Ice Palaces | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 7, 1858

Ice Palaces.

AN Empress of Russia once constructed for her amusement an ice palace. Smooth, glittering, polished blocks of ice were fastened or frozen together, until the great white palace rose, in stern majesty, without axe or hammer, quiet and beautiful as an enchanter's dream. How cold it was! How stately! how pure! The furniture, too, was of ice. There were chairs, and sofas, and columns, and porticos, colored sometimes with red, and orange, and purple, but all frigid and icy. Torches were lit, and their light flashed back, as it never flashed in hall or parlor since, from mirrors and walls, from floors and ceilings, shining here with the soft lustre of the pearl, there, with the sunny gleam of the diamond.

The ice palace stood a little while, and then the broad sun came out in his splendor and strength. His eye of fire saw its exceeding beauty, and he thought to try it. So he sent down beam after beam, fervent and scorching, and day after day he looked upon the icy arches and frozen towers. Then the cold hard ice began to melt. It melted and melted, until the blocks began to slide from their foundation, and the gorgeous columns fell, and it lay all a heap of sad unsightly ruin.

Some pilgrims to Zion are very much like an ice palace. Most beautiful to look upon; all built of the white marbles of morality, great blocks of discretion, and gleaming towers of science. But they are cold and frigid. They need the warm realities of faith and love to Christ, the polished stones of genuine benevolence, the meekness, temperance, and true holiness, which so gloriously furnish the believer. How will these ice palaces meet the fervid glare of the Sun of Righteousness? Will they stand firm or safe on their slippery foundation? The torches of earth have not melted them, but will they lift their pinnacles and flash so bravely, to the lightnings which shall strike them when the Master Builder, builds again Jerusalem?

Our hearts glow with pity for these hollow disciples. Oh! that now in these days of grace he might melt them in love, that from their ruins, graceful incense might go up to Him. For in that day which shall “burn as an oven,” there will be neither mercy nor love for those who have dwelt in ice palaces here, and trusted their immortality upon a treacherous foundation.—Christian Intelligencer.