Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-02-12
THELESSONS OF WINTER.
ALL SEASONS HAVE THEIR LESSONS
FOR THE CHRISTIAN.

Beautiful Imagery Of the Bible, Teach
Ing Lessons from Nature-The SHOWS Of
Lebanon and Moust Hermon-The pAsgs
OF st. Bernard.
New YORK. Feb. s.-The remarkable
movement initiated by The Christian
Herald services in the Academy of Music
is growing apace, and negotiations are
pending for additional accommodations on
a gigantic scale Dr. Talmages sermons
have set thousands of the people OF New
York to serious thinking on religious mat
tiers. 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
they speedily occupy the orchestra chairs
while DIR. 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 a 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, %, Hast thou entered
into the treasures of the snowg"
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
out winter the human race would be inane
and effortless. You might speak of the
inf fhx.rs han. Of
it as the father of 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 Iliaus 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 lind many of these
beautiful congelations. Though the writers
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 off their crowns. but Leb-
anon and Mount Hermon all the year
round and through the ages never lift the
coronets of crystal from their foreheads
The first time we find n deep fall IF snow
in the Bible is where Samuel describes
fight between Benaiah and a 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 snowS"
JOB. THE LEARNED SCIENTIST
rather think that Job may have exam.
ined the snowflake with 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 a 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
l.ayard. the explorer, found a magnifying
glass amid the ruins of Nineveh and in
the palace of Nimrod. Whether through
magnifying instrument or with unaided
eye cannot say, but am sure that Job
somehow went through the galleries Of the
n a 1lu.a nd
found wonders. raptures mysteries theol-
ogies, maiesties, infnities walking up and
down its corridors. as a result Of the ques-
tion which the Lord had asked him, "IIast
thou entered into the treasures Of the
snowS'
Oh, It IS 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 DIR. 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. Sc. Marks, cathedrals, Alhambras
and SydenAam palaces innumerable.
know il depends much on our own condi-
ton what impression these flying meteors
of the snow make.
| shall not forget two rough and unpre-
tending wood cuts which saw in my boy.
hood side by side: one a picture OF prosper
Gus farmhouse, with all signs of comfort,
and a lad warmly clothed looking out of
tbe door upon the first furry of snow, and
his mind no doubt filed with the sound of
iingling 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,
haprard and hollow eyed with hunger.
looking from the broken door Of awretcbed
home. and seeing in the falling flakes proph-
ecv 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 SHOWS" Out
of the abundance that characterizes most
of our homes may there 90 speedy rellef TO
all whom this winter finds in want and