Mountains, mountains, mountains! Piled up like Titanic boulders, snow-capped and ice-bound, tumbling down from the far-off glassy sides of Mt. Lyell and Mt. Dana to the edge of that stupendous chasm. Gleaming glaciers, great ice rivers, eternal snow drifts, dark, bare, rugged peaks for a background. For a foreground, all the beauty of the valley far below you, three thousand feet or more, as, holding your breath, you gaze straight down the dizzy height from the projecting table rock. El Capitan on the left, the Yosemite Falls dancing down in three great leaps opposite; the Half Dome and Cloud's Rest off to the right, Vernal and Nevada Falls pouring their torrent over the cliffs at your side, the Hetchy-Hetchy Valley, the rolling plateau that stretches back to the perpetual snow and rising peaks behind you. All language falters here. Tongue can never describe, only the soul feels, the awfulness, the vastness, the sublimity, the stupendousness, the wild grandeur of the scene. Such is Glacier Point.
Here, speechless, overawed, and with the loftiest emotions sweeping over their souls, Job Malden and Jane Reed stood alone amid a silence broken only by the sighing of the trees back of them.
It was toward sunset of a June afternoon. For hours they had been climbing up the long, steep, winding trail that picks its way along the side of the cliff from back of the Valley Chapel toward Sentinel Peak, over the jutting point, and over the cliff's edge to this wonderful spot. Weary and foot-sore, they had reached it, only to have all thought of self overwhelmed and forgotten in that vision of visions which burst upon their eyes and souls. How long they stood there in utter silence they knew not. Time was lost in eternity. At last the tears began to trickle down Jane's cheeks and she sobbed, "It is grand, it is too grand! I have seen God! I cannot look any more!" while Job stood entranced, forgetful of Jane, forgetful of self, utterly absorbed in the consciousness of infinite power. Then he began to repeat in a solemn voice that favorite Psalm of his: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."
The saucy call of a squirrel in a tall pine near, the chill of the evening air coming down from the ice-fields, brought them at last to a consciousness of themselves. Withdrawing to a sheltered nook away from the dizzy cliff, and so hid among the trees that all view was shut off except that scene of dazzling beauty, the glitter of the setting sun on the distant Lyell glacier, Job and Jane sat down for the first real heart-to-heart talk they had ever known in their lives. They talked of the years gone by; of the outward story that the world may read, of the inner story that only the heart knows. Their theme was Christ, their mutual Friend, who had been the cheer and strength of all those years. Memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime that night. Jane talked of childhood days, of her mother's grave and Blackberry Valley, and of the old camp-meeting in Pete Wilkins' barn on that never-to-be-forgotten Saturday night, when, lonely and heart-broken, she had knelt on the hard floor at the bench and whispered, "Just as I am, without one plea." Then her face brightened as she looked up and said, "Oh, Job, He came, and I was so happy! And, somehow, home has not been so lonely since then, and—I don't know; it may seem strange to you, Job—Jesus is just as real to me as you are. He is with me all the time; and, when I am tired, he says, 'Come unto me, and I will give you rest'; when father is so cross, and the tears just will come, he whispers, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. My peace I give unto you.' And he does. It comes so sweetly, and I feel so still, so rested! I know he is right beside me. Isn't it grand, Job, to feel we are His and He will always love us, and that He is so near us? It seems as if I heard His step now and He was standing by us. I know He is. I like that hymn we sang Communion Sunday—'Fade, fade, each earthly joy, Jesus is mine.'"
A moment they sat in silence, while the sun transformed the far-off glacier into a lake of glory, and then sank behind El Capitan for the night. Then Job spoke. A long while he talked. The memories of childhood; the sweet face that grew strangely white in the city of the plains and left him; the early days at Pine Tree Ranch; the steps of a downward life; that grand old camp-meeting and what it did for him—of these he spoke, and yet did not cease. The years of youth and young manhood, the bitter persecutions and temptations, the triumphs through the personal presence and help of the Master, were his theme. For the first time a human friend learned the real story of that awful night in the second tunnel and the long, long day in the lonely Gulch. The young man grew excited and stood up as he paid loving tribute to the reality of religion in his life and the tender, most divine friendship of Jesus Christ. Then he hesitated; but only for a moment. He told her of his sins; of those days of doubt when he yielded to the tempter's power and how near he came to losing his soul. He could not finish it, but strode off alone. At last he came, and, sitting down, said:
"Jane, all I am I owe to Jesus Christ. The story of his love, and what he has been to me, is more wonderful than any story of fiction. 'More wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.'"
View from Glacier Point.
The twilight was deepening, the great mountains were fading away in the distance, the evening star was just peering over the horizon as, standing together by the iron rail that protects Table Rock—standing, as it seemed, in the choir loft of the eternities, they sang together—Job in his rich tenor, Jane in her sweet soprano:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name,
Let angels prostrate fall.
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown him Lord of all."