The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-04
THE MISSION OF THE FROST.
Talma6C Tells Of 1t in His Sermon in
The Tabernacle.

Brooklyn, Dec. 3.-Before the usual
throngs that, fornearly twenty-five years,
have gathered in the first, second and
third Brooklyn Tabernacles successfully,
DR.. Talmage this forenoon preached this
gospel sermon, after commenting on an
appropriate scripture lesson a nd giving
out the most inspiriting hymns. The sub
iecU was: "The Mission of the Frost"
Text; Job 81: 10, by the breath of God
frost is given"
! Nothing is more embarrassing TO an or
ganist or pianist than to put his finger on
a key of the instrument and have it TO
make no response. Though all the other
! keys are in fun play, that one silence de-
strOys the music. So in the great cathe-
dral of nature if one part fails to praise
the Lord the harmony is halted and lost.
| While fire and hail, snow and vapor, re-
| spond to the touch of inspiration, If the
| frost made no utturanCe, the orchestral
rendering would be hopelessly damaged
| and the harmony forever incomplete.
| am more glad than | 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: "IIe scattereth
the hoar trostlike 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 hasE gone out of the air. The
| birds have made their winged march
southwark. The landscape has been
SCARED by the autumnal equinox. The
| huskers have rihed the corn shocks. The
night sky has shown the usual meteorio
restlessness OF November. Three seasons
4 / Al.
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 glittering congelation.
| Windsor castles and Tuilleries and
winter palaces and Kenilworths and
| Alhambras of ice. Temples with
pendant chandeliers of ice. Thrones,
of iceberg, on which eternal silence reigns
! Theatres on whose stage eternal cold
dramatizes eternal winter. Pillars of ice.
Arches of ice. Crowns of ice. Chariots
of ice. Sepulchres Of ice Mountains Of
ice. Dominions of ice. Eternal frlgi-
dity From those hard, white, FURNISHED
portals King Frost descends, and waves
his silvery sceptre 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 con
sidered an enemy coming here 10 benumb
and hinder and slay, | shall show you
that the frost is a friend, with benedic-
tion divinely pronounced, and charged
and surcharged with lessons potent, BEN
ehcenJ and tremendous The Bible seven
times alludes TO the frost, and we must
not ignore it. by the breath of God
frost is giVen.o
First, l think Of frost as painter. He
begins his work on the leaves and con-
tinues it on the window-panes. With
palette covered with all manner of colors
in of DaOHil nj
in his right hand, he sits down before
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 touch Of brown,
and then a hue of orange, and last q
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 "A whole forest in the
course Of few days shows great ve-
lOcty 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. II makes the last days of an
autumnal wood the days of its chiefest
glory LuxembOurgs 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 enchant-
ing, and 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 represen-
tation of the Last Judgment, but the
Frost represents universal conhagration
upon three thousand miles of stretched
out grandeur. Leonardo da 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
on the nights and lengths and
breadths Of the Alleghanies. When Titan
first gazed at sketch of Correggio he
was wrought up in such ecstacy that he
cried out: IF | were not Titan l would
be Correggio," and so great and over
poweriug are the autumnal scenes of our
American forests that one force Of nature
might well eXclaim TO another: If l
were not the sunlight ] would be the
frost" Rugendas, the German painter,
| suffering from weakness in his right
hand, laboriOusly learned 10 paint with
I 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 Poussins and Albert DurerS
and Paul Veroneses and Claudes gath
cred in one long art gallery. But the
door Of that great museum of autumnal
coloring is now closed for a twelvemonth,
ana anOIhcr spectacle, JuSJ as WONDERFUL,
is about to open. / put 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 panes. You will soon waken on
} a cold morning and find that the windows
OF your home have, duringlthe night, been
adorned with curves, with cOronets, with
exquisiteness, with pomp, with almost
supernatural spectacle. Then you will
@ appreciate what my text says, as it de-
clares, 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, daffodils, hello
{ tropes, china asters, fountains, statues,
hounds on the chase, roebucks plunging
into the stream, battle scenes with dying
and dead, catafalques of kings, triumphal
y professions, and as the morning sun
/. breaks through you will see cities on fire,
, and bombardment with bursting shell,
+ and illuminations as for some great
, victory, coronations, and angels on the
e wing. All night long, while you were
e sleeping, the frost was working, and you
/ ought not let the warmth obliterate the
g scene until you have admired il, studied