F868 .Y6J9 °o >°-n>. *,. % A (Stft Snok frfltn tijr mnuntatna ®0 Sfrnm Photo by Pacific Stereopticon Co., Los Angeles EL GAPITAN. 3000 FEET HIGH Qiiit ^OBtmxtt THE YOSEMITE A Spiritual Interpretation By HERBERT ATCHINSON JUMP DESIGNED AND ILLUSTRATED BY E. RUSSEL LORD-WOOD "I've stood in some mighty-moathed hollow That's plumb-fall of hush to the brim; I've watched the big, husky sun wallow In crimson and gold, and grow dim. Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming. And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; And I've thought that I surely was dreaming. With the peace o' the world piled on top." THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO Copyright, 1916 By Herbebt Atchinson Jump # '" f THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON, MASS. JUL 25 1916 ESS . / ©CIA437006 i ( ®0 iMg WxU than whom no more refreshing camp-mate and no pluckier trail- companion ever accompanied an explorer into the uplands of the Cahfornia High Sierra. 3Uu0tratt0tta El Capitan, photograph Frontispiece PAGE Yosemite Valley from Artist's Point a Vernal Falls 7 Glacier Point 11 North Dome and Half Dome . 15 El Capitan 23 Yosemite Falls 31 The history of this Kttle book began with a summer Sunday evening talk to friends and nature lovers gathered round a crackling camp-fire in Camp Curry, Yosem- ite Valley. But its message has grown in the mind of the author as he has for four years snatched every possible opportunity to drive his automobile to the foothills of the Sierra, and then with blanket and mule and congenial com- panion has plunged into the silent canon and climbed toward the high, eternally snowy hinterland. Whether his prime love is for the Shasta region, or the Glen Alpine country back of Lake Tahoe, or the terrific Kings' River Caiion, or the mountain bastions sur- rounding the Tuolomne Meadows, or the more pastoral San Bernar- dino Range, or for the better known and altogether unsurpassed Yoseioite Valley itself, he cannot determine. But this conviction has slowly become certitude, that in all his journeyings in search of scenic beauty, whether to Alaska or Alberta, to Norway or Switzer- land or Northern Africa, he no- where has found congested in one comparatively small district as much variety, dramatic sublimity, and alluring picturesqueness as in the California Sierra. The ever- increasing stream of intelligent tourist travel toward these moun- tains, the far-sighted wisdom that is constructing automobile high- ways and government trails into the very heart of the amazing grandeur, and the slowly growing consciousness that the slogan *' see America first " is common sense as well as patriotism, — these are but symptoms of that new ap- preciation of CaHfornia which is spreading abroad over all the United States. H. A. J. Redlands, California ©If? f 00rmtte A Spiritual Interpretation Those who seek the Yosemite Valley seriously are bound to- gether in a freemasonry of senti- ment. They are all lovers — lovers of God's exquisitely beautiful world. Nature, speaking in one of her most dramatic and elo- quent moods, has summoned them thither. In this incomparable vale are to be found immensities and profundities, arrogant magnitudes and silent mightinesses, spectacles of time-defying power matched by vistas of thought-o'erwhelming space, the old earth-crust up- heaved into a climax of granite oratory, mountains marshalled in stupendous landscape rhetoric. So men bring their souls to the Yosemite to feed upon God's handiwork. It were the tragedy of tragedies if men should forget that the" handiwork is God's. The Valley from Artist'B Point 3tt0{itratt0n mh S^-tttBptratuin r®"^ E is fortunate who has his first view of the Valley from Inspira- tion Point. In an instant the whole picture of pinnacle and cataract, dome and depth, is revealed to the eager sight. It is as when the caretaker in some cloister pulls aside the dusty curtain con- cealing the painting by an old master, and in a flash beauty is unveiled that dumbfounds the be- holder. The apt name given this viewpoint immediately justifies it- [3] THE YOSEMITE self. But the wonder is that the *' inspiration " thus gloriously born does not fade away as the days elapse. When Ralph Waldo Emerson was leaving WiUiamstown, Massa- chusetts, after delivering a lecture before the students of Williams College, a few of the under- graduates accompanied him to the railroad station. While wait- ing for his train, he gazed appre- ciatively at the marvellous rim of hills, " Grey lock " and the other noble Berkshires, by which the horizon was bounded. " I should think, young gentlemen," he said, " that you would print the names of these mountains in your college catalogue along with the members of the faculty." A month in the Yosemite is a uni- versity course in spiritual emotion. One goes to school to these heights that girdle his soul. Lessons are [4] THE YOSEMITE to be learned from Sentinel Peak and Half Dome, from Cloud's Rest and Yosemite Point, from Liberty Cap and El Capitan, from all the magic pageantry of vapor and solar glory, and from the ever- changing poetry of blossom, tree and star. But inspiration goes deeper than to make the heart feel that it is in school. It provokes the continu- ous consciousness that the place whereon we stand is holy ground. Here the appropriate mood is worship. It is John Muir's ex- quisite insight to the effect that the vale of the Yosemite looked at from its western end is archi- tecturally like a huge temple lighted from above. Ought it not to possess a cathedral-Hke value to the tourist who visits it? Do we not miss the best of the Yosem- ite experience unless it awakens the more august voices that [5] THE YOSEMITE address the soul, and causes us to hear the reverberating syllables of eternity? The power of the Yosemite to upHft its sympathetic disciple may be taken for granted. It is in- dubitable. But not every dis- ciple tries to analyze the sources of the impression made upon him. Why is this peerless chasm so awe-compeUing? Where hes the secret of its appeal.^ 6] ^ iFaanra in tIjF SmpuBBxan HE waterfalls are part of Yosemite's power. Would you learn the majesty of motion? Lean against the iron rail at the top of the Upper Yosemite Falls when it is flow- ing in its June flood; or better still, peer over the brink of rock above the lUilouette Falls. It seems as though you are close to the throbbing heart of some colos- sal engine. The Moors knew the esthetic charm of running water. Having crossed over from the [7] THE YOSEMITE burning sands of Africa, they made Granada a paradise vocal every- where with the tinkle of sparkhng rivulets. But it is a more austere beauty that characterizes the mov- ing waters of the Yosemite. They speak not of fairies and dehcate maidens, but of giants, puissant gods and unconquerable goddesses. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of their waterspouts. The trees also are elements in Yosemite's power. In them we read bold gospels of patience. When we were visiting one day the Mariposa Grove of Sequoias, which is really an annex to the Yosemite, a group of us were seated carelessly on a stump in front of the cabin. The man who knew remarked quietly, ** That tree stump on which you are sitting, gentlemen, is sixteen hundred years old." I jumped as though I had been detected in the crime of desecrating [81 THE YOSEMITE some monument. Who was I, an upstart of the newly-born century, to be sitting, actually sitting upon sixteen centuries of human history? Nowhere among living things is the waiting power of the Almighty proclaimed as eloquently as in this forest of century-old giants. Nor must we overlook the en- thusiasm of effort that seems to afflict the very atmosphere in the Yosemite, and that sends every mother's son of us off into adven- tures upon the trails. ** I never walked so far in all my life " — how often this confession is overheard round the camp fire at night. But we are all the better for it. The powers of our physical being stand revealed. We may suffer a bit from the popular Yosemite diseases — the '* Glacier limp," the " Yosemite kink," or " trail-itis," but a worthy pride of achievement abundantly conquers any muscu- [9] THE YOSEMITE lar weariness. We are happy be- cause we really " did something " in the Valley, and we seek its precarious zigzags again next summer. [10] d Glacier Point UT the waterfalls, the trees, the trails, are all minor members on the Yosemite fac- ulty of instruction. The most potent teachers and preach- are the vertical vastnesses, the omnipresent upstretching alti- tudes, the reaches toward the sky that tax the physique, defy the senses and all but stun the imagi- nation. Yosemite is a peerless assortment of heights. Its forty domes are incomparable. From the moment we enter the Valley [11] ers THE YOSEMITE our necks are craned with upward gazing. The crests stir us with their sunrise beauty; they welcome the sunsets and hold them for our deUght. Yosemite, more than any other of the world's playgrounds, is a symphony in the perpendicular dimension. Universally, men have felt that the Creator wrote parables of moral truth into the universe when He created it, even as a skillful novehst weaves a purpose into his masterpiece of fiction. And al- ways the vertical dimension has suggested spiritual aspiration. The world's heights are a summons toward God and the things of God. They speak faith. Horizontal im- mensities tell a different tale. They are vocal of tolerance. They affect a man's ethics as the heights affect his rehgion. After a fort- night in the stupendous desert or on the water plains of the great fl21 THE YOSEMITE ocean, a man ought to treat his fellow men better. After a fort- night in such a place as the Yosemite, he ought to treat his God better. This is the main spiritual asset of the Valley — its heights, by which the soul can make easy ascents into the pres- ence of the Eternal. 13 MonntVLxn MtxtnlttB nnh 3Fmtif ELIGION and high places have ever be- longed together. Je- hovah dwelt origi- nally on Mt. Sinai. Jerusalem could the more easily become a Zion because it was surrounded by hills. Jesus' main sermon was uttered on a mount. A cathedral is a convincing piece of architecture because its spires pierce the sky. Faith has ever traveled, like Jacob's angels, along lines of the up and down. Heaven is above; hell is below. The Tower of Babel [15] THE YOSEMITE climbed; Dante descended into ' ' The Inferno. ' ' Mountain heights grip the soul as though with hooks of steel. Beware, therefore, of the man who can be irreverent in the presence of mighty mountains. Guard against the woman who can be flippant as she faces a yawning chasm. If all heights help the soul to mount toward its better thoughts and nobler life, how rich is the equipment of the Yosemite ! With sheer El Capitan, with the loyal Sentinel, with the graceful Cathe- dral Spires, with the Three Broth- ers forever watching the Three Graces, with Washington Column insistently asking. Where is Lin- coln Column to match me.^^ — with Glacier and Yosemite Points like two racers stretching nip and tuck toward the zenith, with North Dome eternally looking over at Half Dome as though she were fl61 THE YOSEMITE proudly asking, Did you ever see a more glorious rock than that? — and above all, Cloud's Rest cease- lessly proving the correctness of her name — on every hand are the ladders of gray granite by which the nature lover can mount and become a God-worshipper. These heights, once seen, become the standard by which you judge all other heights. They not only fill your existence while you sojourn in the Valley, but long after you have returned to the workaday world, they will loom in your dreams, high, fine, pure, calm, strong, beckoning your soul eagerly to enter into loftier fellowship with the Eternal. And there is a two- fold exhortation which the pinna- cles of this nature's masterpiece make to the soul. 17 THE YOSEMITE MAKE YOUR LIFE A MINIATURE YOSEMITE Let every man make of his life a miniature Yosemite by surround- ing each day's experience with high places. By whatever method the matchless domes of the Valley were carved out, whether by ice or water, at least we who now visit the Yosemite had nothing to do with their manufacture. We found them here, majestically and silently here, when we arrived. But we can assist in the creation of our soul's landscape. We have the power to build heights into our lives. From the natural charms of this peerless vale we can learn how to add spiritual charms to our inner being. In the experience of most per- sons life tends to be a plain. Monotony and drudgery are our fl81 THE YOSEMITE perpetual portion. But out of this plain we should raise the high places that can inspire. We should add to the day's landscape moun- tain retreats where the soul can see God face to face. One such mountain retreat is the reading of a noble book. It was in the midst of his most turbulent days as governor of New York and champion of the people against the "interests," that Mr. Hughes con- fessed to the habit of turning each night, after the day's battles were over, to the pages of Epictetus. In the brave philosophy of that ancient worthy he found the wis- dom and the encouragement which his soul craved. And there is a book even more useful for this purpose than Epictetus. The Bible is a compendium of courages. It is a roll call of heroes. It is a dictionary of seership. It is an hall of fame for the pre-eminent [191 THE YOSEMITE moralties. It is a trumpet call from the Infinite. It is food and drink and solace and rest and uplift for the needy sons of men. To it, as unto the hills, the soul should hft up its eyes for help. Another high place of the soul is the meditation-moment. Es- pecially here in the Yosemite must we guard our time and program lest we lose this supreme privilege of being solitary amid mighty things. It is poor mountaineering to go off alone on these trails, but it is good poetry and excellent religion. Many a visitor to the Valley never sees a sublime feature of this wonderland alone. Always there is a crowd along to distract with comment and chatter. John Muir was wiser. He used to tramp in the midnight moonht hours. The still, small voice has to be wooed in sohtude. If the mo- ments of rapturous meditation [201 THE YOSEMITE become moments of prayer, so much the better. Perhaps the right use of the Yosemite privilege will enable you all the more easily to build mountain moments into the flat humdrum of your living after you return to your familiar place and task. But there is a better kind of high place than either the lofty book or the lofty moment. This is the lofty personahty. Every life should be dominated by an incarnate ideal. No matter who you are or where you live, you can hold deep inner communion with some supreme personality. From this noble and ennobling object of devotion, blessing will flow down into all the lowlands of your existence. Here let us use the Yosemite even more specifically than we have done hitherto to furnish us with an analogy. Of all the [211 THE YOSEMITE heights that make the Valley in- comparable, El Capitan is the most unforgettable. And there is no one of us but supposes his knowledge of Spanish to be suffi- cient for translating the name. I was told, however, a while ago, that the popular translation was quite inadequate. " El Capitan," according to my informant, was the title given by the old padres to God. What was done, therefore, sometime in the undefined past, was the splendidly daring thing of naming this stu- pendous cliflf with the very name of the Almighty! How true the poetry of it! How fitting the suggestion! " God " ushers us into the temple of the Yosemite. ** God " is our first impression upon coming in, our last impression on going out. 22 £1 CapiUn ®tjr (dlirifit 0f SI QIapttmt OR me personally an- other and most help- ful mental associa- tion has come to pass. El Capitan is to me not so much a symbol of God as a symbol of Christ, God revealed in man. In that unrivalled wall of granite, ascending perpendicularly three thousand feet above the be- holder, I seem to see humanity at its height, my own soul raised to its divinest potencies in Jesus. He is the Perfect Man revealed as a challenge to all of us imperfect [231 THE YOSEMITE men. The heights of the Yosemite lead me to God, but they lead me thither by way of the God-man. El Capitan is my Captain, '* the captain of my salvation," the Christ. Many a Christian unfortunately has in his theology a Christ for whom this rugged, masculine, forthright rock would be an un- true symbol. He thinks of Jesus in feminine terms, or as a dreamy poet-artist. I, too, claim for my El Capitan Christ those softer qualities, but I find them bul- warked and steadied by a strength like the strength of a man. There is moss on the rock, but there is rock underneath the moss; and so virile was Jesus' manhood, so real his vision of truth, so sane his tenderness toward his fellow humans that Christ, the El Capi- tan Christ, becomes the lofty per- sonality whom every soul might [24] THE YOSEMITE well install as the supreme human '' high place " in his spiritual land- scape. There is no allegiance that so exalts a person as allegiance to the Son of Man. " Men are all mosaics of other men," Henry Drummond used to declare. In the mosaic of my character, there- fore, I will ask the El Capitan Christ to contribute the main pieces and to determine the domi- nant color. II THE HIGH PLACES ARE NOT FOR RESIDENCE Having made of his life a minia- ture Yosemite by building round about it a circle of spiritual high places, the man has yet another truth to learn. And the Yosemite will teach him forcefully this second lesson. He must not expect to live forever on the high places. His life will continue to be on the [251 THE YOSEMITE plain, but he must make the high- lands pour benedictions down upon the lowlands. When visiting the Valley to achieve a few of the heights, the tourist surely goes up to Glacier Point; perhaps he adds Eagle Peak; and if strength abides in his bones, he includes North Dome and Cloud's Rest. But who would think of camping all the time on one of these highlands and learning the Valley only from that point of view.^ No, the heights make the Yosemite, but we approach them from the Valley floor, and we bring back from them to the Valley floor the zest of far horizons and the tingle of the rarer upper air. In another way the heights serve us. They are the sources of the waterfall beauty of the Yosem- ite. The first question asked by our party as we entered the Valley and looked on Bridal Veil Falls [261 THE YOSEMITE and the entrancing Yosemite Falls opposite was, Where does all the water come from? It comes from the High Sierra, from innumerable peaks and slopes and canons and glades seldom visited by the casual tourist. One hundred and eleven lakes on the higher levels feed the cascades and streams of the Yo- semite. And when I took my excursion into the remoter high- lands, still I found myself asking the question in Tuolumne meadows and elsewhere. Where does the water all come from.^ Ever the highlands back yonder are pour- ing their glacial streams down into the lowlands; and if their altitudes are seldom explored and their undying snowfields seldom trav- ersed, it is but the usual fate of the benefactor. Helpful ministry and obhvion have always been bedfellows. It is with the soul as it is with [271 THE YOSEMITE this Valley. The highlands of exquisite and leisurely fellowship with books, thoughts, persons, cannot be abiding places. It were unwise to erect the three taber- nacles on the Transfiguration Mount. Religious exaltation of a high pressure sort cannot be per- petual for most souls. The en- thusiasm of the first discovery of spiritual reality must in the nature of the case ultimately flag. The experience of Christ cannot be an endless " hallelujah chorus " with a full organ accompaniment. There should be crescendos in the souFs career, but they by no means destroy the diminuendos, or make unnecessary the pianissimos. Abt Vogler mounts into the musical empyrean on the palace of sound which his skill erects, but at the end he has to sink back to the C major of our common life. Yes, but though Abt Vogler [281 THE YOSEMITE comes back to the C major, he is a different and a nobler being be- cause he has tasted the ecstacy. The rapture makes the C major more intelligible, more liveable, more lovable. The task laid upon us who have visited the Valley is to tie up Inspiration Point in the Yosemite with an ordinary-looking schoolroom in San Francisco or Chicago or Boston. We should say a wedding service, uniting the thrill of Glacier Point and the hum- drum of a grocery store counter in Denver or New York. Out of the enthusiasms, the blisses, the breath- less appreciation of these won- drous days, we shojuld build a more loyal service to our fellow men, a more grateful devotion to God the giver of all this glory, a larger and purer inner life for each one of our souls. Thus the highlands will serve the lowlands, the message of the Yosemite will be learned. [29] Yoaemite Falls A WntttMl Parabb NE memorable day I sat by the side of Yosemite Creek above the Falls. A twig swirled swiftly by on the surface of the stream. The bit of wood seemed like a prisoner caught in the countless riffles of green water that were sweeping it to its aerial doom. Suppose that same green water could think, what ought to be its emotions as it leaves the rocky bed along which it has been sliding, and plunges out into space through [31] THE YOSEMITE nearly a third of a mile of vertical drop? Back in the highlands it was born in some silent bank of snow or ice; it has journeyed far through the wild grandeur of un- populated canons; it has known the sweet liberty of the impulsive mountain brook. But after this plunge through space it will come into the world of people. It will see houses and roads. It will flow through human civilization. It will be harnessed between the banks of a slow-marching river. It will find work to do of service to the social order. It will pour fertihty into grain fields, add juices to many a species of fruit, yield up its powers to turn buzzing ma- chinery, give Hfe to beast and man, and roll peacefully on toward the great sea, distributing its ministry all over the lowlands. Shall we not catch and use this parable of the Yosemite water .^ [321 THE YOSEMITE Shall we not descend from the mountain fastness of this sublime chasm into the world of men, resolute to put into our living more of the stern, clean quahties of the highlands? When the sad day arrives that compels a farewell to the gray rocks and the white waters, the green meadows and the rainbow-tinted flowers, the wholesome trees and the plenteous ferns that spell out the altogether satisfying charm of this *' gorge of the great grizzly bear," — as your conveyance sUps down the Valley toward El Portal and the problems of hfe, perform for the sake of your soul this little ritual of affection: Look backward once again to- ward the ineffable kingly dignity of El Capitan. In that brave front of granite, high-browed and erect toward the sun, see with your imagination's eye a picture [33] THE YOSEMITE of the Christ, challenging, inspir- ing, dominating, commanding you. See Him m-ging you into the thick of things with an apostolic com- mission to help bring His strength and purity into the world's Ufe. See Him boldly summoning you to join Him in resistance to all cheap compromise, all convenient insincerity, all lazy cowardice that masquerades under the name of tact. See Him inviting you to share His patience. His long-suffer- ing beneath the battering storms. His calm and unapologetic faith in the final invincibiUty of truth. See Him, the eternal, self-giving Christ, rooted deep in the earth but stretching His aspiring height toward the skies, — the union of the seer and the man of affairs, the fusion of the dreamer and the soldier. If thus, as you leave the Valley, the El Capitan Christ dismisses you with His blessing and [34] THE YOSEMITE His imperatives, then you will bring into the everyday world a spiritual message from the Yosem- ite. You will become indeed a mountain soul, hke her of whom Katharine Lee Bates has sung: "A mountain soul, she shines in crystal air Above the smokes and clamors of the town. Her pure, majestic brows serenely wear The stars for crown. " She comrades with the child, the bird, the fern, Poet and sage and rustic chimney-nook ; But Pomp must be a pilgrim ere he learn Her mountain look, — " Her mountain look, the candor of the snow, The strength of folded granite, and the calm Of choiring pines whose swayed green branches strow A healing balm." THE END [35 H 65 78 -^ •.^"^z V '-^f,'- .^- . -ym^y . '-UiT'^^* ^^ o. .^ „ „ „ ^ .0''