The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-03-21
WARMING HI r
Or. TaImage Wants to SEQ More
Christian Sympathy.
a Great Furnace Needed in All the
Churches to Warm Up the People to
Their Duty-OId Time Enthu-
sjnsm Invoked.

sinsm Invoked.
The late cold wave that swept over
the country called forth a sermon from
Rev. r. De Witt TaImage in Washing
ton on the need Of more warmth and
zeal among Christian people. His text
was from Psalms l47;17: WHO can
stand before His cold DR.. Talmage
said:
The almanac says that winter is end
ed and spring has come, but the winds
and frosts, and the thermometer, in
some places down to zero. deny it.
The Psalmist lived in "A more cougenial
climate than this, and yet he must
sometimes have been cut by the sharp
weather. In this chapter he speaks OF
the snow-like wool. the frost-lille ashes,
the hailstoncs like marbles, and de-
scribes the c-ongealment of lowest tenn
perature. We have all studied the
power of the heat How few of us
have studied the power of the frost?
"NVho can stand before His cold?"
This challenge of the text has many
times beerf accepted. October 10, 1912,
Napoleon's great army began its re-
treat from Moscow. One hundred
anu MY NibAA1tAitA AhNhi 'CfNNN
horses, COO pieces of cannon,
40. 600 stragglers. 1t was bright
weather when they started from Mos
cow, but soon something wrathier
than the Cossacks swooped upon their
flanks. An army of Arctic blasts, with
icicles for ~bayonets and hailstones for
shot, and commanded by voice of
tempest, marched after them. The
-. .-4.I1- - r IL 49, =, 49,
suit. 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 the rich stuffs of
the east, brought as booty from the
Russian capital. An invisible power
seized 200, 600 men and hurled them
dead into the ~snowdrifts, and or the
hard surfaces of the chill rivers, and
into the maws of the dogs hat had
followed them from Moscow.
The freezing horror which has ap-
palled history vas proof to all ages
that it is a vain thing for any earthly
power to accept the challenge of my
text: 'Who can stand before His cold?"
IN TIC hlltle OF DcceluDGTs Itds, db
Valley Forge, lI.O0O troops were, with
frosted ears and frosted shoes, without
blankets, lying OF the white pillow of
the snow bank. As during our civil
var h cry was ION to R~ichmond?
when troops were not ready to march,
SO in the revolutionary war there vas
a demand for wintry campaign until
Washington lost his equilibrium and
wrote emphatically: 81 assure those
gentlemen it is easy enough, seated by
n good iireside and in comfortable
homes, to draw out campaigns for the
American army; but | tell them it is
not easy to lie OF a bleak hillside with
out blankets and without shoes" Oh,
the frigid horrors that gathered around
the American army in the winter of
1777! Valley Forge was mi of the trag-
edies of the century. Benumbed, sense
less, dead! "NNho 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
Resistance and the Jeanette. Not
we,'' say the procession of American
martyrs returned home for American
sculpture, belong and his men. The
highest pillars of the earth are pillars
of ice: Mont Blanc, Jungfrau, the Mat
terhorn. 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 sculp-
tors 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 seat
ed 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 per-
ished? or the winter of 1858 in En-
gland, 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 on the ice to
Staten iSland?
Then come down TO our own winters,
when there nave been so many wrap
ping themselves in furs, or gathering
themselves around fires, or threshing
their arms about them to revive circu-
lation-the millions of the temperate
and the Arctic zones who are compelled
TO confess, none of us can stand be-
fore 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 flax of our
Nu.n Ea1ls fhA tupo1 Of nnr run Anolc
the wood from our own forests, all en-
ployed in battling these inclemencies,
and still every winter, with blue lips
and chattering teeth, None
of us can stand before His cold" Now
this being such a cold world, God sends
out influences to warm it. 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 immedi-
ate and all-encompassing practical
bility. In this zone and weather there
are so many ~fireless hearths, SO many
broken window panes, so man
defective roofs that sift the snow.
Coal and wood and ~flannels and thick
coat uEt DClttT LOT warming up SUCH d
place than tracts and Bibles and
creeds. Kindie that fire where it has
gone out. Wrap something around
those shivcring limbs. Shoe those
bare feet. Hat that bare head. Coat
that bare back. Sleeve that bare arm.
Nearly all the pictures of Martha
Washington represent her in courtly
dress as bowed to by foreign ambassa-
doris; but Mrs. Kirkland, in her inter
esting book, gives a more inspiring
portrait of Martha Washington. She
comes forth from her husbands hut in
the encampneut, the hut 10 feet long
and II feet wide-she comes forth from
that hut to nurse the sick, to sew the
patched garments, to console the SOL
diers dying of the cold. That is a bet
ter picture of Martha Washington.
hundreds of garments, hundreds of
tons of coal, hundreds of GLACIERS at
broken window sashes, hundreds of
whole-souled men and women, are nee
essary to war the wintry weather.
What are we doing to alleviate the con-
ditiOn of those not SO fortunate as we?
Know We not, nv friends, there are