ts eight miles of granite walls and its Royal Gorge
towering nearly three thousand feet above us! It is rightly named.
I cannot undertake to describe it accurately. Here are grand cliffs
which seemingly reach the heavens, and in some places the rocky walls
come so near that they almost touch each other. As you look up, even
in midday, the stars twinkle for you in the azure vault. As the train
sped on, toiling up the pass through the riven hills and crossing a
bridge fastened in the walls of the gorge and spanning the foaming
waters, you felt as if you were shut up in the mysterious chambers of
these eternal mountains. It is a stupendous work of the Creator, and
man dwarfs into littleness in the presence of the majesty of God here
manifested as when Elijah stood on Horeb's heights.

It was a pleasant task to study the scenery, wild beyond description
at times; and then you would pass upland plains with cattle here and
there, and mining camps. That is Leadville, a mile or so yonder to
the north; and the children who have come down to the station have
valuable specimens of ore in their little baskets, to sell to you for
a trifle. Off to the left hand, a little farther on, was a "placer
mine," with water pouring out of a conduit, muddy and yellow with
"washings." This emptied itself into the Arkansas River, which, from
this point down to the foot of the mountains, was as if its bed had
been stirred up with all its clay and other deposit. Above this
junction the waters of the river were clear and sparkling. It is a
picture of life, whose stream is pure and sweet until sin enters it
and vitiates its current. Miles beyond are snow sheds, and the famous
Tennessee Pass, 10,440 feet above the sea level. This is the great
watershed of the Rocky Mountains, and two drops of water from a cloud
falling here,--the one on the one side and the other on the other side
of the Pass,--are separated forever. One runs to the Atlantic Ocean
through rivers to the Gulf of Mexico, and the other to the Pacific
Ocean. So there is the parting of the ways in human experience. There
are the two ways, and the little turns of life determine your eternal
destiny!

Even after a night of travel through the mountains and across the
Colorado Desert, we still, in the morning, find our train speeding on
amid imposing hills, but now we are in Utah. This we entered at Utah
Line. At length we cross the Pass of the Wahsatch Mountains at Soldier
Summit, 7,465 feet