At Akron, Ohio, the energetic and successful Rector of St. Paul's Church, the Rev. James H.W. Blake, accompanied by his wife and Miss Graham, his parishioner, boarded the train; and I found them most agreeable travelling companions to San Francisco. In Chicago, in the Rock Island Station, I was met by tourist agent Donaldson, in the employ of the Rock Island Railway Company, and during all the journey he was most courteous and helpful. Here also I found my old classmate in the General Theological Seminary, Rev. Dr. Alfred Brittin Baker, Rector of Trinity Church, Princeton, N.J., Rev. Dr. Henry L. Jones, of Wilkesbarre, Pa., Rev. Dr. A.S. Woodle, of Altoona, Pa., the Rev. Henry S. Foster, of Green Bay, Wis., and the Rev. Wm. B. Thorne, of Marinette, Wis., all journeying to San Francisco. It was a pleasure to see these friends, and to have their delightful companionship.
Many interesting chapters might be written about this journey; and to give all the incidents by the way and descriptions of places visited and pen pictures of persons met would detain you, dear reader, too long, as you are hastening on to the City by the Golden Gate. Some things, however, we may not omit as we travel over great prairies and cross rivers and plains and mountains and valleys. At Rock Island our train crossed the Mississippi, reaching Davenport by one of the finest railway bridges in the country; and as the "Father of Waters" sped on in its course to the Gulf of Mexico, it made one think of the Nile and the long stretches of country through which that ancient river wends its way; but the teeming populations on the banks of the Mississippi have a more noble destiny than the subjects of the Pharaohs who sleep in the necropolis of Sakkarah and among the hills of Thebes and in innumerable tombs elsewhere. They have the splendid civilisation of the Gospel, and they are a mighty force in the growth and stability of this nation, whose mission is worldwide. At Transfer we passed over the Missouri by a long bridge, and entered Omaha, a city picturesquely situated, the home of that doughty churchman, Rev. John Williams, and of Chancellor James M. Woolworth, a noble representative of the laity of the Church. Well may this place be called the "Gate City" of the Antelope State. Towards evening we reached Lincoln, the home of William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1896, and also four years later. The house where he lives was pointed out to us. It is a modest structure on the outskirts of the city, comporting with the simplicity of the man himself. In the morning we found ourselves riding over the plains of Colorado. Here are miles and miles of prairie, with great herds of cattle here and there. Here also the eye of the traveller rests on hundreds of miles of snow fences. At last we have our first view of the Rocky Mountains, that great rampart rising up from the plains like huge banks of clouds. It was indeed an imposing view; and it reminded me of the day when, sailing across the sea from Cyprus, I first saw the mountains of Lebanon. You almost feel as if you are going over a sea on this plain, with the Rocky Mountains as an immovable wall to curb it in its tempests. One thought greatly impressed me in the journey thus far, and this is the wonderful agricultural resources of our country. We were travelling over but one belt of the landscape. Its revelations of fertility, of cultivation, of products, of prosperity, of thrifty homes, of contented peoples, made one feel indeed that this is a land of plenty, and that we are a nation blessed in no ordinary way.
The City of Denver is beautiful for situation, with the Rocky Mountains fifteen miles to the west. As it is on the western border of the great plain, you can hardly at first realise what its elevation is. Yet it is 5,270 feet above the sea, lacking only ten feet of being a mile above tide water. The atmosphere is clear and crisp, and the mountain air exhilarates one in no ordinary degree. Although founded only as far back as 1858, it has to-day a population of 134,000, and it is steadily growing. It has well equipped hotels such as the Palace, the Windsor, the Albany and the St. James. It has also fine public buildings, flourishing churches and schools, and many beautiful homes. There is an air of prosperity everywhere. Here among other places which I visited is Wolfe Hall, a boarding and day school for girls, well equipped for its work, with Miss Margaret Kerr, a grand-daughter of the late Rev. Dr. John Brown, of Newburgh, N.Y., for its principal. I also met the Rev. Dr. H. Martyn Hart, a man of strong personality. I found him in St. John's Cathedral, of which he is the Dean, and of which he is justly proud. It is a churchly edifice, and it suggests some of the architectural form of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople. Dean Hart showed my companions and me what he calls his anti-tariff window. The window was purchased abroad, and the original tariff was to be ten per cent of the cost price. This would be about $75. The window cost $750. Meanwhile the McKinley tariff bill was passed by Congress, and as the duty was greatly increased he would not pay it. Finally the window was sold at auction by the customs' officials, and Dean Hart bought it for $25. As we rode about the city the courteous driver, a Mr. Haney, pointed out a beautiful house embowered in trees, which had a romantic history. A young man of Denver was engaged to be married to a young woman. She jilted him and married another, and while she was on her wedding tour her husband died. The house in which she lived was offered for sale at this juncture, and the original suitor bought it and turned her out into the street. He had his revenge, which shows that human nature is the same the world over. Had he offered her the house to live in, however, it would have been a nobler revenge, "overcoming evil with good."
It is but a short ride from Denver to Colorado Springs, which is a delightful spot with 21,000 inhabitants, and here is a magnificent hotel a block or two from the railway station called the New Antlers. The Rev. Dr. H.H. Messenger, of Summit, Mississippi, an apostolic looking clergyman, with his wife, accompanied us from Denver to Colorado Springs, and also to Manitou, at the foot of Pike's Peak and the mouth of the Ute Pass. From Manitou we drove to the Garden of the Gods, comprising about five hundred acres, and went through this mysterious region with its fantastic and wonderful formations, which seem to caricature men and beasts and to mimic architectural creations. Here we saw the Scotchman, Punch and Judy, the Siamese Twins, the Lion, the elephant, the seal, the bear, the toad, and numerous other creatures. We also viewed the balanced rock, at the entrance, and the Gateway Cliffs, at the northeast end of the Garden, and the Cathedral spires. Everything was indeed startling, and as puzzling as the Sphinx in old Egypt. Nature was certainly in a playful mood when, with her chisel and mallet, she carved these grotesque forms out of stones and rocks.
On the outskirts of Manitou the "Haunted House" was pointed out by the guide, who said that a man and his wife and their son had been murdered here. No one would live in the house now. He asked me if I believed in "Ghosts." I said I was not afraid of dead men, and that I did not think they came back to disturb us. He seemed to agree with me, but hastened to say that he "met a clergyman yesterday who said he believed in them." The house in Manitou which, of all others, interested me most, was the pretty vine-covered cottage of Helen Hunt Jackson, who wrote "Ramona." It was she, who, with a fine appreciation of nature, gave this wild and secluded spot, with its riddles in stone, the suggestive name of "The Garden of the Gods."
At noon on Friday, October 7th, I boarded the Pullman train at Colorado Springs, on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, for Salt Lake City. On this train was my old friend the Rev. James W. Ashton, Rector of St. Stephen's Church, Olean, N.Y., whom I had not seen for years, and from this hour he was my constant travelling companion for weeks in the California tour, ready for every enterprise and adventure. At Pueblo were some quaint Spanish-looking buildings, and farther on we were among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Our train gradually ascended the heights skirting the bank of the Arkansas River, which was tawny and turbid for many a mile. But the Grand Cañon of the Arkansas, with its eight miles of granite walls and its Royal Gorge towering nearly three thousand feet above us! It is rightly named. I cannot undertake to describe it accurately. Here are grand cliffs which seemingly reach the heavens, and in some places the rocky walls come so near that they almost touch each other. As you look up, even in midday, the stars twinkle for you in the azure vault. As the train sped on, toiling up the pass through the riven hills and crossing a bridge fastened in the walls of the gorge and spanning the foaming waters, you felt as if you were shut up in the mysterious chambers of these eternal mountains. It is a stupendous work of the Creator, and man dwarfs into littleness in the presence of the majesty of God here manifested as when Elijah stood on Horeb's heights.
It was a pleasant task to study the scenery, wild beyond description at times; and then you would pass upland plains with cattle here and there, and mining camps. That is Leadville, a mile or so yonder to the north; and the children who have come down to the station have valuable specimens of ore in their little baskets, to sell to you for a trifle. Off to the left hand, a little farther on, was a "placer mine," with water pouring out of a conduit, muddy and yellow with "washings." This emptied itself into the Arkansas River, which, from this point down to the foot of the mountains, was as if its bed had been stirred up with all its clay and other deposit. Above this junction the waters of the river were clear and sparkling. It is a picture of life, whose stream is pure and sweet until sin enters it and vitiates its current. Miles beyond are snow sheds, and the famous Tennessee Pass, 10,440 feet above the sea level. This is the great watershed of the Rocky Mountains, and two drops of water from a cloud falling here,—the one on the one side and the other on the other side of the Pass,—are separated forever. One runs to the Atlantic Ocean through rivers to the Gulf of Mexico, and the other to the Pacific Ocean. So there is the parting of the ways in human experience. There are the two ways, and the little turns of life determine your eternal destiny!
Even after a night of travel through the mountains and across the Colorado Desert, we still, in the morning, find our train speeding on amid imposing hills, but now we are in Utah. This we entered at Utah Line. At length we cross the Pass of the Wahsatch Mountains at Soldier Summit, 7,465 feet above the sea, and some thirty miles farther west we enter the picturesque Utah Valley. At length we see the stream of the River Jordan, which is the connecting link between Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake, and at last we find ourselves in the city founded by Brigham Young and his pioneer followers in 1847. There is a monument of the Mormon prophet in Salt Lake City, commemorating this founding. Standing on the hill above the present city and looking out on the great valley, with his left hand uplifted, he said: "Here we will found an empire!" And here to-day in this city, which bears his marks everywhere, is a population of 54,000 souls, two-thirds of whom profess the Mormon faith.
Here we were met by Bishop Abiel Leonard, D.D., of Salt Lake, who was a most gracious host and who welcomed us with all the warmth of his heart. He had engaged accommodations for us at the Cullen House; and when I went to my room, I looked out on a courtyard bounded on one side by the rear end of a long block of stores. There I saw a wagon which had just been driven into the grounds. Two men were on the seat, the driver and another person, and seated on the floor of the wagon, with their backs toward me, were four women. They wore no hats, as the day was balmy, and I noticed that one had flaxen, another brown, and the two others dark hair. Seeing everything here with a Mormon colouring, I said, "This is a Mormon family. The Mormon farmer has come to town to give his four wives a holiday." It reminded me of similar groups which I had seen in old Cairo, on Fridays, when the Mohammedan went with his wives in the donkey cart to the Mosque. And is there not a strong resemblance between Mormon and Mohammedan? The Mormon husband alighted and gently and affectionately took up one of his wives and carried her into the adjoining store, then a second, and a third. My interest deepened as I watched the proceeding. I said to myself—"How devoted these Mormon husbands, if this is a true example, and how trusting the women!" When he took up the fourth wife to carry her in where her companions were, he turned her face toward me, so that I had a good view of her, and then, to my surprise, nay, amazement, I discovered that she had no feet! But quickly it dawned on my mind, that, instead of real, living Mormon wives, I had been looking on waxen figures, models for show windows! Well, are there not manikins in human life, unreal creatures, who never accomplish more than the models in the windows, who may be looked at, but who perform no noble and lasting deeds?
Our sojourn in Salt Lake City gave ample time to visit the Great Salt Lake, eighty miles long and thirty miles wide, with two principal islands, Antelope and Stansbury; to make a complete study of the city, whose streets run at right angles to each other, with one street straight as an arrow and twenty miles long, and many of them bordered with poplar trees which, as has been facetiously said, were "popular" with Brigham Young; to attend the Saturday afternoon recital on the great organ, in the Tabernacle, which is oval in shape, and has a roof like a turtle's back, and where some three thousand people were assembled; to walk around Temple Square and examine the architecture of the Mormon Temple, which is like a great Cathedral, and into which no one is admitted but the specially initiated and privileged among the Latter-day Saints; to visit many buildings famous in Mormon history, and especially "Zion's Co-operative Mutual Institute," which, in its initials has been said wittily to mean, "Zion's Children Multiply Incessantly;" and on Sunday morning to attend the beautiful service in St. Mark's Church, where Bishop Tuttle, of Missouri, preached a striking sermon from the text "A horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man;" and in the evening to participate in the grand missionary service in Salt Lake Theatre, where the congregation was led by a choir of sixty voices, and stirring addresses were made by Bishop Leonard of Salt Lake, Bishop Gailor of Tennessee, Bishop Jacob, of Newcastle, England, Bishop Dudley, of Kentucky, and Bishop Tuttle, who was formerly Bishop here, before an audience of four thousand people, made up, as the Bishop said, of "Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Hebrews, Latter-Day Saints and Churchmen."