St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-02-15
was frozen over. Al we 60 further

The worst seventies have been hated,
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 vii!
be reformed, the worst climates will
be corrected. You could not have
millenium with a January blast pos
sible.
Behold, also, as 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 q new botan-
ical 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 greatarms 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 sentl-
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 as 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 its 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 branche
not only for the trees in June time
coronation, but in January privation ot
everything but graceful structure! Let
the iconocla site ak not be lifted against
them. "Woodman, spare that tree"
Behold also in this January month
the increasing daylight. Last month
the sun went down at 1880, 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 nation, more light for the world
light of intelligence, light of comfort
light of rescue, light of evangelization
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 its
predecessor, the sun setting the first
day of January at four o'clock and A
minutes, the sun setting the second day
of January at four o'clock and A min
utes, tho third day of this month the
sun setting at four o'clock and As min
utes, the fourth day of January the
sun setting at four o'clock and As min
utes. This evening it will set at foul
o'clock and Al minutes. The day en-
larges very little, and the reign of sun
light is not much increased, but do moi
despise the minute of increasing light
each day of this January, and do not
despise the fact that more light i!
coming for the church and the world
though it come slowly. As.we are nov
in this season gradually going TOWARD
the longest day of next summer. so ou1
world is moving forward toward thu
long day of emancipation and Christly
dominion. 1t may now in the STATE
and the church and the world be Jan
uary cold, but we are on the way t.
July harvests and September or
chards. &t II.
Do not read your almanac backward
Do not go out and ask the trees HUNG
with icicles by January storm whether
they will ever again blossom in Ma.
and leaf in June. We are moving to
ward the worlds redemption. TIL
frozen tears will melt, the river o
gladness will resume its flow, the Gro
Gus will come up at the edge of tn
snowbank, the morning star will ope,
the door for the day, and the armies o
the world will ground arms" al
around the world. The January o
frost will be abolished, and the balm
and radiance of a divine atmospher
will fill the nations. If you do no
see it and hear it for yourself. thin
at the utmost your grandchildren viii
see and hear it. The heavens will tax
part in the conflict between righteous
ness and sin, and that will settle il
and settle it Alright, and settle it for
ever.
In this very month of January
1913, two months after great bat
tie had been fought between tn
army of the king and the army o
parliament, shepherds and traveller
between twelve and one o'clock a
night heard the battle repeated i
the skies-the sound of drums, tn
clash of arms, the groans OF dyin
men and then the withdrawal of tn
scene into complete silence. Thes
shepherds and travellers repeated i