Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1902-01-10


face; as when many years ago New
York harbor was paved with ice so
that the people passed on foot to the
/ djoining islands. But the full story
of~<She cold will never be known. The
lips which would have told it were
frozen and the fingers that would have
written it were benumbed. Only here
and there fact appears. In 1851 the
cold was so terrific that the wolves en-
tered Vienna. In 146S it was so cold
that wine was cut with hatchets and
distributed among the soldiers. In
1884 a whole forest was killed by the
| cold at Ravenna. In 763 the Black sea
was frozen over. AS we go further
back the frosts are mightier, but as we
come further down the frosts lessen.
The worst seventies have been halted,
and the SHOWS have lost their depths,
and the thermometers announce less
terrific falls of temperature, and the
time will come when the year viii be
| one long summer of foliage and bloom.
While the worlds moral condition will
be reformed, the worst climates will
be corrected. You could not have a
millennium with a January blast pos
sible.
Behold, also, s it is possible in no
other month of the year, the wondrous
anatomy of the trees in January, the
leaves of the last year all gone and
not so much as a bud of new botan
zeal wardrobe appearing, the trees
standing with arms stretched toward
heaven, one of the greatest evidences
of the wisdom and the power of the
| Creator. The leaves appear only once
and then die, but these great arms are
stretched up toward heaven in silent
| prayer for scores of years, now mailed
with ice, now robed in snow or bowling
| to the God of the tempests as He
passes in the midnight hurricane. In
July the trees stand clarifying the
earth; in January they stand defying
| the winter. Under the same tree the
child plays with his toy and, growing
up to manhood, sits under it in senti
mental Or philosophical mood and, hav-
ing passed on to old age, rests himself
under its shade. In these January days
the trees seem to say: "The leaves that
rustled their music in the last summer
are dead and gone, but the leaves that
will. adorn this uncovered brow and
| these bare arms shall have as much
beauty and glory a S their predecessors.
Only wait. There are beautiful and
lovely things to come in my tree life,
as there are beautiful and lovely things
| to come in your life, o human specta-
tor" Oh, the tree! Only the Almighty
and the Infinite could have made one.
Gothic architecture was suggested by
| it. But for the arch of it's bough and
| the pointing of its branches the ST.
| Chapelle of Paris and other specimens
| of Gothic arch would never have been
| lifted. No wonder the world has taken
from it many styles of suggestiveness
the laurel for the victor, the willow
for the Borrowing, the aspen for the
trembling, the cypress for the burial!
But, unlike ourselves, they cannot
change their place and so stand watch
ing all that passes. Some of them are
| solemn monuments of the centuries.
Thank God for trees, their beauty
their shelter, their interlacing branches
not only for the trees in June time
coronation. but in January privation OF
everything but graceful structure! Let
! the iconocla site ak not be lifted a gainst
them. ''Woodman, spare that tree"
| Behold also in this January month
the increasing daylight. Last month
| the sun went down at 4:3O, but in this
month the days are getting longer. The
sunrise and the sunset are farther
; apart. Sunlight instead of artificial
! light, and there is for our dear old bat
tered earth growing light. ''The day
spring from on high hath visited u.s.
We shall have more light for the home,
! more light for the church, more light
for the alton, more light for the world
light of intelligence, light of comfor
light of rescue, light of evangelical ton,
light from the face of God, light from
the throne. But, you say the light in
creases so slowly, each day of this Jan
uary only one minute longer than it's
predecessor, the sun setting the first
| day of January at four o'clock and 43
minutes, the sun setting the second day
of January at four o'clock and A min
utes, the third day of this month the
sun setting a t four o'clock and As min
utes, the fourth day of January the
sun setting at four o'clock and 46 min
utes. This evening it will set at four
o'clock and Al minutes. The day en-
larges very little, and the reign of sun
| light is not much increased, but 10 not
| despise the minute of increa sing light
each day of this January, and do not
despise the fact that more light is
coming for the church and the world,
though it come slowly. AS we are now
in this season gradually going toward
the longest day of next summer, so our
world is moving forward toward the
long day of emancipation and Christ y
dominion. 1t may now in the state
and the church and the world be Jan
uary cod, but we are on the way to
| harVRStS m
chards.