Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1893-12-28
$ MISSION OF THE FROST. ,
A T;me-y Discourse by Rev. II.
Dewitt Talmage.
The FROST ms rainic-. ~ az Evangelist
and a. Physician "a Greaetst Col
leEe From Which we tan
Graduate is tile Coi-
lege Of Erosts.

sermon at the brooklyn Tabernacle
was The Mission of the Frost the
text being job xvii, 10: by the
breath OF God frost is given"
Nothing is more embarrassing to an
organist or pian st than to put his fin
Ger on a key OF the instrument ann
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 har-
mony is halted and lost. While FIRE
and hail, snow and vapor, respond to
the touch of inspiration, if the frost
made no utterance the orchestral rem
dering 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 foetn Che words: ale scattseeth
the hoag frost like ashes. and when
Job touches it in my text it resounds
with th, words by the breath OF
Col frost is given.
Fl, no one seems disposed to discuss
the mission Of frost. depending On di-
vine help ! undertake 1t. This IS the
first sabbath of winter. The leaves
are down. The warmth has gone ont
Of the air The birds have made their
winged march southwark. The land
scape has been scattered by the au-
tumnal equinox. The huskers have
rifed the corushoclxs. The night sky
has shown the usual meteoric restless
ness of November Three seasons of
the year are past, and the fourth, the
last, has entered Another element
now comes in to bless and a1orn 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 cas-
ties and Tuilleries and winter pal
aces and Kenilworths and Alham-
bras of ice. Temples with pendant
chandeliers of ice. Thrones of ice
berg, ON which eternal silence reigns.
Theaters on whose stage eternal cold
dramatized eternal winter. Pillars of
ice. Arches of ice. Crowns of ice
Ghariots of ice. Sepulchers of ice.
Mountains of ice. Dominions of ice
Eternal frigidity. From those hard
white, Furnished portals King Frost
deseends, and waves his silvery scepter
over our temperate zone. You win
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 him
der and say, shall show you that the
frost is friend, with benediction di-
vinely pronounced, and charged aud
surcharged with lessons potent, bene-
fcent, and tremendous. The Bible sew
en- 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
lie begins 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 humblest bush in the latter part
of September, and begins the sketch
ing 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 flame of fire. The
beech and ash and oak are turned, first
into sunrises and then in to sunsets of
vividness and splendor. All the leaves
are penciled one by one. but sometimes
whole forest in the course of few
days shows great velocity of work.
Weenix, the Dutch painter, could make
in \
traits of life size, but the frost
IN ten days can paint ten mountains
III life size II makes the last days of
an autumnal wood the days of its chief
est glory. Luxembourgs in the Adri- |
Ondacks. Louvres in the Sierra Me-
yadas Vaticans in the White Noun |
tains The work of other painters you
must see in the right light to fully APP |
preciate, but the paintings of the frost |
IN all lights are enchanting. and from
the time when the curtain of the morn
ing 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 rep
resents universal contiagration upon
three thousand miles of stretched-out
grandeur. Leonardo da Vinci put upon
few feet of canvas our Lord 5 Last
supper for all ages to admire, but the
lrost puts the cleaning chaliccs of the
imperial glories of the last supper of the
dying year on the heights and lengths
aud breadths of the Alleghenies When
Titan FIRST gazed upon sketch of Cor
reggie he was wrought up into such
eestacy that he cried out: IF | Were
not Titan would be Correggio, . aud
50 great and empowering are the au-
tumnal scenes of our American forests
that one force of nature might well ex-
claim to another: IF / were not the
sunlight ] would be the frost" Ru-
sendas- the German painter. suffering
rom weakness in his right hand, labo-
rloasly learned to paint with his left
hand, but the frost paints with both
hands and has in them more skin than
AZ the Bembrandts and Rubens and
VESTS and pOusSius and Albert Durers