Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-12-15
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
day Sermon.
Subject; "The Mission of the Frost"


queen. JOB xxxvii., 10.
Nothing is more embarrassing to ali organ
lst or pianist than 10 put his finger on a kew
ot the ihstrameht ard have it make no re-
sp0nse Though all the ether keys are in
1ull play, that ono silehce destroys the music.
30 IN the great cathedral of Nature. if one
part fails 10 praise the Lord the. harmony Is
matted and lost. While fire and bah, snow
and yapor, respond to the touch of inspira-
ton, If the frost made no utterance the
orchestral rendering would be hopelessly
managed and the harmony forever incom-
plete. am more glad than | eau tell that
the white key OF the frost sounds forth ae
nightly rs any OF the other KEYS. an when
David touches it in the PsaIms it sounds
forth the words He s4attereth the boar
Frost like ashes, " nj when Job touches it in
my text it resodn1s with the words, "By The
breath OF God frost is given"
AS no one seems disposed to discuss the
mission OF frost, Deepen ling On divine help
undertake it. This is tho first Sabbath Of
winter. The leaves are down The warmth
has gone out OF the air The birds have
made their winged march southwark. The
landscape has been SCARED BY the autlimnal
equinox. The hnslers have rifsd the corn
shocks. The night sky has shown The usual
meteorlc restlessness of November Three
seasons OF the year are past. ana the fourth
and last has entered. Another element now
comes in &c bless and adorn and instruct the
world, 1t is the frost. The palaces of this
king arc far up in the arctic. Their walls
are gittering copgeiation. Windsor castles
KeniwOrths and Alhambras of ice.
temples with pendant chandeliers Of
ice, thrones Of iceberg on which
eternal silence reiGns, theaters on
whose stage eternal Geld draniatizss eternal
winter, pillars OF ice, Arches az ice. crowns
Of ice, chariots Of ice, sepGlchers of ice.
mountains OF ice, doninons Of ice-eternal
irigldity From those hard white. FURNISHED
portals King Frost 6escends and waves his
sliVery scepter OYER our temperate zone.
You will soon hear his heel on the skating
pond. You already feel his breath in the
hight Wind. B. most considered an enemy
coming hero to benum5 and hinder and
Stay, | shall SHOW you that the frost is a
friend, with benelictioB divinely pro-
nounced, and chaf5ei AMI surcharged with
lessons potent, benefcent AMI tremendous.
The Bible seven times alludes to the frost,
and we must not ignore it. 'By the breath
of God frost is given.
First | think Of frost as painter He be.
gins his work on the leaves and continues it
on the window panes. With palette covered
with all manner of colors in his left hand
and pencil OF crystal in his right hand, he
sits down before the humblest bush in the
latter part of September and begins the
sketching OF the leaves. Now he puts upon
the foliage faint pallof. and then touch OF
brown and then hue of orange, and last a
flame of fire. The beech an ash and oak are
turned first into sunrisss and then into sun
sets of viyidness and p'endor. Allthe leaves
are pencile1 one by on", but sometimes q
whole forest in the course Of a few days
shows great velocity o. work.
Weenix, the Dutcn painter, could make in
Il summer day three portraits Of life size, but
the frost in Ten days can paint ten noun
tains i'll life siz" 1t makes the last days of
an autumHai wool tde days Of its chiefest
glory LuXembourgs in tho Adirondacks,
1ouvres in the Sierra Nevadas, Vaticans in
the White Mountains. The work OF other
painters you must see in the right light to
fully appreciate, but the paintings Of tho
frost i'll AL lights are en- :hanting from the
time when the curtain Ofthe morning liftstd
the time when the curtain Of the night drops.
Michael Angelo put upon one ceiling his
representation of the Inst i'll lgment, but the
frost represents universal confagration
upon 5000 miles Of stretched out grandeur.
Leonardo da Vjnci put Upon d few feet OF
canvas our Lords last supper for all ages to
admire, but the fr 81 puts the cleaning chal=
ices of the imperial gIofies OF the last sup
per OF the dying year in the heights aud
lengths and breadths of the Aleghanies.
When Titan first gazsd upon sketch of
Correggio, he was wrought up into such
ecstacy that he cried tut, III / were not
Titan, would be CorfeSgio," an | so great
and overpOwering are the ati.umnal scenes
OF our American forests that one force of
nature might well exclam to another, 'If
were not the sunlight, would be the frost
Rngendas, the German painter. suffering
from weakness III his right hand, lahoriously
learned 10 paint with his LEFT hand, but the
frosts paints with both han Ii, an has i'll
them more skill than all the Rsmhrandts AMI
Rubens All Vests an PoIssins AMI Albert
Durers AMI Paul Yeronsses AMI Claudes
gathered in one lon cart gallery. But the
door OF that great museum Of au;umna1 co..
Oring is now closed for a twslvemonth, and
another spectacle lust as wonderful is now
open. put YOU onthp alert and ask you to
put your children on tho alert,
Tired OF worSin& on the leaves. the frost
will soon turn to tho window panes. You
will soon WASen on cod mornin, and fin
that the win lows o. your home have during
the night been adorned with curves, wit
coronets, with cxluistensss, with pomp,
with almost supernatural spectacle. Then
you will appreciate wat my text says rs it
declares, by tho breath OF Col frost is
given. You will see on the window pana,
traced there 10y the frost. Whole gardens n
beauty ferns, orchids daffois, neiotropes,
china aster2, fountains. statues, hounds on
the chase, roobuc1s plunging into the stream.
battle scenes with dying and dead cata-
falques Of kings, triumphll processions-an
as the morning sun breaks through you will
cAe 81. I'D MI h Ian. lr,o
bursting shell, and illuminations as for somo
great victory, coronations and angels on tbs
wing.
All night long while you were sleeping the
frost was workinr, and you ought not let
the warmth oOlterlto the scene until vol
have admired it, stu lied it. absorbed it, set
it up in your memory for perpetual refresh
ment aud realized the force ana magnitude
and intensity OF my text. by the breath OF
Goa frost is given" o., what a God We
have What resources are implied by the fact
that he is able to do that by tho finger of the
frost fifty times in one winter and ON hun
dred thousand window paneS for thousands
OF winters
The great art galleries of Venice AM Ne
pies AMI Dresden are carefully guarded,
and governments protect them for onc9 lost,
they can never be reproduced. but Col sets
up in the royal galleries OF the frost pictures
such rs no human art could ever pro luce,
hundreds OF thousands OF them, only for
four or five hours, ana then ru5s them out,
making the place clear for q display just as
magnificent the next morning. No ono but
IA God could afford to do that. 1t would
bankrupt everything but in6nity and omni-
potence.
Standin hero between the closed doors OF
the pictured WOO Is and the opening doors OF
the TRANSPORTED win low glass, | want TO
cure Jny folly and your folly OF longing for
glorious things in the distance, While va
neglect appreciation OF glorious Things near
by. COB, if could only 90 and sec the