Reminiscence of John Muir by Young, S. Hall

• Main Author: Young, S. Hall
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1916
• Subjects: John Muir; biography; reminiscence; colleagues; contemporaries; archives; special collections; University of the Pacific; California; Holt-Atherton Special Collections; history; naturalist; Pacific; Atherton; glacier; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-reminiscences/36; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/muir-reminiscences/article/1035/viewcontent/Young_2C_S._Hall.pdf

[Address before Laymen's Missionary Conference, San Francisco, California] ALASKA DAYS WITH JOHN MUIR by S. Hall Young February 23, 1916. Your fellow Californian, and one of the greatest of you, John Muir, was one of the most intensely religious men that I have ever met. His religion was not of the usual type in its outward display. I think that it would have scared him almost to death if anybody had asked him to lead in prayer or to make a religious speech, and yet I have heard him in the presence of the heathen of Alaska make some of the most intensely religious sermons that I have ever listened to, and some of the most effective, I cannot better condense what I know about him and my appreciation of the man than in the verdict that I made after long thought and cogitation. He lived aloft, exultant, unafraid, All things were good to him. The mountain old Stretched gnarled hands to help him climb. The peak Waved blithe snow-banner greeting; and for him The rav'ning storm, aprowl for human life, Purred like the lion at his trainer's feet. The grizzly met him on the narrow ledge, Gave gruff "good morning"—and the right of way. The blue-veined glacier, cold of heart and pale, Warmed, at his gaze, to amethystine blush, And murmured deep, fond undertones of love. He walked apart from men, yet loved his kind, And brought them treasures from his larger store. For them he delved in mines of richer gold. Earth's messenger he was to human hearts. The starry moss flower from its dizzy shelf, The ouzel, shaking forth its spray of song, The glacial runlet, tinkling its clear bell, The rose-of-morn, abloom on snowy heights - Each sent by him a jewel-word of cheer. Blind eyes he opened and deaf ears unstopped. He lived aloft, apart. He talked with God In all the myriad tongues of God's sweet world; But still he came anear and talked with us, interpreting for God to listn'ing men. To this man of God, for so I call him and so I have known him, I think I owe more than to any other human creature. For he interpreted God to me,—the ...