framed in fleecy, flying clouds, greeted our thoughtful eyes and spoke of
God to our hushed souls. Except beside the dying bed of my beloved I have
never felt the veil so thin between me and the world ineffable—supernal.
What was it like? Let no pen less lofty than that of Milton, less atune
with nature’s purest mood than that of Wordsworth, hope to “express
unblamed” the awful and ethereal beauty of what we saw. “Earth with her
thousand voices praises God,” sang the great heart of Coleridge, from the
vale of Chamouni, but here, the divine chorus includes both earth and
heaven, for El Capitan rears his head into the sky, Sentinel, Cathedral
Rocks and sky-climbing clouds rest while the symphony of eighteen
waterfalls rounds out the diapason.
“The rolling year is full of Thee,
Forth in the gentle spring Thy beauty walks,
Thy tenderness and love.”
These tuneful words of Thompson’s “Seasons” express the milder mood of
nature, but who can fitly tell of the condensed impressions about God
made by a valley only six miles long, one mile wide, and half a mile
high, wherein every form of solemn, majestic and pastoral beauty are
combined. A holy awe rested upon us, and tears were in all eyes. At last
the sacred silence was broken by a rich voice, beloved by me for many a
year, as Mrs. Dr. Bentley lead the “_Gloria in Excelsis_,” in which the
jubilant soprano harmonized with the melodious bass of humanity’s united
utterance of praise. “O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel
before the Lord, our Maker,” these inspired words leaped to our lips,
and we found that beyond all poets was the fitness of dear old words,
our mothers taught us from the book of God, in this supreme moment of
our experience. “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep
silence before Him,” “What is man that Thou art mindful of him,” “Stand
in awe and sin not:” these were the first words that came to us, and
I believe we shall be better men and women always for that vision of
eternity from which the curtain of mystery was for a moment drawn aside.
We learned afterward that as our coaches rolled on into the valley a
third rounded “Inspiration Point,” and Judge ⸺ of Sydney, Ohio, a dear
old gentleman, rose to his feet, clasped his hands as if in prayer, and
exclaimed “Mercy! mercy! Have I lived seventy-six years that I might see
this glory! _God made it all!_” and he lifted up his voice and wept. Such
a scene as that is once for a life time.
We saw the valley from an hundred points of view afterward, we waved our
good-bye to it a week later from this very point, but the first remains
the unmatched view—its like will never greet our eyes again—not in this
world.
As we sped onward into the valley one of us said: “I never felt before
such pity for the blind.”