Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1891-02-27
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUN
DAY SERMON.


uTOSS1y naIRnGQ Is TIE season or winter
! The spring and summer and autumn have
had many admirers but winter hoary
headed and white BEARDED winter hath had
more enemies THAI friends Yet without
winter the human race would oe inane and
efOrtleSs. You might speak of the winter as
the mother of tempests | take it as the
| father of a whole family of physical, mental
and spiritual energies. The most people that
| know are strong in proportion to the num-
| Der of snow banks they had to climb over or
! fathers drove the sled loaded with logs
! through the crunching drifts high as toe
fences.
| At this season of the year. when we ara
/ SO familiar with the snow, those frozen van
| pors, those falling blossoms of the SKY. those
| white angels of the atmosphere, those poems
/ of the storm, those IliadS and Odvsseys of
the wintery tempest, l turn over the leaves
of my Bible and-though most of it was
written IN cline where snow seldom or
never fell find many of these beautiful
congelations. Though the writer's NAV SCI
dom or never have felt the cold touch of the
snowflake on their cheek, they had in sight
two mountains the tops OF which were silp-
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 a Dit.
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 snow"
L rather think that Job may have exam
med the snowflake with a 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 or. 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 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 the
ruins OF Nlneveh and In the palace of MINI
rod. Whether through magnifying instru-
ment or with unaided eye I cannot say, but
am sure that Job somehow went through
the galleries of the snowflake and counted It's
pillars and found wonders raptures. mys-
teries, theologies, majesties, infnities walk
ing up and down its corridors, as a result of
the question which the Lord had asked him
''Hast thou entered into the treasures of the
snOwT'
Oh, it is 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
DIR. 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 are hexagonaI.
are pyramidal, are castellated. After fresh |
1all or snow, In one walk you crush under |
your feet, Tuilleries Windsor castles. st. |
Pauls, st. Peters, st. Marks, cathedrals. |
Alhambras and Sydenham palaces innumer-
able: know it depends much on our own
condition what impression these flying
meteOrs of the snow make.
shall not forget two rough and unpre-
tending wood cuts which I saw in my boy
hood side by side; one picture Of prosper
Gus farmhouse, with all signs of comfort
and a 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 frolic with playfel-
lows in the deep banks, and he, clapping his
hands and shouting, ut snOws it snowsm
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 snowsp' Out of the abundance
that characterizes most Of our homes may
there be speedy relief to all whom this win
And now propose, for your spiritual and
everlasting profit, if you will accept my guild
ance, to take you through some of these Won
ders of crystalIzation. And notice first God
in the Titles. You may take alpenstock and
cross the Mer de Glace the of ice, and
ascend Mont Blanc, which rises into the
clouds like pillar of the great white Throne,
or with arctic explorer ascend the mountains
around the north POLE and glaciers a
thousand feet high grinding against glaciers
three thousand feet high. But L will take
you on a less pretenti0us journey and show
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 my hand and see the coursers of celestial
dominion paving these crystal pavements
The telescope is grand, but l must confess
that | am quite much interested III the
microscope. The one reveals the universe
above us; the other just as great universe
beneath us. But the telescope overUhelms
me, while the microscope comforts me. What
YOU want and want especially is a God in
JlttieS. Ii we We're Seraphic or archan gelic !
in our natures we would want to study God
in the great: but such small weak, short
God in the Titles.
When | see the Maker Of the universe Civ
ing Himself to the architecture of a snow
flake, and making its shafts, its domes. its
curves, its walls, its irradiations so perfect l
conclude He will look after our Insignificant
affairs. And if we are of more value than
a sparrow, most certainly we are of more
value than an inanimate snowflake. So the
Bible would chiefly impress with God in
the Titles. 1t does not say, Consider the
clouds" but 1t says, Consider the lilies" 1t
Goes not say, behold the tempests"' but