suggests a flame, eternally preserved by unseen hands, ascending to
an unknown god.

[Illustration: SOME OF THE CAÑON TEMPLES.]

[Illustration: SIVA'S TEMPLE.]

It is difficult to realize the magnitude of these objects, so
deceptive are distances and dimensions in the transparent atmosphere
of Arizona. Siva's Temple, for example, stands upon a platform four
or five miles square, from which rise domes and pinnacles a thousand
feet in height. Some of their summits call to mind immense sarcophagi
of jasper or of porphyry, as if they were the burial-places of dead
deities, and the Grand Cañon a Necropolis for pagan gods. Yet, though
the greater part of the population of the world could be assembled
here, one sees no worshipers, save an occasional devotee of Nature,
standing on the Cañon's rim, lost in astonishment and hushed in awe.
These temples were, however, never intended for a human priesthood. A
man beside them is a pygmy. His voice here would be little more
effective than the chirping of an insect. The God-appointed
celebrant, in the cathedrals of this Cañon, must be Nature. Her voice
alone can rouse the echoes of these mountains into deafening peals of
thunder. Her metaphors are drawn from an experience of ages. Her
prayers are silent, rapturous communings with the Infinite. Her hymns
of praise are the glad songs of birds; her requiems are the meanings
of the pines; her symphonies the solemn roaring of the winds.
"Sermons in stone" abound at every turn; and if, as the poet has
affirmed, "An undevout astronomer is mad," with still more truth can
it be said that those are blind who in this wonderful environment
look not "through Nature up to Nature's God." These wrecks of Tempest