Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-03-19
THE WINTER BLASTS.
REV. DR.. TALMAeE SHOWS HOW TO
WARM 1iIE WORLD.

~ 0ho Oiluo Wo oApoO9ou spring Wedbu6F
make this sermon especially appropriate
DR.. Talmage's text was Psalm cxlvii, II
"Who can stand before his cold2"
The almanac says that winter is ended
and spring has come, but the winds, and
the frosts, and the Thermometers, in some
places down to zero, deny it. The psalmlst
lived in moro 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 de-
scribes the congealment of lowest temper
ature. We have all studied the power of
the heat. How few of us have studied the
power of the frostp "Who can stand be-
fore his cold?" This challenge of the text
has many times been accepted.
Oct. 10, 1872 Napoleon's great army
began its retreat from Moscow. One hun
dred and fifty thousand men, 80, 900 horses,
900 pieces of cannon, 40, 900 stragglers. 1t
was bright weather when they started
from Moscow, but soon something wrath
Ter than tho Cossacks swooped upon their
flanks. An army of arctic blasts with
icicles for bayonets and hailstones for shot,
anu OOlullduuOu ny NOlUo VI btlllp6StJ
marched after them, tho flying artillery
Of tho 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 tho east
brought as booty from tho Russian capi-
tai. An invisiblopower seized 100, 900 men
and hurled them dead into the snowdrifts
and on the IArd surfaces of the chill rivers
and into the maws Of the dogs that had
followed them from Moscow. The feeling
horror 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 could stand before his
cold2" In the middle of December, 1777,
at Valley Forge, II, 900 troops were with
frosted ears and fosted hands and frosted
feet, without shoes, without blankets, ly-
ing ON the white pillow of the snowbank.
Frigid Horrors.
AS during our civil war the cry was,
"On to Richmond" when tho troops wero
not ready to march, SO in the Revolution
ary war there was Il demand for wintry
campaign until Washington lost his equi-
librium and wrote emphatically, 81 assure
those gentlemen it is easy enough seated
by a good flresido and in comfortable
homes to draw out campaigns for the
American army, but I tell them it is not
so easy to lie on bleak hillside, without
blankets and without shoes" Oh, the
frigid horrors that gathered around tho
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 Frank
lin and his men, dying in arctic explora-
tion. "Not we," answer Schwatka and
his crew, falling back from the fortresses
Of ice which they had tried in vain to
capture. "Not we," say the abandoned
and crushed decks of the intrepid the Re-
sistance and the Jeanette. "Not we " say
tho procession of American martyrs re-
turned home for American sepulture, De
Long and his men. Tho highest pillars 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 glaciers, with
arm and hand and chisel and hammer of
ice. The cold is imperial and has crown
of glittering crystal and is seated on q
throne of ice, with foot stool of ice and
scepter of ice. Who can tell the sufferings
of the winter of 1888, when all tho birds
of Germany perished, or the winter Of 1868
in England, when the stages rolled on the
ha fo,,, hnpcnc ne
ohandise were built on the ice, or the win
ter 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 them
selves around fires, or thrashing their
arms about them to revive circulation
the millions of the temperate and the
arctic zones who are compelled to confess,
"None OF us can stand before his cold" !"
Fireless Homes.
One-half of the industries of our day are
employed in battling inolemency of the
weather. The furs of the north, the cot
ton of the south, the flax of our own fields,
the wool of our own flocks, the coal from
our own mines, the wood from our own
forests, all employed in battling these in
clemencies, and still every winter, with
blue lips and ohattering teeth, answers,
"None of us can stand before his cold. "
! Now, this being such cold world, God
| sends out influences to warm it. I am
glad that the God of the frost is the God
of tho 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 immediate and
all encompassing practically. In this
zone and weather there arc SO many fire
less hearths, SO many broken window
panes, so many defective roofs that sift the
snow. Coal and wood and fannels and
| thick coat are better for warming up such
place than tracts and Bibles and creeds.
Kindle that fire where 1t has gone out;
wrap something around those shiverin G
limbs; shoe those bare feet; hat that bare
| head; coat that bare back; sleeve that bare
| arm.
Nearly all the pictures of Martha Wash
| lngton represent her in courtly dress as
bowed to by foreign ambassadors, but
Mrs Kirkland, in her interesting book,
gives more inspiring portrait Of Martha
| Washington. She comes forth from he1
husbands hut in the encampment, the
hut 10 feet long by IA feet wide-she
comes forth from that hut to nurse the
sick, to sew the patched garments, to con.
sole tho soldiers dying of the cold. That
is better picture of Martha Washington.
Hundreds of garments, hundreds of tons
of coal, hundreds of GLACIERS at broken
window sashes, hundreds of whole souled
mon and women, are necessary to warm
the wintry weather What are we doing
to alleviate the condition of those not sc
fortunate as we? Know ye not, my
friends, there are hundreds of thousands
Of people who cannot stand before his coldi
1t is useless to preach to bare feet, and tc