Yet, when a reverend gentleman calls it a "delirium of nature," I cannot agree with him. The delirium might be in his own mind, but there is no delirium here. Neither does it seem to me that a certain university president expresses things with any more wisdom or effectiveness, when he says that it "impressed him with its infinite laziness." Lazy? When once, in the far-distant past, after rising from the primeval sea, it sank back again and deposited twelve thousand feet of strata, then lifted them out into the sunshine, carved eleven thousand feet of them away, and sent them dashing down the river to fill up the Gulf of California and make the Mohave and Colorado Deserts? Lazy? When, after that was done, it sank again, and allowed a thousand feet of Cambrian to be deposited; then two thousand feet of Carboniferous; then Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, until the three thousand feet were increased to two miles of deposits. Then it began to lift itself up again. Lazy? When lifting up two miles' thickness of strata for the clouds and their children to carve away?
And it lifted and lifted, until it destroyed a vast Eocene lake, which covered as large an area as perhaps half a dozen Eastern States, and at the same time carried away about twelve thousand feet of strata. Lazy? When you consider that from north to south, for a hundred or more miles, the whole region has been heaving and tossing, curving and buckling, arching and crumpling its strata, faulting by rising, faulting by sinking, until the geologist who would study the faults finds, in the area of one half-mile, near the mouth of Shinumo Creek, his work for a lifetime cut out for him.
No! No! Mr. College President! You must look more fully. You must guess again! The Canyon is not lazy. It is merely a gigantic natural representation of yourself. You are the embodiment of energy of body, mind and soul; yet you are never seen hurried or disturbed. You have the serenity of genius. So with the Canyon. It has done and is doing great things. It has been a persistent worker during the millions of years of its existence, but it has the calm serenity of consciousness of strength. What you took to be laziness is the restfulness of divine power.
When First Seen. These are some of the effects the Canyon has upon men. Ionce walked up to the rim with a lawyer, who to-day is one of the foremost figures of the San Francisco bar, a man of lion-like courage and almost reckless bravery. At the first glimpse he fell on his knees, clasped me around mine, and begged me to take him away, declaring that a gift of all Arizona would not lead him to take another glimpse into its awesome depths.
I know of one lady who, for weeks afterwards, would wake up almost every night, and feel herself falling into the fathomless gorge.
Yet the next day the lawyer went with me down to the river, and to this day declares it was the "most memorable trip of his life;" while the timid lady, to my own knowledge, has made over five trips to the Canyon.
Those of less susceptible nerves cannot conceive the effect the first sight of the Canyon produces upon such supersensitive natures as these to which Ihave referred. I have seen strong men fall upon their knees. I have seen women, driven up to the rim unexpectedly, lean away from the Canyon, the whole countenance an index of the terror felt within, gasp for breath, and though almost paralyzed by their dread of the indescribable abyss, refuse either to close their eyes or turn them away from it. Some few remain away for a day or two until their nerves become more steady. Yet I have never known one of these susceptible observers, these keenly sensitive natures that, on due consideration, has not been thankful for the experience, and in every case has either returned to fully enjoy the Canyon, or has longed to do so.
But, you ask, what is the Canyon for? The answer is simple, and reveals a very humble task as the main work of this vast and gorgeously-colored abyss. It merely acts as the home of a great river, that for hundreds of miles does not serve a single useful purpose to man.
Yet purely material uses are of the lowest kind. The Grand Canyon has a far higher mission than that I have spoken of, and others that are suggested in various chapters of this book. The Grand Canyon is God's greatest gift of His material handiwork in visible form on our earth. It is an expression of His divine thought; it is a manifestation of His divine love. It is a link, a wonderful connecting link, between the human and the Divine, between man and his Great Creator, his Loving Father, Almighty God.
