Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1893-12-08
REV. DR., TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine'S Sun
day Sermon.
Subject; "The Mission of the Frost"

yicen. Job xxxvii., 10.
Nothing is more embarrassing TO an organ.
ist or pianist than to put his finger on a key
of the instrument ard have it make no re-
Spouse. 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 inspira-
ton, if the frost made no utterance the
orchestral rendering would be hopelessly
damaged and the harmony forever incom-
plete. | am more glad than l can tell that
the white key OF the frost sounds forth as
nightly az any Of the other keys, AMI when
David touches it in the Psalms it sounds
forth the words. "He scattereth the hoar
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. Deepen ling on divine help
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 ahtumnal
equinox. The huskers have rined the corn
shocks. The night sky has shown the usual
meteoric testlessness of November. Three
,
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 glitterng congelatlon. Windsor castles
and Tuileries and winter palaces and
Kenilworths and Alhambras 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,
mountains OF ice, dominions OF ice-eternal
frigidity From those hard. white. FURNISHED
portals King Frost descends 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 hero 10 benumb and hinder and
Stay, | shall show you that the frost is a
friend with benediction divinely pro-
nounced, and charged and surcharged with
lessons potent benehcent and tremendous.
The Bible seven times aludes to the frost,
and we must not ignore it, "By the breath
of God frost is given
First think of frost as a 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 oil the leaves. Now he puts upon
the foliage faint palor. and then touch Of
brown, and then a hue OF orange, and last a
fame offre. The beech and ash and oak are
turned first into sunrises and then into sun
sets of vividness and splendor Allthe leaves
are penciled one by one, but sometimes n
whole forest in the course OF 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 noun
tains in life size. II makes the last DAYS Of
an autumnal wood the days OF its chefest
glory Luxembourgs in the Adirondack,
Louvres in the Sierra Nevddas, Vaticans in
the White Mountains. The work Of other
painters you must sec in the right light to
fully appreciate. but the paintings Of the
frost in all lights are enchanting from the
time when the curtain 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 judgment. but the
frost represents universal conhagration
upon 5000 miles Of stretched out grandeur.
Leonardo da Ninci put upon few feet of
canvas our Lords last supper for all ages to
admire, but the Fl, st puts the cleaning chal-
ices Of the imperial glories OF the last sup
per OF the dying year in the heights and
lengths and breadths Of the Alleghanies
When Titan first gazed upon q sketch Of
COrreggiO, no was wrought up into such
ecstacy that he cried out, If | were not
Titan, / would be COrreggio," and 50 great
and overpOwering arc the autumnal scenes
OF our American forests that one force Of
nature might well cXclaim 20 another. III
were not the sunlight, l would be the frost. g
Rugendas the German painter, suffering
from weakness in his right hand. la5oriousy
learned to paint with his left hand. but the
frosts paints with both hands, AMI has in
them more skill than all the Rembrandis an
Rubens AMI Vests and Poussins AMI Albert
Durers AMI Paul NerOneses an Claude3
gathered in one long art gallery. But tho
door of that great museum Of autumnal co..
Oring is now closed for twelvemonth. and
another spectacle Just ne wonderful is now
Op0n. / put YOU on the alert and ask YOU 70
put your children on the alert
Tired of working on the leaves. the frost
will soon turn TO the window panes. You
will soon waken on a cold morning and find
that tho windows Of your 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 it
declares, by the breath Of God frost is
given. You will see on the window pane,
traced there by the frost, whole gardens Of
beauty-ferns orchids, dahodils. helotrOpes,
china asters, fountains, statues. hounds on
the chase, roebucks punging into the stream,
battle scenes with dying and dead, cata.
falques OF kings, triumphal professions and
as the morning sun breaks through you will
see cities On fire. and b0mbariment with
bursting shell, and illuminatons as for some
great victory corOnations and angels on the
wing.
All night long while YOU were sleeping tho
frost was wOrSiny, and you ought not let
the warmth o5lterate the scene until YOU
have admired it. studied if. absorbed it, set
it up in your memory for perpetual refresh
ment and realize the force and magnitude
and intensity OF my text. by the breath Of
God frost is given Oh what a Go 4 We
have What resources are nipple by the fact
that he is able TO do that by the finger OF the
frost fifty times in one winter and on a hun
dred THOUSAND window plnes for thousands
OF winters
The great art galleries OF Venice AMI Ma
pies and Dresden are carefully guarded,
and governments protect them. for once lost -,
they can never be repro iueeJ. but Go sets
up in the royal galleries Of the frost pictures
such rs no human art coud ever pro luce.
hundreds OF thousands OF them, only for
four or five hours, and then rubs them out,
making the place clear for a display just az
magnificent the next morning. No one but
a God could afford TO do that. It would
bankrupt everything but inanity and onni-
potence
Standing here between the close doors OF
the pictured WOO Is and the opening doors OF
the TRANSPORTED win low glass. | want to
cure my folly and your folly OF longing for
glorious things in the distance. while we
neglect appreciation OF glorious things near
by. "Oh, IL 1 could only 20 and see the
factories Of lace at Brussels !" says some one.
Why within thirty feet OF where you awaken
some December morning you will see richer
lace interviewer for your window panes by
divine fingers. "Oh. If | could see the fac
tories o! silk at Lyons says some one.
Why without leaving your home on the
north side OF your own house on Christmas
morning you may sac wdcr) the Lord has
spun silken threads about your win1owsthia
way and that -embroideries such rs no On'
but God can work.
Alas, for this glorifcation OF the distant
and this belittiing Of the close by Tlis
crossing Of oceans AMI paying a high admis
sion in expenses 90 look at that which IS nc
half as well done as something we can Sc
by crossing our own room, and free C
cnsrgel This praising Of PaphaelS EIndrei'
Of years gone, when the create Raphael, Tho
frost will soon be busy e. the entrances {.