The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1896-03-20

IKE aSneS, the nallStOneS ike 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 his cold?" This
challenge of the text has many times
been accepted. October 10Th. 1872, Ma
poleon's great army began it's retreat
from Moscow. One hundred and fifty
thousand men, fifteen thousand horses.
six hundred pieces of cannon, forty
thousand stragglers. 1t was bright
weather when they started from Mos
COW, but soon something wrathier than
the Cossacks swooped upon their TANKS.
An army of arctic blasts, with icicles
for bayonets and hailstones for shot,
and commanded by voice Of tempest,
marched after them. The flying artil-
lery 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 n vain thing
for any earthly power to accept the
challenge Of my text: "Who could
stand before his cold?" In the
middle of December. 1777. at Valley
Forge, eleven thousand troops were,
with frosted ears and frosted hands and
frosted feet, without shoes. with
out 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 march, so in the revolutionary
war there was a demand for wintry
campaign until Washington lost his
equilibrium and wrote emphatically:
81 asure those gentlemen 1t is easy
enough seated by good Preside and in
comfortable homes to draw out cam
paigns for the American army; but
tell them it is not so 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 1T77! 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 men, 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 Resistance, andsthe
Jeanette. mot wei say the process
sion of American martyrs returned
home for American sepulture, De Long
and his men. The highest pillars of
the earth are pillars of ice; Mont Blanc,
Jungfraus the Matterhorn. The largest
galleries of theaworld are galleriesofice.
Some of the mi sfity ri fers much of the
year are in captivity of ice. The great
est sculptors the ages are the glaciers,
with arm and hand and chisel and ham
mer of ice, The cold is imperial and
has a 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 all the birds Of Germany per-
ished2 TOr the winter Of 1853 in En-
giant, 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.t,wrapping themselves in furs, or
gathering themselves around fires, or
threshing their arms about them to re-
-yive circulatfonAth the millions of the
temperate and the arctic zones who
are compelled to confess, None of us
can stand before his cold.y d +
one-half Of the Industries Of our day
are employed lin battling bnclemency
of the weather. The furs of the north,
the cotton of the south, the fax 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 those inclemencies, and still
every winter, with blue lips and chat
tering teeth, answers: None Of us can
stand before his. cold" Now this being
such a cold world, God sends out influ-
ences to warm it.. am glad that the
God Of the frost is the God of the heat
that the God Of the snow is the God of
the white blossoms; that the God of jan
uary is the God of June. The question
ss to how shall we warm this world up
10 q question, Of, immediate and alien
comprising practically. In this zone
and weather there are so many fireless
hearths, SO many broken window
'panes somafiy defective roofs that sift
the snow. Goal and wood apd ;flan-
ncls and thick coat are better for warm
srg UP such a place than tracts, end