ee-tops, like beauteous crowns adorning the heads of those who have
died rather than surrender to the low and base; there deep canyons,
brilliant with the diamonds made by the sun from the scintillating
drops from dashing torrents--so from the unseen heights come the dews
of heaven to refresh those who walk by faith and not by sight "looking
not at the things seen which are temporal, but at the things not seen
which are eternal."

Here comes a dense white cloud of snow through the air, covering our
train with a pearly shroud, through the rifts of which, far below, we
have glimpses of lovely vales and white ranch-houses, smiling up at
us, above the clouds.

Dearly beloved--all seems to say it becometh us, not to sorrow for the
dead hopes, broken promises, and bitter disappointments of this mortal
life, remembering that this is not our home, that we tarry here for
a few fleeting days, that our true home is with the good beyond the
infinite azure of the heavens, where dear ones are Waiting to welcome
us to the endless rest and peace awaiting all who fight the good
fight, and who keep themselves unspotted from the world.

At times, while the train was dashing along over the seemingly
interminable plains, green and productive during the rainy season, but
now parched and arid by the terrible heat, we were almost suffocated
by the dense dust clouds, and well-nigh withered by the winds which
seem to come from the very jaws of Dante's Inferno; then the shifting
young cyclone would suddenly envelop us with chilling snows from
Shasta, and so we oscillated like pendulums 'twixt torrid heats and
arctic colds.

At last, almost dazed by the unspeakable, lightning-like, climatic
transformations, the great iron steeds brought us to Portland, the
metropolis of the great state of Oregon. Here, as in many places on
the Pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season
to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape
the merciless peltings of the clouds of shot-like dust. The dampness
in this valley, hemmed in by the now dripping, then brook covered
mountains, is far from pleasant, and covers many of the buildings
with unsightly mosses. In Washington and Oregon those who survive the
climatic trials are a strong, energetic race, rapidly building up
powerful empires in the great aggregation of states of our grandest
nation the world has ever known.

The broad-minded, generous-hearted people of this