rocks teach us nothing" Then we have
eyes to see and we will not see. and we |
have ears to hear and we will not hear.
Every step you take, every move you |
make. presses home the one truth-that
the Creator of this region Is. eternal in
his own life and eternal in his purposes. |
Mariposa grove which grows Just out |
side of this valley and practically under |
the shadow of Ell Captain, as living ora
tors teach the eternal purposes and work.
ings of the Divine Father. My, what big
much as a solid cornerstone had to be |
placed at the base of Washington mon
ument in our national capital or as the !
foundation stones were placed under the |
abutments of the Brooklyn bridge or the
solid rock is under Eifel tower in Paris.
AS l climbed the awful, dizzy heights
of one of the Sierra Nevadas by the edge
of an appalling precipice to Glacier point,
this one thought was uppermost in my
mind Bending and winding we CO. Up
and up the sure-footed beasts carry u.s.
higher and still higher. Then the rocks
by the side of the precipice grow deeper
and deeper at each step. AT last we are
on the top, after a long five-mile pull.
linen, Dy nOlulI1B on 10 ii TtlllHS, you eau
look straight down $3.50 feet. At this al
ttude of nearly two-thrds of a mile l
looked straight down and say the MERGED
river It was not a silver thread bending
and winding among the many trees in the
valley; 1t was a green snake, beautiful,
but green. It's surface reflected every
shade of green, from the darkest green,
dark as Emerald pool, to the lightest
shades of aquamarine and chrysophrase.
Yosemite falls white garments alone have
a fall of 26O0 feet or nearly one-half of
mile. Then, while kept looking down
into that awful precipice-looking down a
looking into space itseIf-a still small voice
seemed to talk to me. When God called to
Samuel. he called at night. To me. stand
ing there upon the pulpit of Glacier
point, It seemed that he called in the
daytime. That voice was so real to my
Imagination that turned to my wife and
preachers they are, About 800 of them
grow near together, as though they We're
ashamed of their big girths and ashamed
because, like Saul. they raise their huge
bodies not only head and shoulders above
all other trees, but because they make
other trees look like rygmies beside them.
GRIZZLY Bear" Columbia" "Haver-
ford" "Mariposa, ''wawona." "Califor-
MA" telescope" THE Three Graces."
are some of the modern names given to
these famous trees. Some Of them are
over 900 feet tall One is 104 feet in cir
conference and SO feet from side to side.
One is cut in the middle at the base and