Milford chronicle., 1891-02-13
THELESSONS OF WINTER.
ALL SEASONS HAVE THEIR LESSONS
FOR THE CHRISTIAN.

3
FOR THE CHRISTIAN.
beautiful Imagery Of the Bible, Teach
ing Lessons from Nature-The SHOWS Of
Lebanon and Mount Hermon-The Dogs
Of St. Bernard.
NEW YORK, Feb. s-The remarkable
movement initiated by The Christian
/ Herald services in the Academy Of Music
/ S growing apace, and negotiations are
! pending for additional accommodations on
/ a gigantic scale. DR.. Talmage's sermons
! have set thousands of the people of New
/ York to serious thinking on religious mat
/ ters. At every service now men and
women rise in all parts of the house to in
innate their desire that the Christians
present would pray for their conversion,
and after the regular service is concluded
I they speedily occupy the orchestra chairs
while Dr. Talmage and the large corps Of
workers who are helping him listen to
their difficulties and give them advice.
fearful eyes and convulsive sobs bear
testimony to the earnestness Of the seekers.
| The New York Herald estimates that dur
| ing January alone over n thousand persons
declared their resolve to live Christian
/ lives. DR.. Talmage's sermon this evening,
which he also preached in the Brooklyn
Academy of Music in the morning, was
from Job xxxviii, p, Hast thou entered
into the treasures Of the snow?"
Grossly maligned is the season of winter.
The spring and summer and autumn have
had many admirers, but winter, hoary
headed and white bearded winter, hath
had more enemies than friends. Yet with
Abo I'm r,or, roaa vrrort1H In fuaue
and effortless You might speak Of the
winter as the mother Of tempests l take
it as the father Of a whole family Of physi-
cal, mental and spiritual energies The
most people that know are strong in pro
portion to the number Of snow banks they
had to climb over or push through in child
hood, while their fathers drove the sled
loaded with logs through the crunching
drifts high as the fences.
At this season of the year, when we are so
familiar with the snow, those frozen
vapors, those falling blossoms of the sky,
those white angels Of the atmosphere, those
poems Of the storm, those Iliads and Odys-
seys Of the wintery tempest, turn over
the leaves of my Bible and-though most
of it was written in a cline where snow
seldom or never fell find many of these
beautiful congelations. Though the writer's
may seldom or never have felt the cold
touch of the snowflake on their cheek
they had in sight two mountains, the tops
of which were suggestive. Other kings
sometimes take of their crowns, but Leb
anon and Mount HernOn all the year
round and through the ages never lift the
coronets of crystal from their foreheads.
The first time we find deep fall Of snow
in the Bible is where Samuel describes a
Il, i ..sA
and though the snow may have crimsoned
under the wounds of both man and brute,
the shaggy monster rolled over dead, and
the giant was victor. But the snow is not
fully recognized in the Bible until God in
terrogates Job, the scientist, concerning it's
wonders, saying, Hast thou entered into
the treasures Of the snow2"
JOB, THE LEARNED SCIENTIST.
rather think that Job may have exam
ined the snowflake with a microscope; for,
although it is supposed that the microscope
was invented long after jobs time, there
had been wonders of glass long before the
microscope and telescope of later day were
thought of. So long ago as when the Col
iseum was in its full splendOr, Nero sat in
the emperor's box of that great theatre,
which held hundred thousand people,
and looked at the eombatants through a
gem in his finger ring which brought
everything close up to his eye.
Four hundred years before Christ, in the
stores at Athens, were sold powerful
glasses called burning Spheres" and
Layard, the explorer, found a magnifying
glass amid the ruins of Nineveh and in
the palace of Nimrod. Whether through
magnifying instrument or with unaided
eve cannot say, but am sure that Job
somehow went through the galleries of the
snowflake and counted its pillars and
found wonders, raptures, mysteries, theol-
ogies, majesties, infnities walking up and
down its corridors, as a result Of the ques-
ton which the Lord had asked him, Hast
thou entered into the treasures of the
snowF
Oh, it is a wondrous meteorl Hum
boldt studied it in the Andes, twelve thou
sand feet above the level of the sea. De
Saussure reveled among these meteors in
the Alps, and DR.. Scoresby counted ninety
six varieties Of snowflake amid the arc
tics. They are in shape Of stars, in shape
of coronets, in shape Of cylinders; are glob-
ular, are hexagonal, are pyramidal, are
castellated. After a fresh fall of snow,
in one walk you crush under your feet
Tuilleries, Windsor castles, st. Pauls, St.
Peters St. Marks, cathedrals, Alhambras
and Sydenham palaces innumerable. /
know it depends much on our own condi-
ton what impression these flying rneteors
of the snow make.
shall not forget two rough and unpre-
tending wood cuts which 1 saw in my boy
hood side by side; one picture of a prosper
Gus farmhouse, with all signs of comfort,
and lad warmly clothed looking out Of
the door upon the first furry of snow, and
his mind no doubt filed with the sound Of
iinRiing sleigh bells and the frolic with
playfellows in the deep banks, and he,
clapping his hands and shouting, 1T snowsi
it snowsr" The other sketch was Of boy,
haggard and hollow eyed with hunger,
looking from the broken door Of awretched
home. and seeing in thefallfng flakes proph-
ecy of more cold and less bread and great
er privation, wringing his hands and with
tears rolling down his wan cheeks, crying,
"Oh, my Godl it snowsl it snows" Out
Of the abundance that characterizes most
of our homes may there go speedy relief to
all whom this winter finds in want and
exposure.
GOD IN THE SNOWFLAKE.
And now l propose, for your spiritual
and everlasting profit, if you will accept
my guidance, to take you through some of
these wonders Of capitalization. And
notice first God in the Titles. You may
take alpenstock aud cross the Mer de
Glace, the sea Of ice, and ascend Mont
Blanc, which rises into the clouds like a
pillar Of the great white Throne; or with
arctic explorer ascend the mountains
around the north pole, and see glaciers a
thousand feet high grinding against glac-
iers three thousand feet high. But will
take you on a less pretenhous journey and
show you God in the snowflake. There is
room enough between its pillars for the
great Jehovah to stand. n that one frozen
drop on the tip Of your finger you may find
the throne room Of the Almighty. / take
up the snow in my hand and see the cours-
ers of celestial dominion paving these
crystal payements.
The telescope is grand, but must con-
fess that am quite as much interested in
the microscope. The ohe reveals the uni
verse above us; the other just as great a
universe beneath u.s. But the telescope
overRhelms me, while the microscope com
forts me What You want and 1 want es-