The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1893-12-07

TIMELY SERMON BY pR.TALMAop
Subtle Lessons Conveyed TO Us by the
Forerunner OF Winter.

giuen." Job xxxvii., 10.
Nothing IA more embarrassing 10 an organ
fst or pianist than to put his finger on key
OF the instrument ard have Il make no re-
sponse. Though all the other keys are In
full play. that one silence DESTROYS the music
10 In the great cathedral OF Nature, II one
part fails TO praise the Lord the harmony Is
halted and lost. While Are and hail, snow
and vapor. respond TO the touch OF inspira-
ton. IL the frost made no utterance the
orchestral rendering would be hopelessly
damaged and the harmony forever incom-
plete. l am moro glad than can tell that
the white key OF the frost sounds forth "a
nightly as any OF the other keys, and when
David touches II in tho Psalms II sounds
forth the words, "He scattereth the hoar
frost like ashes" and when Job touches II in
my text II resounds with the words, "By the
breath OF God frost Is given"
As no one seems disposed 10 discuss the
mission Of frost. depending on divine help
undertake H. 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 southward. The
landscape has been Scared by the autumnal
equinox. The huskers have rined the corn
shocks. The night sky has shown the usual
meteoric restlessness OF November. Throe
seasons OF the year are past. and the fourth
and last has entered. Another element now
comes In 60 bless and adorn and instruct the
world. II is the frost. Tho palaces OF this
King are far up In the arctic. Their walls
are glittering congeation. Windsor castles
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, dominlons 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 here TO benumb aud hinder and
slay, | shall show you that the frost Is a
friend, with benediction divlneIy pro-
nounced. and charged and surcharged with
lessons potent, benellcent and tremendous
The Bible seven times alludes to the frost.
and we must not ignore IL. "By the breath
OF God frost is given"
First think of frost as a painter He he
gins his work on the leaves and continues IL
on the window pines. 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 humbles' bush In the
latter part OF September and begins the
stretching OF the leaves. Now \, puts upon
the foliage faint pallor. and then touch OF
brown, and then a hue of orange, and last n
flame Of fire. The beech and ash and oak a r.,
turned first into sunrises and then into sun
sets OF vividness and splendor. Allthe leaves
are penciled one 10y one, but sometimes a
whole forest in the course Of few DAYS
shows great velocity of work.
Weenix, the Dutch painter, could mako in
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 chiefest
glory Luxembourgs In the Adirondacks.
II tt.N Nh.s A.. -
the White Mountains. The WORK OF other
painters you must SEQ in the right light TO
fully appreciate, but the paintings OF the
frost In all lights ars enchanting from the
time when the odrtain 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 confiagration
upon 5000 miles OF stretched out grandeur
Leonardo da vlnci put upon few feet OF
canvat our Lords last supper for all ages TO
admire, but the frost puts the cleaning chal-
ices OF the imperial glories of tho last sup
per OF the dying year in the heights and
lengths and breadths OF the Alleyhanies
When Titan first gazed upon a sketch OF
CorregSio, he was wrought up into such
ecstacy that he cried out, "If 1 were not
Titan, would be Correggio," and so great
and overpowerlng are the autumnal scenes
of our American forests that one force OF
nature might well eSclaim 10 another "If
were not the sunlight, would be the frost"
..ugendhs, the German painter, suffering
from weakness in his right hand, laboriousIy
learned TO paint wiki his left hand but the
frosts paints with both hands, and has In
-ahem more skill than all the Rembrandts and
Rubens aud Vests and Poussins and Albert
Durers and Paul Veroneses and Claudes
gathered in one long art gallery. But the
door OF that great museum OF autumnal coll
oring is now closed for a twslvemonth, and
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 the leaves, the frost
will soon turn to the window pants. You
VIII soon waken on cold morning and find
that >he windows of your home have during
the night been adorned with curves, with
coronets. with exquisiteness with pomp,
with almost supernatural spectacle. Then
Won VIII appreciate what MY text says as it
declares, by the breath OF God frost Is
given You will see on the window pane.
ID there by the frost, whole gardens OF
beauty-ferns, orchids, daffodils, heliotropes.
china asters, fountains. statues, hounds on
the chase, roebucks plunging into the stream
battle scenes with dying and dead, cata-
faiques OF kings, triumphal professions
as the morning sun breaks through you will
see cities On fire, and bombardment with
bursting shell, and illuminations as for some
great victory, coronatlons and angels on the
wing.
All hikut ioub Wniie you were sleeping the
frost was working, and you ought not let
the warmth obliterate the scene until YOU
have admired II, studied it, absorbed II, set
II 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 IL given" Oh what Col we
have What resources are implied 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 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 be reproduced. but God sets
up In the royal galleries of the frost pictures
such rs no human art could ever produce,
hundreds OF thousands OF them, only for
four or five hours, and then rubs them out
making the place clear for a display Just as
magnificent the next morning. No one but
a God could afford to do that. II would
bankrupt everything but innnity and omni-
potence.