The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-03-04
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: 'gThe Lessons of Winter"

Subject: ''The Lessons Of Winter"
| F TEXT: "Hast thou ehtered into the treas
t1es Of the SnoU:'-Job xxxviii., %.
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 without
winter the human race would ae inane and
| efPortless. You might speak Of the winter as
the mother Of tempests. l take it as the
and spiritual energies. The most people that
know are strong in proportion to the num-
ber of snow banks they had 10 climb over or
push through in childhood, 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 vap-
pors those falling blossoms of the sky, those
of the storm, those Iliads and Odysseys Of
the wintery tempest, turn over the leaves
of my Bi6le and-though most of it was
written in q cline where snow seldom or
never fell find many of these beautiful
congelations. Though the writers may sei-
dom or never have felt the cold touch Of the
snowflake on their chesk, they had in sight
two mountains the tops OF which we're slg-
gestive. Other kings sometimes take OFF
their crowns, but Lebanon and Mount Her.
mon 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
fight between Benaiah and lion in pit,
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 its
wonders. saying, Hast thou entered into
the treasures of the snow"
rather think that JOB may have exam
ined the snowflake with microscopes; 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 combatants through q 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 magnifying glass amid ths
ruins of Nineveh and in the palace Of MINI
rod. Whether through magnifying instru-
ment or with unaided eye cannot say, but
am sure that Job somehow went through
the galleries of the snowflake and counted its
pillars and found wonders raptures, mys-
teries, theologies, majestieS, intinities walk.
ing up and down its corridors, as result Of
the question which the Lord had asked him,
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the
snow"
Oh, it is q wonderous meteor! Memboldt
studied it in the Andes, twelve thousand feet
above the level Of the sea. De Saussure re-
veled among these meteors in the Alps, and
DR.. Scoresby counted ninety six varieties Of
snowflake amid the arctics. They are in
shape of stars IN shape Of coronets, in shape
of cylinders; are globular, ara hexagonal.
are pyramidal are castellated. After 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 innuner-
able. know it depends much on our own
condition what impression these flying
meteors of the snow make.
shall not forget two rough AMI unpre-
tending wood cuts which / saw in my boy
hood side by side: one picture of 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 filled with the sound Of jim
Cling sleigh bells and the frOic with playfel-
lows in the deep banks, and he, clapping his
hands and shouting, ut SHOWS! it SHOWS"
The other sketch was Of boy, haggard and
hollow eyed with hunger. looking from the
broken door Of a wretched home, and seeing
in the falling flakes prophecy Of more cold
and less bread and greater privation, wiring
ing his hands and with tears rolling down
his wan cheeks crying, "Oh, my God! it
SHOWS! it SHOWS" Out Of the abundance
that characterizes most Of our homes may
there be speedy relief to all whom this win
ter fndsin want and exposure.
And now I propose, for your spiritual and
everlasting profit, if you will accept my guild
ance, to take you through some of these won.
ders of crystallization. And notice first God
in the Titles You may take alpenstock and
cross the Mer de Glace the sea Of ice, and
ascend Mont Blanc, which rises into the
clouds like pillar of the great white Throna,
or with arctic explorer ascend the mountains
around the north pole, and see glaciers
thousand feet high grinding against glaciers
three Thousand feet high. But l will take
you on a less pretentious journey and snow
YOU God in the snowflake. There is room
enough between its pillars for the great Je-
hovah to stand. In that one frozen drop on
the tip of your finger you may find the throne
room of the Almighty. take up the snow
in nv hand and see the coursers OF celestlai
dominion paving these crystal pavements.
The telescope is grand, but must confess
that am quite as much interested In the
microscope. The one reveals the universe
above us; the other just as great universe
beneath US. But the telescope overwhelms
me- while the microscope comforts me. What
II, ip Ia in
littles If We We're seraphic or archan9elic
in our natures we would want to study God
in tho great: but such small, weak, short
lived beings as you and | are want to find
God in the Titles.
When see the Maker OF the universe CIV
ing Himself to the architecture of snow
fake and making its shafts, its do:neS, its
curves, its walls, its irrahiations SO perfect l
conclude He will look after our Insignificant
affairs And if we are of more value than
q sparrow, most certainly we are of moro
value than an inanimate snowflake. So the
Bible would chiefly impress us with God in
the litt:es. 1t does not say, Consider the
Clouds" but it says, Consider the lilies 1t
does not say, behold the tempestsn but
"Behod the fowls aud it app!auds cup OF
cold water and the widows two mites, and
says the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Do not fear, therefore, that you are gong TO
be lost in the crowd. DO not think that be-
cause you estimate yourself as only one
snowflake among three days January snow
storm that you will be forgotten. The birth
and death Of drop of chilled vapor is as
certainly regarded by the Lor: as the cree-
ticn and demolition of planet. Nothing Is
big to God and nothing is small.
What makes the honey industries Of South
Carolina such a source of livelihood and
wealth? 1t is because God teaches the lady
bug to make an opening in the rind OF the
apricot for the bee, who cannot otherwise
get at the juices of the fruit. So God sends
the ladybug ahead to prepare tie way for