Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1905-07-01

grizzly bear growled at the Indians
who afterward took their name lived.
Though I have lived at least 5000
years in the past, am living still.
Furthermore. | will continue to live
centuries upon centuries after your
voice has died away. | shall speak
to your great t-great- great-great-great-
great grandchildren as am now speak
ing to YOU" Oh, yes, the old trees OF
Mariposa grove teach nothing II they
do not preach TO us the eternal pur-
poses of God or of God working
through the centuries.
A Thousand Years Nothing.
A thousand years In Gods sight are
but as yesterday, or as a watch In the
night. If the trees Of MaripOsa grove
teach us this, how much more must
the libraries Of rock among the shelves
Of Yosemite hills teach the same les
sons. We look with wonderment upon
seme Of the vases or the household
pottery used by the American or Mex
lean aboriglnes. You say, "They were
heated in fires thousands Of years ago.
Yes, but have you ever stopped to think
when the fires were lighted by the
hands Of God which hardened yonder
rocks? Have you ever stopped TO
reckon how old must have been those
pencils of Ice which wrote yonder
chapters upon those hillsides and
which, millenniums ago, as glaciers,
polished those walls until today they
reflect the light of the rising sun as
FURNISHED mirrors? Can you see with
naked eye the star as a signal fire
burning on the picket line at the far
thermost outer edge Of all starsi Can
you, at a mere haphazard guess, state
the direct distance between this earth
and that star? Can you go up and up
in Imagination until you see the zenith
for footstool and the nadir for
bright tewel in your coronet. Then, IL
you can, you may estimate how long 1t
took God, IN bis eternal purpose, to pro-
duce yonder rocks and how long that
eternal purpose shall live after the Yo-
semitic valley itself shall be cremated
in the furnace of the earths last con-
fagration. If these rocks teach US that
thousands and millions Of years in
Gods sight are as but second Of time,
do you not believe we can trust TO his
care the few years we are upon this
planet? II God can use the ages for
playthings, may we not be satisfied to
let him do with us as he will for the
short space Of threescore years and
ten, which Is mans allotted span upon
earth? "God is a spirit, infinite, eter-
nal" Yes, the everlasting rocks Of Yo-
semitic prove 1t. These rocks shall echo
the judgment call in that day, when
the angel shall stand with one foot
upon the land and the other foot upon
the sea, and swear that time shall be
no longer. But while time endures,
everywhere in Yosemite, you may find,
as l did, God speaking, God pleading,
God drawing us to his love.
And so Yosemite, beautiful Yosemite,
WIFI SuOh NoppSu 1ilto ohA wan o"SOb
scented valleys at thy feet, wave
to thee farewell. Thou didst make Of
me a better man. Amid thy columns
It was as If 1 had walked with the Di-
vine Maker Of the universe at the dawn
of creation. By the lullabies Of thy
falling waters 1 slept to dream Of the
God Of my childhood From thy mir
rored pools have seen there reflected
the misdeeds Of my past life. From
thy trails l have learned that 1t Is easy
to follow the strait path" If you do not
look down, but straight ahead In the
place where the pedestrian ought to go.
Happier have turned back to my own
home and my own work, better man,
because the Christ of the NaZarene
hills who welcomed me among thy
peaks is 70 continue to be my guide in
the lowlands. Farewell Yosemite,
grand, overpowering, crushing, yet
gentle and tender. Farewell, friend
farewell.
copyright. 1905. by Louis Klopsch.l