THE STREET OF GOLD by B. A. Stephens

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1880

THE STREET OF GOLD.

By B. A. Stephens

The main street of the lower town of Placerville, El Dorado county California, for about three-quarters of a mile, is very rich with gold. Years ago certain parties made an offer of fifty thousand dollars cash for the privilege of working it in order to get the precious metal, and also guaranteed to replace the soil so that the street would be as good as ever. On account of jealousies between rival companies, the privilege has never been granted.

An idea of the richness of the soil may be obtained from the fact that a well near the street, over one hundred feet in depth, more than paid all the expenses in digging and curbing from the gold it gave up. A pan-full of dirt, washed out, will yield from five to fifty cents, and upwards. Surely it is a street of gold. Few of those, who walk it daily, think of that heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, whose street is not part gold, but all gold, and whose gold is not the opaque metal of earth, but transparent, "like unto clear glass." Rev. 21:18.

Prof. Faraday, of England, has recently discovered that "fine gold under certain chemical influences becomes perfectly transparent like glass." Bible and Science, page 248. Again is it plain that nature and revelation are effects of the same Great Cause. To strengthen our faith in his promises God has permitted an earthly city to have a street nearly gold that we may "look for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God," "and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." Heb. 11:10; Rev. 21:21.

B. A. Stephens.