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This is a very striking picture of winter. It would be difficult to find one more vivid. It is worthy of a Greenland or Esquimaux poet, if poetry can flourish in such regions. It is at first sight a strange thing that such words should have come to us from an Eastern land — a land of heat — in which it is more difficult to ward off the sun's rays than to grapple with cold. No one can read these words, however, without feeling that they come from one who had seen with his own eyes that of which he speaks. How is this to be accounted for? It may be said that Mount Hermon, which is visible from wide tracts of the Holy Land, is often covered with snow. Doubtless this is so. But no vision of snow on a far-off mountain-top could have given an idea of cold powerful enough to have produced this description. Multitudes of Hindoos can lift their eyes and see in the far distance the snow on the Himalayas, but they get from it no notion whatever of frost, or ice, or cold. The snow of a far-off mountain adds a new beauty to the scene, but scarcely suggests to one who had never felt it the idea of cold or frost. The explanation must be sought in other directions, and chiefly here, that the climate of Palestine is much colder than its geographical position would lead us to expect. I have heard travellers in Palestine say that in the early months of the year they suffered far more from the cold than the heat. Whilst it is the opinions of some careful observers that the changes which have been made in the country have rendered the winters less severe than they were in the olden time. An incidental proof of this occurs in Scripture: when the manna fell in the wilderness, to what was it compared? To a round thing as small as the hoar-frost; whilst we hear in the 78th Psalm that even the sycamore trees were destroyed by frost. So that there must have been times when the cold was really severe; not, it may be, every year, but occasionally taking the people by surprise, awakening their astonishment. To this is, perhaps, due the vividness of the description before us. Think of the snow as —

I. A WITNESS TO THE DIVINE POWER. Any worthy thought of God must include this. We often speak of the power of God. But how utterly faint and weak are all our efforts to realize it. It is high, we cannot attain unto it. When our thoughts of it are the largest, they fall infinitely below the great reality. It is well, therefore, to use all aids which come in our way that may enlarge our conceptions of this power. We hear much — too much — in our day of the power of man. There is an abundance of human glorification. I will not deny that man-has done much; but how has it been accomplished? Simply by directing the mighty forces which God has called into being. Man is a director, not a maker. He can guide, not create. Let the men of science do their best to devise, and the men of action their best to carry out, their plans; give there time and space to any extent, and could they cover with snow the land, or bind with ice the waters in a single county — to say nothing of the whole kingdom, or the continent of Europe? They would not attempt such an enterprise; they would not risk the failure they know would follow. If we saw things as they are, and not as they seem, if we judged a righteous judgment, we should talk less of the power of man, and more of the power of God. "Only God is great" (Mahomet).

II. A WITNESS TO THE QUIETNESS OF THE DIVINE WORKING. The method is almost as wonderful as the result, both are in the deepest sense Divine. If men have a great work to be done, how much stir and noise and tumult are found l Go to the place where great locomotives are made, and the noise is enough to deafen you, the heat will almost blind you, the tumult will be distracting to you. Go even to the place where instruments of music are made, and it will be found a Babel of discord rather than a temple of harmony. God changes the aspect of a country or a continent, robes it in purest white; but no workers are seen scattering the snow, or binding the waters, or unloosing the wind. There is no stir, or tumult, or noise. If we could trace the snow and ice back to their source, we should find them due to some subtle atmospheric change utterly invisible, utterly intangible to men. hie great factory would be found in the heavens, no mighty machinery, no great array of workmen. More subtle — more spiritual I had almost said, would the process be found to be. It is so in far higher matters. We are tempted in these days to trust to great organizations and societies for the bringing in of the Kingdom of God; — "we worship our net and burn incense to our drag"; — we occupy ourselves with our implements; we fancy that success depends on these. It is not so. The highest work is done by more spiritual methods. It is almost independent of machinery. It lies in a higher realm (John 3:8). The greatest results follow not when men are trying to perfect their machinery, or arrange their organization, but when their eyes are lifted to the hills from whence cometh their help.

III. A WITNESS TO THE BEAUTY OF THE DIVINE WORKING. Think of the purity of the whiteness of the snow. Think of the loveliness of the frost-patterns on window and tree. Think of the delicate grace with which it clings to all things. Think of the soft lines and lovely surface of the newly-fallen snow. It might have been otherwise. The snow might have come and covered the earth in sable blackness, the frost might have hung the earth as in garments of gloom, the clouds might have made the sky hideous to look upon. Beauty might have been only in the completed work of nature — aye, not even there. The beauty of the world is too much taken for granted, and so it fails of its true purpose in our hearts and lives. It has a meaning and mission. The great Father was bound to provide a dwelling-place for His children — a place in which they could live. He has made it a very palace of beauty. It is surely the height of ingratitude to take it all for granted and look upon it with dull or unthankful eyes.

IV. A WITNESS TO THE DEFILING INFLUENCE OF MEN. The snow comes to us as a thing of utter purity, but how soon it is defiled, not so much by the earth as by men. Where nature has full sway it retains its purity, but where men do congregate how soon does its glory depart. So, too, often we defile God's fair gifts — so we, too, often mar His works. Purity, beauty, grace too often flee before man's approach. It is folly to deny all this. He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh it shall find mercy.

V. A REVELATION OF PURITY. The snow makes even things we call white to look utterly unclean. We dare scarcely call them white in its presence. It is thus when we stand near to Him who is the pure image of God, in whom was no sin. We may think ourselves pure as we move among men; the feelings of the Pharisee may, in many subtle ways, creep over us; we may credit ourselves with a holiness we do not possess, but when the Divine purity is revealed in Jesus Christ, when He comes to us an image of perfect holiness as the snow is of perfect whiteness, then how black we seem — how our sin is brought to light! "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men" becomes "God, be merciful to me a sinner." How poor even our virtues seem in His light. We may think ourselves rich and increased with goods, and that we have need of nothing; but in His presence we shall know that we are poor and blind, and miserable and hated, and from the deepest depths of our natures will rise the cry, "Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us."

(W. G. Horder.)

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KJV: He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.

WEB: He gives snow like wool, and scatters frost like ashes.