The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1896-03-18
THE GOSPEL FIREPLACE.
DR.. Talmago so Designates the
Church of Christ.
The Flames of Gods Holy Love Arc Burn
ing in His sanctuaries-Let Their
Glow Enter Your Hearts and
tho Cold World win
be Warmed.

DR.. Talmage invites his hearers to bask
in the sunshine of Gods holy love and
get warm. His text being Psalm AZ; II;
"Who can stand before this cold?"
The almanac says that winter is
ended and spring has come, but the
winds, and the frosts, and the ther-
mometer, in some places down at zero,
deny it. The Psalmist lived in more
genial 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
like ashes, the hailstones like marbles,
and describes the congealment OF low
est 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 this cold"'
This challenge of the text has many
times been accepted. October 10, 1912,
Napoleon's great army began its re-
treat from Moscow. One hundred and
fifty thousand men, $4,000 horses, 600
pieces of cannon, 10000 stragglers
It 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 bayo-
nets and hailstones for shot, and COM
manded by voice of tempest, marched
after them. The flying artillery OF
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 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 one hundred
thousand men and hurled them dead
into the snow drifts and on the hard
surfaces 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 to all ages that it is vain thing
for any earthly power to accept The
challenge of my text: who can
stand before His cold?" In the mid
die of December, TIT, at Valley
Forge, 1900 troops were, will
frosted ears and frosted hands ant
frosted feet, without shoes, withou
blankets, lying on the white pillow o.
the snowbank. AS during our civil wa
the cry was: son to Richmond" whel
the troops were not ready to march, s.
in the Revolutionary war there was
demand for wintry campaign unit
Washington lost his equilibrium an
wrote emphatically: 81 assure thos
gentleman it is easy enough seated b
a good fireside and in comfortabI
homes to draw out campaigns for tn
American army; but | tell them it
not SO easy to lie on a bleak hillside
without blankets and without shoes
Oh, the frigid horrors that gathere
around the American army in the VIII
ter of 1777! Valley forge was one OF I'll
tragedies of the century. Benumbe'
senseless, dead "Who can stand d
fore His cold?" Not we," say the fir
zen lips of Sir John Franklin and h
men, dying in Arctic explora tion. IN
we" answer Schwatka and his GREY
falling back from the fortresses of II
which they had tried in vain to ca
ture. mot we," say the abandon'
and crushed decks of the Intrepid, Il
Resistance, and the Jeanette. IN
we" say the procession of Americi
martyrs returned home for Americ;
sepulture, De Long and his men. IL
highest pillars of the earth are pilla
of ice; Mont Blanc, Jungfrau, the MI
terhorn. The largest galleries of t
= world are galleries of ice. Some of
mighty rivers much of the year are
captivity of ice. The greatest scul
tors of the ages are the glaciers, wi
arm and hand and chisel a
hammer of ice. The cold is
perial and has crown OF glitteri
crystal and is seated on a thro
of ice, with footstool of ice and scept
of ice. Who can tell the sufferings
the winter of 1883, when all the biz
of Germany perished? or the winter
1868 in England, when the stages roll
on the Thames and temporary hou
of merchandise were built on the il
of the winter of 1891 in America, VIII
New York harbor was frozen over a
the heaviest teams crossed on the
to Staten Island? Then come down
our own winters when there have be
so many wrapping themselves in III
or gathering themselves around hi
or threshing their arms about them
revive circulation-the millions OF
temperate and the Arctic zones "
are compelled to confess, none OF
can stand before His cold
One-half of the industries of our
arc employed in battling inclemencl
the weather. The furs of the MOI
the cotton of the south, the flax OF
J, own fields, the wool of our own fioc
\ the coal from our own mines the w
from our own forests, all employed
Il battling these inclemencies, and
I every winter, with blue lips and cl
D tering teeth, answers: None OF
ri can stand before His cold" Now
d being such cold world, God sends
v influences to warm it. l am glad t
!. that the God of the frost is the Co
. the heat, that the God of the snow
J, the God of the white blossoms;
y the God ofJanuary is the God of j.
g The question as to how shall we WI
n this world up is question OF imm
- ate and all-encompassing practical
In this zone and weather there ar
- many fireless hearths, SO many
81