The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-12-06

and third Brooklyn tabernacles success
sively, DR.. Talmage this forenoon
preached this gospel sermon, after COM
menting upon an appropriate scripture
lesson and giving out the most inspirit-
ing hymns. The subject was, 1.-The
Mission of the Frost Text-Job
xxxvii, TO- by the breath OF God frost
is given
Nothing is more embarrassing to an
organist or pianist than to- put his
finger on key Of the instrument and
have il make no response. Though all
the other keys are In full play. that one
silence destroys the music. SO in the
great cathedral of nature, if one part
fails to praise the Lord the harmony is
halted and lost While fire and hail,
snow and vapOr, respond to the touch
of inspiration, if the frost made no
utterance the orchestral rendering would
be hopelessly dana ged and the harmony
forever incomplete. L am more glad
than L can tell that the white key Of the
frost sounds forth as nightly as any
of the other keys. and when David
touches it in the psalms it sounds forth
the words, He scattereth the boar
frost like ashes,'' and when Job touches
it in my text it resOunds with the words,
by the breath Of God frost is given"
As no one seems disposed to discuss
the mission of frost, depending on divine
help 1 undertake it. This is the 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 autumnal equinox.
Tbo har rfH 81
The night sky has shown the usual
meteoric restlessness of November.
Three seasons of the year are past, and
the fourth and last has entered. Another
element now comes in to bless and
adorn and instruct the world. 1t is the
frost. The palaces Of this king are far
up in the arctic Their walls are gilt
tering congelatiOn. Windsor castles and
Tuileries and winter palaces and Kenil-
worths and AIhambras OF ice, temples
with pendant chandeliers of ice. thrones
of iceberg on which eternal silence
reigns, theaters on whose stage eternal
cold dramatizes eternal winter, pillars
of ice. arches of ice, crowns of ice,
chariots of ice, sepulchers Of ice. noun
tains of ice, dominions Of ice-eternal
frigidity! From those hard, white,
and waves his silvery scepter over our
temperate zone. You will soon hear his
heel on the skating pond. You already
feel his breath in the night wind. BY
most considered an enemy coming here
TO benumb and hinder and slay. 1 shall
show you that the frost is a friend, with
benediction divinely pronounced, and
charged and surcharged with lessons
potent beneficent and tremendous The
bible seven times alludes to the frost.
and we must not ignore it. by the
breath of God frost is given"
Natures MarveIs i'm Art.
First l think of frost as a painter
He begins his work on the leaves and
continues it on the window panes With
palette covered with all manner Of col
ors in his left hand and pencil OF crys-
tai in his right hand. he sits down be-
fore the humblest bush In the latter
part of September and begins the
sketching of the leaves. Now he puts
upon the foliage a faint pallor. and
then a touch of brown. and then a hue
of orange. and last a flame Of fire. The
beech and ash and oak are turned first
into sunrises and then into sunsets Of
vividness and splendor. All the leaves
are penciled one by one, but sometimes
whole forest in the course OF a few
days shows great velocity OF work.
Weenix, the Dutch painter, could
make in a summer day three portraits
of life size, but the frost in ten days
can paint ten mountains in life size. 1t
makes the last days Of an autumnal
wood the days Of its chiefest glory
Luxembourgers in the Adirondacks
Louvres 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 paint
ings Of the frost in all lights are en-
chanting from the time when the cur
tain Of the morning lifts to the time
when the curtain of the night drops
Michael Angelo put upon one ceiling
his representation Of the last judgement
but the frost represents universal con-
Migration upon 5000 miles Of stretched
out grandeur Leonardo de Vinci put
upon a few feet Of canvas our Lords
last supper for all ages to admire. but
the frost puts the cleaning chalices of
the imperial glories OF the last supper
of the dying year in the nights and
lengths and breadths OF the Alleghanies
When Titan first gazed upon a sketch
Of Correggio, he was wrought I'M into
such ecstacy that he cried out, IF I
were not Titan, I would be Correggio +"
and so great and overpowerine are the
autumnal scenes Of our American for
ests that one force OF nature might
well exclaim to another, "If I were
not the sunlight, I would be the frost"
Rugendas. the German painter suffer-
ing from weakness in his right hand
labOriously learned to paint with his
left hand. but the frost paints with
both hands, and has in them more skill
than all the Rembrandts and Rubens
and Vests and Pousins and Albert
Durers and Paul Veroneses and CIaudes
gathered in one long art gallery. But
the door Of that great museum of an
tumnal coloring is now closed for a
twelvemOnth, and another spectac Gle
just as wonderful IL now open. I nut
you on the alert and ask you TO put
your children on the alert
Tired of working on the leaves the
frost will soon turn TO the window
paDes. You will soon waken on a cold
morning and find that the windows of
yoar home have during the night been
adorned with curves, with coronets. with
exquisiteness, with pomp. with almost
supernatural spectacle. Then you will
appreciate what my text saws as IL de-
clares, by the breath Of God frost is
given" You will see on the vvfndouy
pane. traced there by the frost. whole
gardens OF beauty-ferns, orchids. daffo-
dis. heliotropes. china asters, fountains
statues, hounds on the chase, roebucks
plunging into the stream battle scenes
with dying and dead, catafalques of
kings. triumphal processions-and as the