Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1896-03-21
10 WARM THE WORLD
CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY is THE GlO-
RlOUS FURNACE.

Rev. DR.. Talmage Finds Lesson In tho
W,ethcr-Christ the Great Warmer--A
Word to Frosty Chrstians--Good Deeds
KindIn the F'ire--Come In Out OF the Cold.
WASHINGTON, March 15.-The freez-
ing blasts which have swept over the
country at the time we expected spring
weather make this sermon especially
appropriate DR.. Talmage's text was
Psalm cxlvii, II, "Who can stand before
his cold?"
The almanac says that winter is end
ed and spring has come, but the winds,
and the frosts, and the thermometer, IN
some places down to zero, deny it. The
psalmist lived in more genial climate
than this, and yet he must sometimes
have been cut by tho sharp weather IL
this chapter he speaks of the snow like
wool, the frost like ashes, the hail
stones like marbles, and describes the
congealment of lowest temperature. We
have all studied the power Of the heat.
How few of us have studied the power
of the frost "Who can stand before his
cold?' This challenge of the text has
many times been accepted.
Oct. 10, 1912, Napoleon's great army
began its retreat from Moscow. Ono
hundred and fifty thousand men, $4,000
horses, GOO pieces Of cannon, 1000
stragglers. 1t was bright weather when
they started from Moscow, but soon
something wrathier than the Cossacks
swooped upon their fanks. An army of
arctic blasts, with icicles for bayonets
and hailstones for shot, and commanded
by voice of tempest, marched after them,
tho flying artillery of the heavens in
pursuit The troops at nightfall would
gather into circles and huddle them
selves together for warmth, but when
the day broke they rose not, for they
were dead, and the ravens came for their
morning meal of corpses. The way was
strewn with tho rich stuffs of the east,
brought as booty from the Russian CAPT
tai. An invisible power seized 100,O 600
men and hurled them dead into tho
snowdrifts, and on the hard surfaces of
the chillrivers, and into the maws of the
dogs that had followed them from Mos
COW. The freezing horror which has APP
palled history was proof to all ages that
it is vain thing for any earthly power
to accept the challenge of my text,
"Who could stand before his cold?"
Frigid Horrors
In the middle of December, 1777, at
Valley Forge, 1900 troops were, with
frosted ears and frosted hands and frost
ed feet, without shoes. without blank
cts, lying on the white pillow of the
snow bank. As during our civil war the
cry was, "On to Richmond" when the
troops were not ready to march, so III
the Revolutionary war there was de-
mand for wintry campaign until Wash
inston lost his equilibrium and wrote
emphatically. II assure those gentlemen
it is easy enough seated by good fire.
side and in comfortable homes to draw
out campaigns for the American army,
but I tell them it is not so easy to- lie on
bleak hillside, without blankets and
without shoes. F." Oh the frigid horrors
that gathered around the American army
in the winter of 1777 Valley Forge
was enc of the tragedies of the century.
Benumbed, senseless, dead "Who can
stand before his cold?" "Not we, " say
the frozen lips of Sir John Franklin and
his men, dying in arctic exploration.
"Not we," answer Schwatka and his
crew, falling back from the fortresses Of
ice which they had tried in vain to cap
ture "Not We" say the abandoned and
crushed decks of the Intrepid, the Re-
sistance and tho Jeanette. mot we,
say the procession Of American martyrs
returned homo for American sepulture,
De Long and his men. The highest pill
lars of the earth are pillars of ice
Mont Blanc, Jungfrau, the Matterhorn.
The largest galleries of the world are
galleries of ice. Some of the mighty
rivers much of the year are in captivity
of ice. The greatest sculptors of the ages
are the gaciers, with arm aud hand and
chisel and hummer Of ice The cold is
imperial and has Il crown of glittering
crystal and is seated on throne of ice,
with footstool Of ice and scepter of ice.
Who can tell the suiferings of the winter
of 1888, when all the birds of Germany
persisted? or the winter Of, 1868 in Eng
land when the stages rolled on the
Thames and temporary houses of mer-
chandise were built on the ice? or the
winter of 1921 in America, when New
York harbor was frozen over and the
heaviest teams crossed OH the ice to
Staten Island? Then come down to our
own winters when there have been so
many wrapping themselves in furs or
gathering themselves around fires or
thrash;ng their arms about them to re-
vive circulation-the millions of the
temperate I'd the arctic zones who are
compelled to confess, none of us can
stand before his cold. y
A Lesson In Common Sense.
One half of the industries Of our day
are employed in battling inclemency of
the weather The furs of the north, the
cotton of the south, the flax of our own
fields, the wool of our own focks, the
coal from our own mines, the wood
from our own forests, all employed Ill
battling these inclemencies, and still ev-
cry winter, with blue lips and chattering
teeth, answers, "None of us can stand
before this cold" Now, this being such
cold world, God sends out influences
to warm it. I am glad that the God Of
the FROST is the God Of the heat; that
the God of the snow is the God of the
white blossoms; that the God of Janu-
airy is the God of June The question as
to how shall We warm this world up is
question CT immediate and all encom-
passing practically. In this zone and
weather there are SO many ireless
hearths, so many broken window panes,
SO many defective roofs that sift the
snow. Coal and wood and fiannels and
thick coat are better for warming up
such place than tracts and Bibles and