98
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
March, 1938
H idden Lu re Rest , Change, Information — And Something Else!
By MILDRED M. COOK
toward the sea—:th(‘ larg est glacier in the world to the face of which ocean going steamers call. For almost an hour, as
which a creature can give to the One who is not only Almighty Creator, but, for them, Saviour and Lord as well. “ All Thy works praise Thee, praise Thee, O God”—-the truth sang itself in believers’ hearts, rev erently. Praise "Together" Tw o young women settled themselves in deck chairs, as the ship proceeded again on its way. “ I suppose,” one of them vol un- teered, “ any group of people could get a thrill from a sight like this. But when Christians travel together, they have some thing— I call it a luxury—the opportunity of enjoying their Father’s handiwork to gether, and of praising Him together, al though sometimes, like this morning, it is without any spoken words at all.” “ I know what you mean,” the other re sponded. “ It’s the lure that can’t be adver tised, because it wouldn’t always be under stood, or wanted. It’s the privilege of Christian fellowship that a trip like this provides—for those who want it and will seek it out.”
T HROUGH a thin gray fog, Colum bia Glacier loomed up. Passengers on the Alaska Steamship Company’s “Baranof,” traveling from Seattle to Seward and return in August, 1937, hurried to the decks. They had covered 1,800 miles from Seattle, coming through the sheltered waters of the Inside Passage, past Cordova, and into Prince W illiam Sound. Among them were sixty-one members of the California Christian Endeavor tour party. A t last, here was “ Columbia, greatest of them all.” The ship, her engines idling, crept closer and closer, until it was within six hundred feet of the spectacle of ice. Four miles in width at the point at which it enters the fjord waters, Columbia, in awe some immensity, rises a sheer three hundred, feet from the water’s edge and extends eighty miles back into the towering moun tains. Silently, grandly, it pushes out
their ship drew near and then withdrew to continue its course to Seward, passengers of the “Baranof” looked on this majestic scene. Some Hand had toned with gray and rose and violet the crystal brightness of the snows of many years. The same Hand had set tiny blue-white icebergs, like guards, near to the glacier’s side. Beauty, immensity, and unchangeableness spread like a canvas far as eye could see, and to discerning onlookers the Artist’s name was unobscured. Breaking the penetrating still ness, the ship’s whistle sounded a loud blast, and the answering echo came back once, twice, three times, eerily. Portions of ice, loosened by vibration, crashed into the sea. Among the observers on deck, words were few. Language lagged, a helpless thing. But there were those there who mingled with their wordless wonder that worship
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