The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-12-20
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: ssThe Mission Of the Frost"

giuen." Job xxxvii., 10.
Nothing is more embarrassing to an organ
ist or pianist than to put his finger on key
of the instrument ard have 1t make no re-
sponse. Though all the other keys are IN
full play, that one silence destroys the music.
30 in the great cathedral of Nature, II 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 hopelessly
damaged and the harmony forever incom-
plete. I 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 1t in the Psalms 1t sounds
forth the words, she scattereth the hoar
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 I
undertake 1t. 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 riled the corn.
shocks. The night sky hos shown the usual
meteoric restlessness of November Three
seasons OF the year are past. and the fourth
and last has entered. Another element now
comes in to bless and adorn and instruct the
world. It is the frost. The palaces OF this
king are far up in the arctic. Their walls
are glittering congelation. Windsor castles
and Tuileries and winter palaces and
Kenilworths and Alhambras Of ice,
temples with pendant chandeliers Of
ice, thrones Of iceberg on which
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, dominions OF ice-eternal
frigidfty From those hard, white. FURNISHED
portals King Frost descends and waves his
sjlyery 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 and hinder and
slay, shall show you that the frost is
friend, with benediction divinely pro-
nounced, 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 be-
gins his work on the leaves and continues 1t
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
latter part of September and begins the
sketching OF the leaves. Now he puts upon
the foliage faint pallor. and then touch Of
brown, and then Il hue of orange, and last q
fame offire. The beech and ash and oak are
turned first into sunrises and then into sun
sets of vividness and splendor. Allthe leaves
are penciled one by one, but sometimes a
whole forest in the course of q few days
shows great velocity OF work.
yT y---x L xLo'D ~. =
q summer day three portraits oflife size, but
the frost in ten days can paint ten noun
tains in. life size. II makes the last days OF
IN autumnal wood the days OF its chlefest
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 paintings Of tho
frost in all lights are enchanting from the
time when the curtain OF the morning hfsto
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 confagration
upon 5000 miles OF stretched out grandeur.
Leonardo da Vinci put upon few feet OF
canvas our Lords last supper for all ages to
admire, but the frost puts the cleaning chal-
ices Of the imperial giories of the last sup
per OF the. e.dying year In the heights and
lengths and breadths OF the Alleghanies.
When Titan first gazed upon sketch of
Correggio, he was wrought up into such
ecstacy that he cried out, "If I were not
Titan, I would be Correggio," and so great
and oyerpowerinS are the autumnal scenes
of our American forests that one force of
nature might we'll exclaim to another, "If I
were not the sunlight, would be the FROST"
Rugendas, the German painter, suffering
from weakness in his right hand, laboriously
learned to paint with his left hand, but the
frosts paints with both hands, and has in
them more skill than all the Rembrandts and
Rubens and Vests and Pousstns and Albert
Durers and Paul Veroneses and Claudes
gathered in one long art gallery. But the
door of that great museuRpi3 i3autumnal co..
oring is now closed for d yehohth, and
another spectacle just asa 8aerful Is now
open. I put YOU on tho d. and ask you to
put your children on the al6
Tired OF working on the leaves, the frost
will soon turn to the window panes. You
will soon waken on cold morning and find
that the windows OF your home have during
the night been adorned with curves, with
coronets, with exquisitensss, with pomp,
with almost supernatural spectacle. Then
you will appreciate what my text says rs it
declares, "By the breath Of God frost is
given" You will see on the window pane,
traced there by tho frost, whole gardens OF
beauty-ferns, orchids, dsffodils, heliotropes,
china asters, fountains. statues, hounds on
the chase, roebucks plunging into the stream,
battle scenes with dying and dead, cata-
falques Of kings, triumphal processions-and
rs the morning sun breaks through you will
see cities ON fire, and bombardment with
bursting shell, and illuminstions as for some
great victory, coronations and angels on the
wing.
All night long while you were sleeping the
frost was working, and you ought not let
the warmth obliterate the scene until you
have admired 1t, studied it, absorbed it, set
1t up in your memory for perpetual refresh
ment and realized tho force and magnitude
and intensity OF my text. by the breath Of
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 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 as 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 display just as
magnificent the next morning. No one but
God could afford to do that. It would
bankrupt everything but inanity and onni-
potence. -.
Standing here between the closed doors Of
the pictured woods and the opening doors Of
the tcansflgured window glass, I, want to
cure my folly and your folly OF longing for
glorious things in the distance, while we
neglect appreciation OF glorious things near
by. sob, II could only 20 and see the
factories OF lace at Brussels says someo one.
Why, within thirty feet OF where you awaken
some December morning you will see richer
lace interwoven for your window panes by
r kba foo-