Innumerable Multitudes
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands.” [Revelation 7:9]
Prairie dogs are highly social, curious, and playful creatures that live in large colonies or “towns.” While prairie dogs are related to rodents, they are very intelligent and exhibit an elaborate communication system using about a dozen separate calls to send messages. These animals were once found across the plains west of the Mississippi ranging from Mexico to Canada. It is estimated that in the early 1800s, some 700 million acres of North American rangeland were inhabited by five billion prairie dogs.
When the Lewis and Clark expedition entered the Great Plains in 1804, they saw many animals unknown to Eastern settlers such as coyotes, antelope, and grizzly bears. In all, 122 animals were described in their journals, but most memorable was the prairie dog. When they first encountered a village of prairie dogs, the whole expedition team spent an entire day trying to flood prairie dogs out of their tunnels to ship specimens back to President Thomas Jefferson, but they only managed to capture one live prairie dog.
The next spring, this lone prairie dog was included in a shipment to President Jefferson. From North Dakota, that animal traveled down the Missouri River to St. Louis. From there, the furry cargo was put on another ship and sent down the Mississippi to New Orleans. There, another ship took the rodent through the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida, and up the coast to the Chesapeake Bay and on to Baltimore. Finally, after several months, this prairie dog arrived in Washington, D.C., still alive! Jefferson arrived in Washington six weeks later. Still, the animal was active and healthy when the president saw it on October 4, 1805. Jefferson sent the prairie dog to a natural history museum in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the animal lived out its days.
Today, because of habitat loss and devastating plagues, prairie dog populations have been reduced by 90 percent. It’s hard to imagine at one time there was a single prairie dog colony in Texas covering 25,000 square miles. It contained an estimated 400 million animals.
Did you know the Word of God teaches that there will be an innumerable tribe of people saved in God’s kingdom? Because of His immeasurable love and grace, heaven will be filled with multitudes of His grateful children.
