The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-03-27
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
a. Discussion Apropoa Of the Part
ing Blizzard Of Winter.
The warmth of ChrAst's kighte0nshssS
and tove-How tho World shall
be Heated-The benign Pow
or Of Saving Grace.

winter. He took for his text:
who can stand before sis cords fssalif
cxlvii, II.
TIE almanac says that winter Il
ended and spring has come, but the
winds, and the frosts, and the Their
mometer, in some places down to zero,
deny it. The Psalmist lived in a more
genial climate than this, and yet hs
must sometimes have been edt by the
sharp weather. In this chapter he
speaks of the snow like wool, the frost
like ashes, the hailstones like nta+Blcz,
and describes chs cGngealment of low
est temperature. We have all studied
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 October iDi
1872, Napoleeh's great army
began its fetreat from Moscow. One
hundred and fifty Thousand men, So
OO0 horses, 600 pieces of cannon, 10000
stragglers. 1t was bright weather
when they started from Moscow, but
soon something wrathier than the Cess
sacks sNoepsd UPON their TANKS. An
army of arctic blasts, with icicles for
bsyonets and hailstones for shot, and
commanded by voice of tempest;
marched after theE. The flying ar
tillsry bt the heavens in pursuit. The
troops at nightfall would gather into
circles and huddle Themselves together,
for warmth; but when the day broke,
they rose not for they wefe dead,
and the ravens came for their morning
meal of corpses. The way was strewn
with the rich stuffs of the east,
brought as booty from the Russian
capital. An invisible power relied
1OO,O 900 men and hurled Sheni dead into
the snow drifts, and on the hard sur
faces of the chill rivers, and into the
maws of the dogs that had followed
them from Moscow. The freezing hor-
ror which has appalled, history was
proof 10 all ages that 1t IL a vain thing
for any earthly power to accept the
challenge OF my text: "Who could
stand before His cold?"
In the middle of December, 177T, at
Valley Forge, 11,oee troops were, with
frosted feet, without shoes, without
blankets, lying on the white pillow of
the snow bank. As during our civil
war the cry was; ION to Richmond"
when tho troops were hot ready to
march, 80 In the revolutionary war
there was demand for wintry cam
paign until Washington lost his equi-
librium and wrote emphatically: 81
assure those gentlemen it is easy
enough seated by good Preside and
in comfortable homes to draw out
campaigns for the American armyj
but / tell them 1t Is not so
easy to lie on a bleak hill
side, without blankets and without
that gathered around the American
army in the winter of 177Tl Valley
Forge was one of the tragedies of the
century. Benumbed, senseless, deadl
"Who can stand before His cold?" mot
We" say the frozen lips of Sir John
Franklin and his men, dying in Arctic
exploration mot we," answer
Schwatka and his crew, falling back
from the fortress of ice which they
had tried in vain to capture. mot
we," say the abandoned and crushed
decks of the intrepid, the Re-
ristance and the Jeanette. "Not
we," say the procession of Amer
lean martyrs returned home
for American sepulture, De Long and
his men. The highest pillars of the
earth are pillars of ice-Mont Blanc,
JunPfrau. the Matterhorn. The larg-
est 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 glaciers, with arm and
hand and chisel and hammer of ice.
The cold is imperial and has a crown
of glittering crystal, and is seated on
n throne of ice, with footstool of
ice and scepter of ice. Who can
tell the sufferings of the winter of
1433, when all the birds of Germany
persisted? Or the winter of 1853 in En-
gland, when the itages 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 on 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 threshing their arms about
them to revive circulation-the mil
lions of the temperate and the arctic
zones who are compelled to confess:
''None of us can stand before His
cold"
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 fax of our
own fields, the wool of our own flocks,
the coal from our own mines, the wood
from our own forests, all employed
in battling these inclemencies, and
still every winter, with blue lips and
chattering teeth, answers: None of
us can stand before His cold" Now,
this being such a cold world, l 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
January is the God of June The
question as to how shall we warm this
world up is a question of immediate
and all-encompassing practicality. In
this zone and weather there are so
many freless hearths, so many broken
window panes, so many defective
roofs that sift the sEow. Coal and
wood and hannels and thick coats are
better for warming up such a place
than tracts and Bibles and creeds.
Kindle that fire where it has gone out.
Wrap something around those shiv-
ering limbs Shoe those bare feet
Hat that bare head. Coat that
bare back. Sleeve that bare arm.