Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-12-15
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The Mission of the Frost"


| 9lren." Job xXxvii., 10.
! Nothing is moro embarrassing IL an otgan
| lst or pianist than to put his finger on ke,
| OF the instrument ard have it make no re-
! spcnse. Though all the other keys are ir
! full play, that one silence destroysthe music
| SO in the great cathedral of Nature, if one
| part fails 10 praise the Lord the harmony is
! halted and lost While fire and hail. snow
| and vapor, respond to the touch OF inspra-
| tIon. if the frost made no utterancs the
! orchestral rendering would be hopaleasly
| damaged and the harmony forever incOm.
| piHte L am moro glad than I can tell that
the white key Of the fros; sounds forth as
| nightly as any Of the ether keys. and when
| David touches it in the Psalms it sounds
| forth the words, ole scattereth the hoqr
| 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 |
undertake it. This is the first Sabbath OF
| winter. The leaves are down. The warmth
| has gone out of the air The birds ha yG
made their winged march southwark The
! landscape has been SCARED by tho autumnal
! equinox. The hUskers have rifed the corn
! shocks. The night sky has shown the usual
! metCOric rcstlesSness of November, Three
| seasons OF the year are past. and the fourth
| ana last has entered. Another element now
! comes in to bless and adOrn and instruct the
world III is the frcst. The palaces of this
king are far up in tle arctic. Their walls
I are gltterIng cOngeatiOn. Windsor castles
ana Iuileries and winter palaces and
henliworths and AIlrambras Of ice,
temples with pendant chandeliers Of
Ice, thrones 81 iceberg on which
eternal silence roigns. theaters on
| whose stage eternal cold dramatlzes eternal
winter, pillars of ice, arches Of ice. crowns
Of ice, chariOts of ice, sepulchers of ice,
mountains OF Ice, dominions of ice--cternal
! lrlgld1ty From those hard. white. FURNISHED
portals King Frost descends and waves his
silVery scepter over our temperate zone
IOu 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 ana
Slay, | shall show you that the frost is a
friend, with benedictiOn divinely pro-
n0unced, and charged and eurcharged with
lessons potent, benctiCent and tremendous
The Bible seven times aIu.Ips 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 htmblest bush in the
latter part OF September and begins the
6ketching of the leaves. Now he puts uDOD
the foliage faint pallor, and then a touch of
brown, and then a hue of orange, and last q
flame of fire. The beech and ash and oak are
TUNED first into sunrises and thCn into sun
sets of vividness and splendOr. AIIthe leaves
are penciled one by one, but sometimes a
whole forest in the course of few davs
shows great velocity of work
WeenlX. the Dutch painter. could make in
a summer day three portraits of life size. but
the frost in ten days can paint ten noun
tatnS III life size. 1t makes the last dayS of
nm autumnal wood the davs of ite chiefest
IrI0rV- I'm hOnrCyl in h,,
LOuvres in the Sierra Nevddas. Vaticans in
the White Mountains. The work of other
painters you must see in tho right light to
fully appreciate, but the paintings of tho
frost in all lights are enchanting from the
time when the curtain of the morning Eftsto
the time when the curtain of the night dr0ps
Michael Angelo put upon one ceiling his
representation of the last Judgment. hut the
frost represents universal cOnlagratiOn
upon 5000 miles Of stretched out grandeur
Leonardo da Ninci put upon few feet Of
canvas our Lords last supper for all ages 70
admire. but the frost puts the cleaning chaI-
ices of the imperial glories of the last sup
per of the dying year in the heights and
lengths ana hreadths of the Aueghanies
When Titan first gazed upon a sketch of
COrregg1O, he was wrought up into such
ecstacy that he cried out, eff I wcro NOT
Titan. | would be COrreggio" AMI SO great
and OverpOwering are the autumnal scenes
OF our American forests that one force of
nature might we'll excIaim to another eff
were not the sunlight. | would be the frost. -"
Rugendas, the German painter, suffering
from weakness in his right hand lah0riOusIy
learned to paint with his left hand but the
frO8ts paints with both hands, and has in
them more skill than all the Rembrandts AMI
Rubens and Vests and POussins and Albert
n"r"rs and Paul Veroneses ard Claudes
gathered in one long art gallery But the
door of that great museum Of autumnal col
5lNG n,
another spectacle just as wonderful is now
open. put YOU on the alert and ask YOU to
put your children on the alert
Tired of working on tho leaves. the frost
will soon turn to the window panes You
will soon waken on a cold morning and ffni
that the windows of Your home have during
the night been adorned with curves with
COrOnets, with exquisitoness. with pomp,
with almost supernatural spectacle. Then
you viii appreciate what my text says us 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
oeauty-ferns, orchids. daffodils, heliotropcs.
china asters, fountains. statues, hounds on
the chase, rOebucks plungjng into the stream
battle scenes with dying and dead. cata-
falQues OF kings, triumphal professions
as the morning sun breaks through YOU will
see cities ON fire, and bombardment with
bursting shell, and illumnations as for some
great victory, coronations and angels on tho
wing.
All night long while you were sleeping tho
frost was working, and you ought not let
the warmth Obliterate the scene until Won
have admired it, studied it. absorbed it, set
1t up in your memory for perpetual refresh
ment and realized the force and magnitude
and intensity of my text. "By the breath OF
God frost is given" On, what Il God we
nave What resources are implied by the fact
That he Is able to do that by tho finger Of tho
frost fifty times in one winter and on n hun
dred thousand window panes for thousands
of winters!
The great art galleries of Venice and Ma
pies and Dresden are carefully guarded,
and governments protect them, for once lost
they can never he reproduced but God sets
up in the royal galleries of the frost pictures
such as no human art could ever produce
hundreds of thousands of them, only for
four or five hours. and then ruhs them out.
making the place clear for a display Just a3
mngnilcent the next morning. No one but
q God could afford to do tkat 1t would
bankrupt everything but inlinity and omni-
DOtencC.
Standing here between the closed doors OF
the pictured woods and the opening doors OF
the transtigured window glass. | want TO
cure my lolly and your folly OF longing for
Gtorlou9 things in the distance, while wo
neglect appreciation OF glorious things near
bN- On IL could only go and see the
factories of lace ut Brussels ~ saws some one
some December morning YOU will see richer
Lace interviewer for Your window panes by
divine fingers. "Oh, if I could see the fac
tories OF silk at Lyons!' says some one.
Nhy, without leaving your home on the
north Sld0 OF your own house OF Christmas
morning you may see where the Lord has
spun silHen threads about your windows this
way ana Observation-Disclosures such as no one
but God can work
Alas. Tor this Slorifcation of the distant
.,F4 = Il NJ
crossing OF oceans and paving a high admis-
Sion IN expenses to look at that which is not
half as well done as something we can see
ny crossing our own room. and free of
ctarge! Ihls praising of Raphaels hundreds
OF years gone, when the greater Raphael. the
Irost' VIII soon be busy at the entrances to
your own home!
- Next speak of the frost as a physician.
ntahalng at the gates of New York harbof
s''' uIlh before last, the frost drove back
the cholera. saving 'EThus for Sb,l. +bo,,