Connecticut western news., 1891-02-11

vav lails, auu oIners Iall, ana they pile up, and they make mount ain of fleece on the top of a mountain of rock, until one day gust of w.nd, or even the voice of mountaineer, sets the frozen vapors into action, and by awful descent they sweep every thing in their course-trees, rocks, vii lages-as when, in 1927, the town of Briel in Valais was buried, and in 1924, in Switzerland, three hundred soldiers were intombed. These avalanches were made up of single snowfakes.
 What tragedies of t1e snow have been witnessed by the monks of St. Bernard, who for ages have with the dogs been busy in extricating bewil- dered and overwhelmed travellers in Alpine storms, the dogs with blanket fastened to their backs and fasks of spirits fastened to their neck to resus- citate the helpless travellers, one of these dogs decorated with a medal for having saved the lives of twenty-two persons, the brave beast himself slain of the snow on that day when accom-
 
 way to his anxious household down the mountain, the wife and children of the Piedmontese courier coming up the mountain in search of him, an ava lanche covered all under pyramids higher than those under which the Egyptian monarchs sleep their sleep of the ages!
 What an illustration of the tragedies of the snow is found in that scene be- tween Glencoe and Glencreran one February in Scotland, where Ronald Cameron comes forth to bring to his fathers house his cousin Flora Mac Donald for the celebration of birth day, and the calm day turns into a hurricane of white fury that leaves Ronald and Flora as dead, to be re- suscitated by the shepherdsl What an exciting struggle had Bayard Taylor among the wintry Apenninesl
 SNOW DECIDED THE DEsTINIEs OF
 EUROPE.
 In the winter of 1872, by similar force, the destiny of Europe was de cided. The French army marched up toward Moscow five hundred thousand men. What can resist them? Not bayonets, but the dumb elements over. whelm that host. Napoleon retreats from Moscow with about two hundred thousand men, mighty nucleus for another campaign after he gets back to Paris The morning of Oct. 19, when cto owl Sc hrsr beautiful. The air is tonic, and al though this Russian campaign has been failure Napoleon will try again in some other direction with his host of brave surviving Frenchmen.
 But a cloud comes on the sky, and the air gets chill and one of the sol, diers feels on his cheek snowflake, and then there is multiplication of these wintry messages, and soon the plumes of the officers are decked with another style of plume, and then all the skies let loose upon the warriors a hurricane of snow, and the march becomes diffi- cult, and the horses find it hard to pull the supply train, and the men begin to fall under the fatigue, and many not able to take another step lie down in the drifts never to rise, and the cavalry horses stumble and fall, and one thou, sand of the army fall, and ten thou sand perish, and twenty thousand go down, and fifty thousand and hun, dred thousand and a hundred and twenty thousand and hundred and thirty two thousand die, and the victor of Jena and bridge of Lodi and Eylau and Austerlitz, where three great armies, commanded by three emperors, surrendered to him, now himself sur renders to the snowfakes.
 Historians do not seem to recognize that the tide in that mans life turned from December the 18th, 1909, when he banished by hideous divorce his wife Josephine from the palace and so challenged the Almighty, and the Lord charged upon him from the fortresses of the sky with ammunition of crystal. Showed under! Billions, trillions, quad rillions. quintillions of flakes did the work. And what a suggestion of ac cumulative power, and what rebuke to all of us who get discouraged be- cause we cannot do much, and there fore do nothing
 "Oh," says some one, 'I would like to stop the forces of sin and crime that are marching for the conquest of the nations; but am nobody. have neither wealth nor eloquence nor social power. What can do?" My brother, how much do you weigh-as much as snowflake? ''Oh, yes" Then do your share. It is an aggregation of small influences that will yet put this lost world back into the bosom of a pardoning God Alas! that there are ao nssav men and women who will not use the one talent because they have not ten, and will not give a penny be- cause they can1st give a dollar, and will not speak a we'll as they can be- cause they are not eloquent, and will not be snowflake because they cannot be an avalanche. In earthly wars the generals get about all the credit, but in the war for God and righteousness and heaven all the private soldiers will get crowns of victory unfailing.
 When we reach heaven-by the grace of God may we all arrive there!-1 do not think we will be able to begin the new song right away, because of the surprise we shall feel at the compara- tive rewards given. AS we are being conducted along the street to our celes- tial residence we will begin to ask where live some of those who were mighty on earth We will ask 'Is ,SO-and-SO here2' and the answer will be: "Yes, think he is in the city, but we don't hear much of him; he was good and he