Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1893-12-09
THE DIVINE BREATH.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE breaches ON THE
MISSION OF THE FROST.
A Sermon Appropriate to the Cold Wealth
er-The Frost as Painter, a Jeweler
and an Evangelist-The Lesson and the
reroration.

and an Evaneelist-The Lesson and the
Peroration.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 3.-Before the usual
throngs that for nearly 25 years have
gathered in the first, second and third
Brooklyn Tabernacles successfully. DR..
Talmage this forenoon preached this
gospel sermon, after commenting upon
an appropriate Scripture lesson and Civ
ing out the most inspiriting hymns. The
subject was, 1.-The Mission of the Frost. :"
Text-Job xxxyii, 10, by the breath of
God frost is given
Nothing is more embarrassing to an
organist or pianist than to put his finger
on key of the instrument and have it
make no response. 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 hopeless
ly damaged and the harmony forever in
complete. | 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,
HE scattereth the boar 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 have made their winged march
southwark. The landscape has been
SCARED by the autumnal equinox. The
huskers have rifed the cornshocks. The
night sky has shown the usual meteoric
restlessness of November. Three sea-
sons of the year are past, and the fourth
and last has entered. Another element
now comes in to bless and adorn and in
struct the world. 1t is the frost. The
palaces Of this king arc far up in the
arctic. Their walls are glittering con-
les 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, noun
a.. c I C i
frigidity! From those hard, white,
FURNISHED portals King Frost descends
and waves his silvery sccpter 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 and hinder and slay, shall
show you that the frost is friend, with
benediction divinely pronounced, and
charged and surcharged with lessons
potent, benefcent and tremendous.
The Bible seven times alludes to the
frost, and we must not ignore it. by
the breath of God frost is given"
First 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 his left hand and pencil Of crystal in his
right hand, be sits down before the hum
blest bush in the latter part of Septem-
Der and begins the slsetching of the
leaves. Now he puts upon the foliage a
faint pallor, and then touch of brown,
and then hue of orange, and last a
fame 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 afew days shows great velocity
of work.
Weenix, the Dutch painter, could make
in summer day three portraits of life
size, but the frost in 10 dayscan paint 10
mountains in life size. 1t makes the last
days Of an autumnal wood the days of
its chiefest glory-Luxembourgs in the
Adirondacks, Louvres in the Sierra Ne
vadas, Vaticans in the White mountains.
The work Of other painters you must see
in the right light to fully appreciate, but
the paintings Of the frost in all lights are
enchanting from the time when the cur
tain 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 con-
fagration upon 5000 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 heights and lengths
and breadths Of tho Alleghanies. When
Titan first gazed upon a sketch Of Cor
reggie, he was wrought up into such &C.
stasy that he cried out, IF were not
Titan, would DO Correggio," and so
great and overpowerful are the autumn
nal scenes of our American forests that
one force of nature might well exclaim
to another, "lf were not the sunlight,
would be the frost"
Rugendas, the German painter, suffer
ing from weakness in his right hand, la
boriously learned to paint with 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 twelve
month, and another spectacle, just as
wonderful, is about to open. Iput you
on the alert and ask you to put your
children on the alert.
Tired of working on the leaves, the
frost will soCl turn to the window panes.
You will soon waken on a cold morning
and ind that the windows of your home
have during the night been adorned with
curves. with coTonets, with exquisite
ness, with pomp, with almost super
natural spectacle. Then you will appre-
ciate what my text says as it declares,
by the breath of God frost is given"
You will see on TIE window pane, traced
there by the frost, whole gardens of
bsauty-ferns, orchids, daffodils, hello
tropes, china asters, fountains. statues,
hounds on the chase, roebucks plunging
into the stream, battle scenes with dy-
ing and dead, eatafalques of kings, tri-
umphal processions-and as the morning
sun breaks through you will see cities
on fire, and bombardment with bursting
shell, and Examinations as for some
great victory, coronations and angels on
the wing.
All night long while you were sleep
ing the frost was working, and you ought
not let the warmth obliterate the scene
until you have admired it, studied it, alb
sorbed it. set it up in your memory for
perpetual refreshment, and realized the