Connecticut western news., 1893-12-07


 the frost pictures such as no human art could ever produce, hundreds of thou sands of them, only for four or five hours, and then rubs them out, making the place clear for display just as mag nifcent the next morning. No one but a God could afford to do that. It would bankrupt everything but infnity and omnipotence.
 Standing here between the closed doors of the pictured woods and the opening doors of the transfgured window glass, I want to cure my folly and your folly of longing for glorious things in the dis tance, while we neglect appreciation of glorious things close by. "Oh, if could only go and see the factories of lace at Brusselsp says some one. Why, within 20 feet of where you awaken some De- cember morning you will see richer lace interwoven for your window panes by divine fingers. "Oh, if I could see the factories of silk at Lyonsp' says some one. Why, without leaving your own house on Christmas morning you may see where the Lord has spun silken threads about your windows this way and that -embroideries such as no one but God can work.
 Alas, for this glorifcation of the dis tant and this belittling of the close byl This crossing of oceans and paying a high admission in expenses to look at that which is not half as we'll done as some thing we can see by crossing our own room, and free of charge. This praising of Raphaels, hundreds of years gone,s when the greater Raphael, the frost, will soon be busy at the entrances to your own home.
 Next speak of the frost as physi- clan. Standing at the gates of New York harbor autumn before last, the frost drove back the cholera, saying, 'Thus far shalt thou come and no farther" From Memphis and New Orleans and Jacksonville he smote the fever plague till it reeled back and departed. The frost is 8 physician that doctors cities, nations and continents. He medicines the world. Quinine for malaria, antife- brile for typhoids, sulphonal for sleep lessness, antispasmodic for disturbed nerves, but in all therapeutics there is no remedy like the small pellets prepared by the cold, and no physician so skillful or so mighty as the frost.
 Scotland has had great physicians, but her greatest doctors have been the Abernethies and Abercrombies that have come down over the highlands horsed on the north wind. England has had her great physicians, but her great est doctors have been the Andrew Clarkes and the Mackenzies who ap- peared the first night the fields of Eng land were trimmed with white. America has had it's great physicians, but her greatest doctors have been the Willard ed from bleak skies while our fingers were benumbed and our ears tingled with the cold. Oh, it is high time that you add another line toyour liturgy. It is high time that you make an alden dunn to your prayers. It is high time that you enlarge the catalogue of your blessings.
 Thank God for frostl It is the best of all germicides. It is the only hope in bacteriology. Itis the medicament of continents. It is the salvation of our temperate zone. It is the best tonic that God ever gave the human race. It is the only strong stimulant which has no reaction. The best commentary on it had while walking near here one cool morning with my brother John, who spent the most of his life as missionary in China, and in that part of it where there are no frosts. He sad there was tingling gladness in his nerves inde- scribable and an almost intoxication of delight from the fact that it was the first time for years he had felt the sensa- tion of frost. We complain of it, we scold it, we frown upon it, when we ought to be stirred by it to gratitude and hoist 1t on a doxology.
 But I must go farther and speak of the frost as jeweler. As the snow is frozen rain, SO the frost is frozen dew. God ] transforms it from liquid into crystal. It is. the dew glori6ed. In the thirty eighth chapter of that inspired drama, the book of Job, God says to the inspired dramatist with ecstatic interrogation, sThe hoary frost of heaven, who hath | gendered it?' God there asks Job if he | knows the parentage of the frost. He in- | quires about its pedigree. He suggests that Job study up the frost's genealogical line. A minute before God had asked about the parentage of raindrop in words that years ago gave me suggest | i've text for a sermon, "Hath the rain a fatherr' But now the Lord Almighty is catechising Job about the frost He practically says: Do you know it's fa- ther2 Do you know it's mother? In what cradle of the leaves did the wind rock it? The hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered itp'"
 He is stupid Christian who thinks so much of the printed and bound Bible that he neglects the Old Testament of | the fields nor reads the wisdom and kindness and beauty of God written in blossoms on the orchard, in sparkles on the lake, in stars on the sky, in frost on the meadows. The greatest jeweler of all the earth is the frost. There is noth- ing more wonderful in all crystallog- raphy. Some morning in December a whole continent is found besprinkled with diamonds, the result of one nights work by this jeweler.
 Do you make the depreciatory remark that the frost is impermanent and will last only two or three hours? What ot thatr We go into London tower and look at the crown jewels of England, but we are in procession that the guards keep moving on, and five minutes or less are your only opportunity of looking al those crown jewels, but at the crown
 jewels bestarred of the frost in parks
 and fields you may stand to look delib-
 erately and for. hours, and no one to tell
 you to move on.
 Oh, these regalias and diadems oi
 beauty flung out of heavenl Kings and
 queens on celebrative days have come
 riding through the streets throwing
 handfuls of silver and gold among the
 people, but the queen of the winter
 morning is the only queen rich enough
 to throw pearls, and the king of frost
 the only king rich enough to throw opa1s
 and sapphires and diamonds. Homer I,oo ,no1x1oco oP Iar rr;xox, +<