Kitabı oku: «With God in the Yellowstone», sayfa 6

CHAPTER IX
THE VOICE OF GOD

Thirty-four years ago, while teaching school, I had an opportunity of going to Yellowstone National Park with a camping party of school teachers and others from Southern Montana, but as I needed money, I decided to teach a summer school and to postpone the trip until some future time. When the party returned and tried to tell me about the many wonders they had seen, I resolved not to lose another opportunity to go, but I did, and for the same reason that kept me from going before. After this I was not so enthusiastic over the Yellowstone and the many miracles to be seen there.

However, I was always interested in some of the descriptions of the geysers,—Old Faithful, the Giant, Giantess, and others, that threw boiling water, at intervals, from 150 to 250 feet into the air. In Gospel messages I used them to illustrate spiritual truths, but no one had ever given me the slightest conception of the Grand Canyon, the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls, the boiling pools, the paint pots, the cascades, Mammoth Hot Springs, the exquisite colorings of the mineral formations, Roaring Mountain, "Hell's Half Acre," the majestic mountain peaks and ranges, Rainbow Lake, the Punch Bowl, Amethyst Spring, and a thousand other things which so awed and inspired me that out of the depths of my being, I exclaimed, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."

But how unworthy has he proved to be! Amidst the magnificence and grandeur of the wonders of Nature, he is ever showing his ingratitude, and the tendency to prostitute these things to the uses of his baser nature, and take all the glory to himself. He makes use of the gold and silver to build himself a habitation that storms are destined to shatter, leaving him exposed to divine wrath.

As I meditated upon these things, my heart cried out, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; … He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation" (Ps. 24:3-5). My heart overflowed like the boiling springs and the gushing geysers, which symbolize the sanctified life.

When I first had opportunity to go to Yellowstone Park, I did not enjoy the experience of sanctification, and therefore could not have appreciated its many wonders as I do now. Who knows but this is the reason why the door closed and did not open for me to go until I should be in the enjoyment of this experience, and able to impart spiritual truths to others?

There is an inner chamber of the soul that corresponds to the hill of the Lord. It is the place where the Shekinah dwells and His secrets are made manifest. Those who know Him in the relationship of the Bride can better appreciate His handiwork. Submission to the whole will of God is the price of such an experience.

There are those who appreciate the grandeur and magnificence of the Yellowstone as a whole, but there are thousands of spiritual lessons which the book of nature unfolds that the ordinary sightseer fails to grasp.

At one place, there are two openings in a pool, or two springs so close together that they are called The Goggles. Here again the two works of grace are beautifully set forth. Our guide illustrated some love affair by the two springs to the amusement of the young people in the company, but inadvertently my mind turned to the deeper spiritual truths of which they furnish a splendid example.

It takes the Holy Spirit to read God in nature as much as it does to interpret His word. Jesus said, "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Also, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; … and he will shew you things to come" (John 16:13).

The two springs, to me, represented Justification and Sanctification,—the two works of grace in the atonement, without which the soul is exposed to the wrath of God. It is the office work of the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to the heart and to act in the capacity of the Comforter, but when He takes possession He cleanses and purifies His temple. This is done when the heart is sanctified wholly. It is thenceforth the abiding place of the Holy Spirit.

I could not help but think of what it shall be when the earth shall be rent, the mountains removed from their places, and men shall cry for the rocks and hills to fall upon them to hide them from the presence of Him that sitteth on the throne. There is no fear where the Holy Spirit is the abiding Guest. The rocks may rend and the earth be removed out of its place, but peace will flow like a river.

Those who are so fortunate as to see the wonders of the Yellowstone will either soften or harden as the result of coming in touch with that which is so closely allied to the supernatural. It is like the melting influence of the Holy Spirit under a Gospel message when men are compelled to make their decision for eternity. God forbid that they should harden. If so, what could awaken them to their danger? The great war that has so recently terminated, bringing so much suffering and sacrifice, has made people better or worse. It has been a blessing or a curse, and so will the geyser region be to those who visit it.

Should there be those who pass by the wonders of the Yellowstone with cold indifference and a lack of response to what is seen there, it is proof that the world has already played havoc with their finer sensibilities, and as a result of this hardening process the mind and heart refuse to yield when brought under the strongest moral and spiritual influences. May God save people from such a calamity,—from becoming clay that is irresponsive to the divine touch. May they learn to magnify His name while suspended by the brittle thread of life over a yawning chasm of burning lava which is threatening to engulf them. Should man not be prepared for the great event that must come to everyone, there will be no one to blame but himself. God has made him a free moral agent, capable of choosing between right and wrong. If he should make the wrong decision, he will have to abide by the consequences.

How many tourists will see the spring called the Ear and yet fail to hear the voice of God speaking to the soul through its many beauties! How many fail to hear Him speaking through the great subterranean channels hundreds of feet below the surface, thundering the terrors of a broken law and heralding the news of His impending judgments!

A great author said, "O woman, thy name is frailty." The many short-comings of the gentler sex provoked this expression, but does not the word frailty equally apply to every individual on whom the curse has fallen? There is ever a downward tendency and a proneness to place the affections on material things, to worship the creature rather than the Creator.

It is with much difficulty that tourists in the Yellowstone are prevented from defacing the formations around the geysers, which have been centuries in making. There are those who would pay almost any price to be permitted to carry away souvenirs, but if they were allowed to do so one can readily see what the consequence would be. Of what use are pieces of geyserite when taken away from their natural environment? It would be impossible to form an opinion as to what they represent. Likewise there are those who are satisfied with mere forms of religion,—baptism, church membership, or any substitute for real salvation. What knowledge would a piece of geyserite give a person of Old Faithful, the Giant, or the Giantess, in action?

Baptism with water is an outward sign of an inner work, but there are multitudes who are satisfied with the souvenir and go blindly on to the Judgment to find their mistake when it is too late to make amends. There can be no excuse on account of ignorance, for the Scriptures furnish abundant evidence that there must be a work wrought by the Holy Spirit in the heart before a person is ready for the skies.

There is no better illustration of the sanctified experience than that which the geysers demonstrate. Jesus said to the woman at the well, "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

So with one who obtains the living water,—he has an inexhaustible supply, springing up in his soul. Outward conditions do not affect the deep whence it has its source, but it flows on regardless of conditions on the surface, bringing life and happiness to multitudes.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, we boarded one of the touring cars to Yellowstone, Montana, the Western Entrance to the Park, where there is a branch terminal of the Union Pacific Railroad. A little more than four days had elapsed since we started on the tour at Cody, Wyoming, but to me it was the beginning of a new epoch, and I felt that enough had been crowded into the four days to talk and write about for the rest of my life. I had stocked up my storehouse with a supply of illustrations to be used in books and Gospel exhortations; and not only expected to profit by what I had seen, but to do what I could to make an impression upon others; and the result so far has been satisfactory.

THE YELLOWSTONE PARK AND HOW IT WAS NAMED

 
The Devil was sitting in Hades one day,
In a very disconsolate sort of a way.
One could tell from his vigorous switching of tail,
His scratching his horn with the point of his nail,
That something had gone with His Majesty wrong,
The steam was so thick and the sulphur so strong.
He rose from his throne with a gleam in his eye,
And beckoning an agate-eyed imp standing by,
Commanded forthwith to be sent to him there
Old Charon, employed in collecting the fare
Of the wicked, who crossed the waters of Styx,
And found themselves soon in a deuce of a fix.
 
 
Old Charon, thus summoned, came soon to his chief,
As the Devil was angry, the confab was brief.
Says the Devil to Charon, "Now, what shall I do?
The world it grows worse and grows wickeder, too;
What with Portland, Chicago, Francisco, New York,
I get in my mortals too fast for my fork;
I haven't the room in these caverns below,
St. Peter, above, is rejecting them so.
So hie you, my Charon, to earth, far away,
Fly over the globe without any delay,
And find me a spot, quite secluded and drear,
Where I can drill holes from the center in here.
I must blast out more space; so survey the spot well,
For the project on hand is the enlargement of Hell.
 
 
"But recollect one thing, Old Charon, when you
Can locate the district where I can bore through,
There must be conveniences scattered around
To carry on business when I'm above ground.
An 'ink-pot' must always be ready at hand
To write out the names of the parties I strand.
There must be a 'punch-bowl,' a 'frying pan,' too,
A 'caldron' in which to concoct a 'ragout.'
An 'old faithful' sentinel showing my power,
Must shoot a salute on the earth every hour,
And should any mortal by accident view
The spot you have chosen, why, this you must do:
Develop a series of pools, green and blue,
That while these poor earth bugs may beauties admire,
They'll forget that below I'm poking the fire.
Now fly away, Charon, be quick as you can,
For my place here's so full that I can't roast a man."
 
 
To earth flew fleet Charon, to regions of ice;
He found these too cold—so away in a trice
He sought a location in Africa's sands,
He prospected, and finding too much on his hands,
He cut out Australia, Siberia, too,
The north part of China—no! they would not do;
Till, just as about to relinquish the chase,
He stumbled upon a most singular place,
'Twas deep in the midst of a mountainous range,
Surrounded by valleys secluded and strange,
In a country the greatest, the grandest, the best
To be found upon earth—America's West.
Here the crust seemed quite thin, and the purified air,
With the chemicals hidden around everywhere,
Would soon make the lakes that the Devil desired;
So he flew to Chicago, and there to him wired:
"I've found you a place never looked at before;
You may heat up the rocks, turn on water, and bore."
 
 
Then the Devil with mortals kept plying the fire,
Extracting the water around from the mire,
And boring great holes with a terrible dust,
Till soon quite a number appeared near the crust,
Then he turned on the steam—and lo! upward did fly,
Through rents in the surface, the rocks to the sky.
Then with a rumble there came from each spot,
Huge volumes of water remarkably hot,
That had been there in caverns since Lucifer fell—
Thus immensely enlarging the confines of Hell,
And it happens that now when Old Charon brings in
A remarkable load of original sin,
That His Majesty quietly rakes up the coals,
And up spouts the water, in jets, through the holes,
One may tell by the number of spurts when they come,
How many poor mortals the Devil takes home.
 
 
But Yankees can sometimes, without doing evil,
O'ermatch in sagacity even the Devil.
For not long ago Uncle Sam came that way
And said to himself, "Here's the Devil to pay.
Successful I've been in all previous wars;
Now Satan shall bow to the Stripes and the Stars.
This property's mine, and I hold it in fee;
And all of this earth shall its majesty see.
The deer and the elk unmolested shall roam,
The bear and the buffalo each have a home;
The eagle shall spring from her eyrie and soar
O'er crags in the canyons where cataracts roar;
The wild fowls shall circle the pools in their flight,
The geysers shall flash in the moonbeams at night,
Now I christen the country—let all nations hark!
I name it the Yellowstone National Park."
 

—Wm. Tod Helmuth.

(Reprinted from Haynes' Guide of Yellowstone National Park).