The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1896-03-20
TO WARM THE WORLD
CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY Is THE CLIO.
RlOUS FURNACE.


Rev. DIR. EaImage Finds Lesson In tn,
Weather-Christ the Great Warmer
Word to Frosty Christians--Good Deed
Kind1e 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. One
hundred and fifty thousand men, $4,000
horses, 600 pieces Of cannon, 10000
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 ioicles for bayonets
+ and hailstones for shot, and commanded
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 them
-sslves 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 CAPT
tai. An invisible power seized 100, 900
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
it 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, 1000 troops were, with
frosted ears and frosted hands and FROST
ed feet, without shoes, without blank
cts, 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 march, SO in
the Revolutionary war there was de-
mand for Wintry campaign until Wash
~ineton lost his equilibrium and wrote
alphabetically, 81 assure those gent lenen
1T is easy enough seated by good fire.
side and in comforta BILE homes to draw
out campaigns for the American army,
but tell them it is not Sc easy to lie on
a bleak hillside, 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 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 home 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 age
are the gaciers, with arm and hand ant
chisel and hammer of ice. The cold i
imperial and has crown of glitterlnl
crystal and is seated on a throne of ice
with footstool of ice and scepter of ice
Who can tell the sufferings of the white
of 1888, when all the birds of German,
persisted? or the winter of, 1858 in Eng
land, when the stages rolled ON tn
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 tn
heaviest teams crossed on the ice
Staten Island? Then come down to GU
own winters when there have been s
many wrapping themselves in furs
gathering themselves around fires
thrashing their arms about them to re
yive circulation-the millions of tn
temperate and the arctic zones who ar
compelled to confess, "none OF us ca
stand before his cold"
A Lesson In Common Sense.
One-half of the industries of our da
are employed in battling inclemency {
the weather. The furs of the north, tn
cotton of the south, the fax of our ow
fields, the wool of our own focks, tn
coal from our own mines, the WOO
from our own forests, all employed j
battling these inclemencies, and still e'
cry winter, with blue lips and chatterin
teeth, answers, "None of us can stan
before this cold" Now, this being sue