Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-03-16
TO WARM THE WORLD
CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY is THE CLIO
RIOUS FURNACE.


KindIe the Fire-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 the sharp weather. In
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, so, 600
horses, 600 pieces of cannon, 40, 600
stragglers. 1t was bright weather When
they started from Moscow, but soon
something Wrathier than the COssacks
swOOped upon their tanks. An army of
arctic blasts, with icicles for bayOnetG
and hail5tCnes for shot, and commanded
by voice Of tempest, marched after them,
the flying artillery of the heavens i'll
pursuit. The troops at nightfall would
gather into circles and huddle them
selves tCgetS,er 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 CAPT
tai An invisible power seized 100, 600
men and hurled them dead into the
snowdrifts, and on the hard surfaces of
the chill rivers, and into the maws Of the
dogs that had followed them from Mos
COW. The freezing horror which has ap-
palled history was proof to all ages that
1t 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, II, 900 troops were, with
frosted ears and frosted hands and frost
ed feet, without shoes, without blank.
cts, lying OH the white pillow of the
snow bank. As during our civil war the
CRY was, ION to Richmondr' when the
troops were not ready to march, so III
the Revolutionary war there was a de-
mand for Wintry campaign until Wash
ingtOn lost his equilibrium and wrote
emphatically, 81 assure those gentlemen
1t is easy enough seated by a good fire.
side and in comforta BILE homes to draw
out campaigns for the American army,
but tell them it is not so easy to lie Oh
q bleak hillside, without blankets and
without shoes. - Oh, the frigid horrors
that gathered around the American army
in the winter of 1777I Valley Forge
was one 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.
mot 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 the 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 and hand and
chisel and hammer of ice. The cold is
imperial and has Il crown of glittering
crystal and IS seated on a throne of ice,
with footstool of ice and scepter of ice.
Who can tell the sufferings of the winter
of 1888, when ali the birds of Germany
persisted? or the winter Of 1868 III Eng:
land, when the stages rolled on the
Thames and temporary houses of mer-
chandise We're 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 OF
gathering themselves around fires or
thrash;ng their arms about them to re-
vive circulation-the millions of the
temperate and the arctic zones who are
compelled to confess, "none of Us can
stand before his cold
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 fax of our own
fields, the wool of our own focks, the
coal from chr own mines, the wood
from our own forests, all employed in
battling these inclemencies, and still ev-
cry winter, with blue lips and chattering
teeth, answers, E'None of us can stand
-. .L;. a1,l.l Nnrr- tl,ic hoi1,cs c,,.al,