Connecticut western news., 1902-01-09
unuennIum wltn January blast pos

not so much as bud of a new botan- ical wardrobe appearing, the trees standing with arms stretched toward heaven, one of the greatest evidences of the wisdom and tEe 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 lowing to the God of the tempests as he passes In the midnight hurricane. In July the trees stand glorifying 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 1t in senti- mental or philosophic mood and, hay ing passed on to old age rests himself under it's 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 it's bough and the pointing of its branches the St Chapene of Paris and other specimens of Gothic arch would never have been lifted: No wonder the world has taken from 1t many styles of suggestiveness- the laurel for the victor, the willow for the sorrowing, 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 iconoclastic ax not be lifted against them. "Woodman, spare that tree"
 The rncreasinE Daylight.
 Behold also in this January month the increasing daylight. Last month the sun went down at 4:30, 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 us." 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 it's predecessor, the sun setting the 1st day of January at 4 o'clock and 43 minutes, tic sun setting the 2d day of January Et o'clock and Al minutes, the 3d day of this month the sun setting at o'clock and 45 minutes, the 4th day of January the sun setting at 4 o'clock and 46 minutes. This evening it will set at 4 o'clock and Al minutes. The lay en,arges very little, and the reign of sunlight is not much increased. but do not deSpise the minute of increas- iEg light tach day of this January, and Go ret 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 Christly dominion. It may now in the state and the church and the world be Jan- uary cold. but we are on the way to July harvests and. September or chards.
 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 May and leaf in June. We are moving to- ward the worlds redemption. The frozen tears will melt, the river of gladness will resume it's flow, the cro- GUS will come up at the edge of the snowbans. the morning star will open the door for the day, and the armies of the world will ground arms'' all around the world. The January of frost will be abolished, and the balm and radiance of a divine atmosphere will fill the nations If you do not see 1t and hear 1t for yourself, think at the utmost your grandchildren will see and hear it. The heavens will take part in the conflict between righteous ness and sin, and that will settle 1t, and settle 1t alright, and settle it for ever.
 In this very month of January, 1643 two months after great battle had been fought between the army of the king and the army of parliament, shepherds and travellers between 12 and ] o'clock at night heard the battle repeated in the skies - the sound of drums, the clash of arms, the groans of dying men and then the withdrawal of the scene into complete silence. These shepherds and travellers repeat ed in the neighboring towns what they heard, and large numbers of peo- pie, expecting that all was a decep- ton, went out on the following night, and they heard the same uproar and tumult in the heavens-the two armies in battle. The king, hearing of this seeming combat in the heavens, sent ambassadors to inquire into the mys- tery. In the night they also heard the conflict and came back to the king and took solemn oath as to this mysterious occurrence.
 Whether those shepherds and tray elers and ambassadors of the king were in delusion cannot say, but this I know-that the forces of God and the forces of Satan are now in combat, the heavens as well as the earth in struggle Gs to who shall win this world for blessedness or woe, and, as the armies of God are mightier than the armies diabolic, we know who will triumph, and we have a right to shout the vic tory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The King of Kings, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Joshua and Havelock, leads in the conflict I have no fear about the tremendous issue. My only fear is that wa will not ho found in tha ra pk o