_The Rain cometh down and the Snow from heaven, and
watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud,
that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the
eater.—Isaiah 55:10._
The great design of the snow is benevolent. It is appointed to water
the earth, but not like the rain. That comes down and produces its
effects and passes away, and is absent just when the heat is at its
hight, and evaporation most rapid. But the snow comes down in the
winter, and lies upon the high mountain ranges all through the hottest
weather, gradually supplying the streams and rivers on which human life
depends. The great Father of Waters, our grand Mississippi, is a child
of the snow; and often his waters swell when other streams are drying
up. The very heat which is drinking up their waters is melting the
snows on the Rocky Mountains, and replenishing his wasted bulk. The
Nile is the child of snow; and its annual rise, on which the life of
Egypt depends, is occasioned by its melting. The sun, approaching the
summer solstice, finds the snows of the winter all treasured up for his
magic touch to transform to water.
The snow tempers the heat of the atmosphere. And in this it has
two opposite powers and offices. It heats and it cools. By being a
non-conductor of heat, and at the same time translucent, it enables the
Esquimaux to build his winter house entirely of its solid blocks; being
the warmest substance for this purpose, in nature, so far as waste of
heat is concerned, and at the same time serving the purpose of windows
by transmitting the light in a broad mass into his humble dwelling.
Animals live under its shelter in the severest cold. And the very earth
is protected by it. Tender roots lie sheltered from the frosts by its
thick covering. The winds that visit the south of India, our latitude,
and Southern Europe, in summer, come across over the great snow tracts
of the Himalaya, or the Alps, or the Rocky Mountains, charged with
refreshing coolness.
And while its pure whiteness makes an agreeable change from the verdure
of summer, it is admirably adapted to the various latitudes of the
earth in modifying the light. The farther the sun withdraws from
any part of the earth, the less light he emits there. And the snow
follows him at respectful distance, increasing its bounty, as his rays
diminish. The consequence is, our long winter nights are cheered by
this brilliant covering that gathers and reflects all the scattered
beams the sun has left. The long polar nights are not only illuminated,
but also beautified by its wonderful phenomena.
Snow furnishes the most splendid material for road making. To it we owe
the cheerful movement of the sleigh; and the lumbermen of our forests
can do nothing until it has come to enable them to bring their timber
to the streams.
Kirk.
* * * * *
But few of us at home can realize the protecting power of this warm
coverlet of snow. No eider-down in the cradle of an infant is tucked
in more kindly than the sleeping dress of Winter about this feeble
flower-life. The first warm snows, falling on a thickly-pleached carpet
of grasses, heaths, and willows, enshrine the flowery growths which
nestle round them in a non-conducting air-chamber; and, as each
successive snow increases the thickness of the cover, we have, before
the intense cold of winter sets in, a light, cellular bed covered by
drift, six, eight or ten feet deep, in which the plants retain their
vitality.
The early spring and late fall and summer snows are more cellular
and less condensed than the nearly impalpable powder of winter. The
drifts, therefore, that accumulate during nine months of the year,
are dispersed in well-defined layers of different density. We have
first the warm cellular snows which surround the plant; next, the
fine, impacted snow-dust of winter; and above these, the later, humid
deposits of the spring.
It is interesting to observe the effects of this disposition of layers
upon the safety of the vegetable growths below them. These, at least
in the earliest summer, occupy the inclined slopes that face the sun,
and the several strata of snow take, of course, the same inclination.
The consequence is, that as the upper snow is dissipated by the early
thawings, and sinks upon the more compact layer below, it is, to a
great extent, arrested, and runs off like rain from a slope of clay.
The plant reposes thus in its cellular bed, guarded from the rush of
waters, and protected too from the nightly frosts by the icy roof above
it.
Dr. Kane.
* * * * *
There is a pretty, curious old town in Germany. The streets are narrow
and the houses very quaint, with their pointed, gable-ends toward the
street. One house stands somewhat isolated from the rest. It is at an
angle where two streets meet, and is built with so many projections and
jutting windows and carved friezes that it is quite a study.
One cold, cold afternoon in midwinter, when the silent frost was
penetrating every where, and men moved quickly, muffled up in
furs,—a time for people to close their doors, and gather round their
firesides,—all the quiet inhabitants were astir. There was a bustle of
preparation in parlor and kitchen; and young and old, wrapping their
garments about them, were ready to go out in the cold. There were
dismay and confusion in all the streets. Why?
They had heard that the French regiment, called the Pitiless, on its
retreat from Moscow, was only three leagues off, and was to quarter in
their village that night. There was every thing to fear from the revelry
and excesses of soldiers, who acknowledged no right but that of the
strongest.
In the queer old house of which we have spoken, there was no bustle
of preparation. By the fire, in a large old room, sat an aged woman
and her two grandchildren. Unable from her lameness to leave home, her
grandchildren would not forsake her. Her faith in God enabled her to
feel that they might be safer there than when fleeing from danger.
“O God! till darkness goeth hence,
Be thou our stay and our defense;
A wall, when foes oppress us sore,
To save and guard us evermore!”
These, the last notes of their evening hymn, died away amid the rafters
of the shadowy room.
“Alas!” said the boy, mournfully, “we have no wall about us to-night to
protect us from enemies.”
“He will be our Wall himself,” said the aged woman, reverently. “Think
you his arm is shortened?”
“No, grandmother; but the thing is impossible without a miracle.”
“Take care, my boy; nothing is impossible with God. Hath he not said he
will be a wall of fire unto his people? We must trust him and he will
be our wall of defense.”
They sat quietly by the fireside. The wind moaned down the large open
chimney, and the snow fell softly against the window-pane. Steadily it
fell all night, and the wind drifted it in high banks, covering the
shed, streets, walls, and paths of the silent and deserted town. And
yet there was peace by that quiet fireside, the peace that can only be
felt by the mind that is stayed on God. Few words were spoken. They
held one another’s hands, and looked into the fire, and listened, in
the pauses of the storm, to catch the blast of the French trumpets. At
nine o’clock the sound was faintly borne to them on the breeze; a few
hurried blasts swept past them, intermingled with sounds of trampling
feet and loud voices, and all was still.
Their hearts beat almost audibly; and they drew closer together, as
they felt that they were now in the midst of their enemies. Helpless
age and defenseless youth! What armor had they wherein to trust? The
shield of faith! and safely they rested beneath its shadow!
Every house was a scene of revelry. Great fires were kindled. Altars
were ransacked. The soldiers, with their songs and wine-cups, their
oaths and blasphemy, made the streets ring, striving to drown the
remembrance of intense cold and terrible privation in those hours of
drunken merriment.
Still the little group in the quaint old house sat peacefully through
the long, long hours of the night, till morning dawned and showed them
the wall of defense which God had built round about them. Exposed as
was their house, from its position, to the eddies and currents of the
wind, the snow had so drifted about them that the doors and windows
were completely blocked up; and the French soldiers had not found it.
With the daylight they had left the town.
Wind and storm had fulfilled God’s word, and encircled those who
put their trust in him with a wall that protected them from their
enemies,—a wall, not of fire, but of snow.
_Under the Snow._
Fall in your gleaming folds of white,
And robe the mountain-crest with snow;
Make each dark vale and hillside bright,
Till all the earth is fair below!
Let all the forest oaks be clad,—
The birch, and shivering aspen-tree,
Nor fail to shroud the tender buds
And roots of frail anemone!
Then fold them close and shield them well
To guard against the winter’s cold;
While fast yon snowy flakes descend
And penetrate the frozen mold.
And we will sing, though wild the storm,—
Sing in December as in May,
Fill pledges from the icy brook,
And all the year be glad and gay.
For when the winter solstice brings
The Earth resplendent, like a bride,
She, with her snowy coronal,
Fulfills her promise, glorified!
Fulfills her promise, when the days
And months have brought the circling year,
When vernal woods and bursting buds
And blue-eyed violets appear.
Faint type of what our hearts foretell,
Of something glorious yet to be;
The life for which our spirits thirst,—
And hid from all eternity!
And most for thee, high Hope, and Faith,
I languish. Oh, return to me!
Come, fold me in thy heavenly robes,
And mantle of sweet Charity.
And hide me from the outer world,
And quicken to my inward sense
The earnest of those heavenly joys,
Till I, departing, shall go hence.
And through those clouded days and brief,
To yonder heaven I lift my eyes;
While, through life’s frost and over-growth,
The violet of my heart shall rise,
Up to that flaming Soul of Love,
Who makes with joy my soul to sing;
And folds beneath the wintry snow
The buds and garniture of spring.