Emphasis Preaching Journal

The wilderness has been a defining feature of American character. It really did not take much encouragement from Horace Greeley to "Go west, young man!" The wilderness has held a lure for us from the beginning of early trapping days to Conestoga wagon days to intercontinental railway days to interstate highway days. We want to enter it, explore it, cross it, tame it. And when we think we have reached our limit in claiming the land "from sea to shining sea," we look elsewhere for a wilderness in which to forge our character further -- the space frontier.