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Show 411. of God's mountains." Indeed, the tourist might still be a sinner, but John set his sights on redemption. He began his first essay by viewing the Sierra from across the Central Valley, but he was also introducing himself; we need only compare his view with the role of John: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light. . . . He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. (St. John 1.6-8) So John Muir bears witness: Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years in the midst of it, rejoicing and wondering, seeing the glorious floods of light that fill it, - the sunbursts of morning among the mountain-peaks, the broad noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, - it still seems to me a range of light. If a reader learned anything from this narration it was not what to see but how to see. Behind Muir's exuberance was his carefully thought out method of study. He tried to make his readers powerful and enthusiastic observers, like himself. They would believe in the divine beauty; they would accept his metaphor of light and water. Muir was not the light nor the water but he was clean like them in his exuberance; he had baptized himself in the light and water of the Sierra and |
