Sierra Club

John Muir founded the Sierra Club, a powerful force for ecological concern. While many see the beauty of nature as an accident of evolution, to John Muir it revealed the very hand of God. Once he was standing with a friend at a high point of the Yosemite Valley. Filled with wonder and emotion, he wept. His friend was one of those rather stolid and unemotional types. Muir turned to him and, lapsing into Scotch dialect, said: ‘Mon, can ye see unmoved the glory of the Almighty?’ ‘Oh, it’s very fine’, was the reply, ‘but I do not wear my heart upon my sleeve’. ‘Ah, my dear mon’, said Muir, ‘in the face of such a scene as this, it’s no time to be thinkin o where you wear your heart’. While I cannot vouch for Muir’s faith in God, the glory of nature irresistibly draws even unbelievers to acknowledge his glory.