book or in any abode
of man. He was fond of quoting Wordsworth's stanza:

"One impulse from a vernal wood
Will teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can."

Muir was a devout theist. The Fatherhood of God and the Unity of God,
the immanence of God in nature and His management of all the affairs of
the universe, was his constantly reiterated belief. He saw design in
many things which the ordinary naturalist overlooks, such as the
symmetry of an island, the balancing branches of a tree, the harmony of
colors in a group of flowers, the completion of a fully rounded
landscape. In his view, the Creator of it all saw every beautiful and
sublime thing from every viewpoint, and had thus formed it, not merely
for His own delight, but for the delectation and instruction of His
human children.

"Look at that, now," he would say, when, on turning a point, a wonderful
vista of island-studded sea between mountains, with one of Alaska's
matchless sunsets at the end, would wheel into sight. "Why, it looks as
if these giants of God's great army had just now marched into their
stations; every one placed just right, just right! What landscape
gardening! What a scheme of things! And to think that He should plan to
bring us feckless creatures here at the right moment, and then flash
such glories at us! Man, we're not worthy of such honor!"

Thus Muir was always discovering to me things which I would never have
seen myself and opening up to me new avenues of knowledge, delight and
adoration. There was something so intimate in his theism that it
purified, elevated and broadened mine, even when I could not agree with
him. His constant exclamation when a fine landscape would burst upon our
view, or a shaft of light would pierce the clouds and glorify a
mountain, was, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"

Two or three great adventures stand out prominently in this wonderful
voyage of discovery. Two weeks from home brought us to Icy Straits and
the homes of the Hoonah tribe. Here the knowledge of the way on the part
of our crew ended. We put into the large Hoonah village on Chichagof
Island. After the usual preaching and census-taking, we took aboard a
sub-chief of the Hoonahs, who was a noted seal hunter and, therefore,
able to guide us among the ice-floes of the mysterious Glacier Bay of
which we had heard. Vancouver's chart gave us no intimation of any inlet
whatever; but the natives told o