Part 10

Loving work is ever Best, when gently done; All that’s hard and selfish, Rough and cruel, shun. Do each little duty With a smiling face, Gathering all around you In love’s warm embrace.

H. E. B.

POWER

Persecute them with the tempest and make them afraid with storm.

Psalm 83:15.

If any one should ask what is the most harmless and innocent thing on earth, he might be answered, a snow-flake. And yet, in its own way of exerting itself, it stands among the foremost powers on earth. When it fills the air, the sun can not shine, the eye becomes powerless; neither hunter, nor pilot, guide nor watchman, is any better than a blind man. The eagle and the mole are on a level of vision. All the kings of the earth could not send forth an edict to mankind, saying, “Let labor cease.” But this white-plumed light infantry clears out the fields, drives men home from the highway, and puts half a continent under ban. It is a despiser of old landmarks, and very quietly unites all properties, covering up fences, hiding paths and roads, and doing in one day a work which the engineers and laborers of the whole earth could not do in years!

But let the wind arise, and how is this peaceful seeming of snow-flakes changed! In an instant the air raves. There is fury and spite in the atmosphere. It pelts you and searches you out in every fold and seam of your garments. It comes without search-warrant into each crack and crevice of your house. It pours over the hills, and lurks down in valleys, or roads, or cuts, until in a night it has entrenched itself formidably against the most expert human strength; for now, lying in drifts huge and wide, it bids defiance to engine and engineer. Before it this wonderful engine is as tame as a wounded bird; all its spirit is gone. No blow is struck. The snow puts forth no power. It simply lies still. That is enough. The laboring engine groans and pushes; backs out and plunges in again; retreats and rushes again. It becomes entangled. The snow is every where. It is before it and behind it. It penetrates the whole engine, is sucked up in the draft, whirls in sheets into the engine-room; torments the cumbered wheels, clogs the joints, and, packing down under the drivers, it fairly lifts the ponderous engine from its feet, and strands it across the track! Well done, snow! That was a notable victory!

Beecher.

* * * * *

Look at the gentle flake coming down so silently, and then turn to contemplate its prodigious effects. Parent of a thousand of the streams and rivers that water and fertilize our globe, the snow-flake is equally the parent of the thundering avalanche that at St. Bernard overwhelms the unhappy traveler before he reaches the hospitable convent. In the afternoon, you find yourself suddenly caught in a storm. What is it that eclipses the sun, hours before his setting, that hides every landmark from the sight of the anxious guide, that turns day into sudden night? It is the snow-flake; for in the little thing is the hiding of God’s power.

And is there not wealth as well as power in the enormous quantity of this one form of treasure lavished on the earth in one year? In one night you have found the earth covered with a carpet two feet in thickness. But if it requires millions of flakes for one cubic foot, what must it require to cover half the breadth of a continent on a meridian line of one thousand miles? And if that is repeated several months in each year, the mind staggers in the attempt at computation. “He giveth his snow like wool!” He scatters his pearls and diamonds by innumerable millions upon the earth. What prodigality of bounty our King displays!

The sovereign God gives the snow. It comes when he pleases, and falls where it pleases him to have it, on your house and your land; and you have no title that can prevent or bar his right. Napoleon may be the dread of kings, the mightiest monarch and warrior of the earth. He may be stronger than Russia, and may penetrate as far as Moscow. But Jehovah will there put a bridle in his mouth and a hook in his nostrils, and turn him backward, baffled, broken, disgraced. And he wanted for an instrument to accomplish his purposes the army of snow-flakes. He laid the deep covering of snow upon the earth; and the mighty army found themselves conquered by this little, gentle, silent instrument of God’s power. God could have sent one warm storm of rain, and set the French army free. But he did not. He ruleth in the armies of heaven and doeth his pleasure among the inhabitants of the earth.

Kirk.

Scene in a Vermont Winter.

Tis a fearful night in the winter-time, As cold as it ever can be; The roar of the blast is heard like the chime Of the waves on an angry sea. The moon is full; but her silver light The storm dashes out with its wings to-night; And over the sky from south to north Not a star is seen, as the wind comes forth In the strength of a mighty glee.

All day had the snow come down,—all day,— As it never came down before; And over the hills, at sunset, lay Some two or three feet or more; The fence was lost, and the wall of stone; The windows blocked, and the well-curbs gone; The haystack had grown to a mountain lift, And the wood-pile looked like a monster drift, As it lay by the farmer’s door.

The night sets in on a world of snow, While the air grows sharp and chill, And the warning roar of the fearful blow Is heard on the distant hill:

And the Norther, see! on the mountain-peak, In his breath how the old trees writhe and shriek! He drives from his nostrils the blinding snow; He shouts on the plains, Ho-ho! ho-ho! And growls with a savage trill.

Such a night as this to be found abroad, In the drifts and the freezing air! Sits a shivering dog, in the field, by the road, With the snow in his shaggy hair. He shuts his eyes to the wind and growls; He lifts his head and moans and howls; Then crouching low, from the cutting sleet, His nose is pressed on his quivering feet,— Pray what does the dog do there?

A farmer came from the village plain, But he lost the traveled way; And for hours he trod with might and main A path for his horse and sleigh, But colder still the cold winds blew, And deeper still the deep drifts grew, And his mare, a beautiful Morgan brown, At last in her struggles floundered down, Where a log in a hollow lay.

In vain, with a neigh and a frenzied snort, She plunged in the drifting snow, While her master urged, till his breath grew short, With a word and a gentle blow. But the snow was deep and the tugs were tight; His hands were numb and had lost their might; So he wallowed back to his half-filled sleigh, And strove to shelter himself till day, With his coat and the buffalo.

He has given the last faint jerk of the rein, To rouse up his dying steed; And the poor dog howls to the blast in vain For help in his master’s need. For a while he strives, with a wistful cry, To catch a glance from his drowsy eye, And wags his tail if the rude winds flap The skirt of the buffalo over his lap, And whines when he takes no heed.

The wind goes down and the storm is o’er— ’Tis the hour of midnight, past, The old trees writhe and bend no more In the whirl of the rushing blast. The silent moon, with her peaceful light, Looks down on the hills with snow all white, And the giant shadow of Camel’s Hump, The blasted pine and the ghostly stump, Afar on the plain are cast.

But cold and dead, by the hidden log, Are they who came from the town,— The man in his sleigh and his faithful dog And his beautiful Morgan brown In the white snow desert, far and grand, With his cap on his head and the reins in his hand— The dog with his nose on his master’s feet, And the mare half seen through the crusted sleet Where she lay when she floundered down.

Charles Gamage Eastman.

The Pass of the Sierra.

All night above their rocky bed They saw the stars march slow; The wild Sierra overhead, The desert’s death below.

The Indian from his lodge of bark, The gray bear from his den, Beyond their camp-fire’s wall of dark, Glared on the mountain men.