The Canton times., 1896-03-27
SNOW AND BLIZZARD.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Chooses a Theme
Suggested by Surroundings.
Mow Few of Us Have Studied the Power
OF the Frost-The Great Gospel
Fireplace Will Warm Up
the Cold World.

cred by Rev. L. Dewitt Ialmage De
fore his Washington congregation
apropos of the storm and blizzard pre-
yailing at the time. 1t was based Cd
the text:
VINO can stand before His colds-Psaln
cxlvii., H.
The almanac says that winter il
ended and spring has come, but the
winds, and the frosts, and the ther
mometer, 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 hailstones like marbles,
and describes the congealment 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 10,
1912, Napoleon's great army
began its retreat from Moscow. One
hundred and fifty thousand men, 50,-
900 horses, 600 pieces of cannon, 10000
stragglers. 1t was bright weather
when they started from Moscow, but
soon something wrathier than the Cos
sacks 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 flying ar
tillery 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
100. 900 men and hurled them 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-
xor which has appalled, history was
proof to all ages that it is vain thing
Cor any earthly power to accept the
challenge of my text: "Who could
stand before His coldq"
In the middle of December, 1777, at |
Valley Forge, 1000 troops were, with
frosted ears and frosted hands and
frosted feet, without shoes, without
blankets, 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
narch, SO in the revolutionary war
there was demand for wintry cam
paign until Washington lost his equi-
iibrium and wrote emphatically: Il
assure those gentlemen it is easy |
enough seated by good fireside and
In comfortable homes to draw out |
campaigns for the American army; |
but 1 tell them it is not SO
easy to lie on bleak hill
side, without blankets and without |
shoes" Oh, the frigid horrors
that gathered around the American
army in the winter of 1777! 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. "Not 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
fcan martyrs returned home |
for American sepulture, De Long and |
his men. The highest pillars of the |
earth are pillars of ice-Mont Blanc,
Jungfrau, 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 |
q 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 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 have
been so many Wrapping themselves in
furs, or gathering themselves around
fires, or threshing their arms about
them to revive eirculation-the mil
lions of the temperate and the arctic
zones who are compelled to confess:
"None of US can stand before His |
cold"