pic, a drop
from the heart of Christ upon the icy desolation and barren affections
of a sin-frozen world. It warmed and thrilled us in an instant. We who
had been dull and apathetic a moment before, shivering in our wet
blankets, were glowing and exultant now. Even the Indians ceased their
paddling, gazing with faces of awe upon the wonder. Now, as we watched
that kingly peak, we saw the color leap to one and another and another
of the snowy summits around it. The monarch had a whole family of royal
princes about him to share his glory. Their radiant heads, ruby crowned,
were above the clouds, which seemed to form their silken garments.

As we looked in ecstatic silence we saw the light creep down the
mountains. It was changing now. The glowing crimson was suffused with
soft, creamy light. If it was less divine, it was more warmly human.
Heaven was coming down to man. The dark recesses of the mountains began
to lighten. They stood forth as at the word of command from the Master
of all; and as the changing mellow light moved downward that wonderful
colosseum appeared clearly with its battlements and peaks and columns,
until the whole majestic landscape was revealed.

Now we saw the design and purpose of it all. Now the text of this great
sermon was emblazoned across the landscape--"_God is Love_"; and we
understood that these relentless forces that had pushed the molten
mountains heavenward, cooled them into granite peaks, covered them with
snow and ice, dumped the moraine matter into the sea, filling up the
sea, preparing the world for a stronger and better race of men (who
knows?), were all a part of that great "All things" that "work together
for good."

Our minds cleared with the landscape; our courage rose; our Indians
dipped their paddles silently, steering without fear amidst the
dangerous masses of ice. But there was no profanity in Muir's
exclamation, "We have met with God!" A lifelong devoutness of gratitude
filled us, to think that we were guided into this most wonderful room of
God's great gallery, on perhaps the only day in the year when the skies
were cleared and the sunrise, the atmospheric conditions and the point
of view all prepared for the matchless spectacle. The discomforts of the
voyage, the toil, the cold and rain of the past weeks were a small price
to pay for one glimpse of its surpassing loveliness. Again and again
Muir would break out, after a long silence of blissful memory, with
exclamatio