Beautiful Snow [Tract]

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Some years ago, during the dead of winter, a young woman, only twenty-two years old, died at the Commercial Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio.  She could have had an easy life.  She had once been beautiful—had been, as she herself said, “flattered and sought for the charm of her face.”  She had once been the pride of her parents.  Well-educated and talented, she could have had an easy life.

But she wanted to “do her own thing.”  She gave in to sin and Satan; and that father of lies (John 8:44) gave her the worst.  She died brokenhearted and friendless. Among her few personal belongings was a manuscript of the following poem.

Oh, the snow! the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below!
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing—
Flirting—
Skimming along.
Beautiful snow; it can do no wrong;
Flying to kiss a fair lady’s cheek;
Clinging to lips in frolicsome freak;
Beautiful snow from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love.

Oh, the snow! the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go
Whirling about in its maddening fun;
It plays in its glee with everyone.
Chasing—
Laughing—
Hurrying by,
It lights on the face, and it sparkles the eye;
And e’en the dogs with a bark and a bound
Snap at the crystals that eddy around;
The town is alive and its heart is aglow
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow!

How the wild crowd goes swaying along,
Hailing each other with humor and song!
How the bright sleighs like meteors flash by,
Bright for a moment, then lost to the eye;
Ringing—
Swinging—
Dashing they go,
Over the crest of the beautiful snow:
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by;
To be trampled and tracked by thousands of feet,
Till it blends with the horrible filth in the street.

Once I was pure as the snow, but no more;
Fell, like the snowflakes from heaven to shore—
Fell, to be trampled as filth on the street;
Fell, to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat;
Pleading—
Cursing—
Dreading to die,
Selling my soul to whoever would buy;
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread,
Hating the living and fearing the dead;
Merciful God! have I fallen so low?
And yet I was once like this beautiful snow!

Once I was fair as the beautiful snow,
With an eye like its crystals, a heart like its glow;
Once I was loved for my innocent grace—
Flattered and sought for the charm of my face;
Father—
Mother—
Sisters—all;
God and myself I have lost by my fall!
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by
Will make a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh;
For of all that is on or about me, I know
There is nothing that’s pure—but the beautiful snow.

How strange it should be that this beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it would be, when the night comes again,
If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain:
Fainting—
Freezing—
Dying alone
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town
Gone mad in the joy at the snow coming down—
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and shroud of the beautiful snow!

A Christian read this tragically sad poem and added the following wonderful words:

Filthy and black as the old trampled snow,
Sinner, despair not! for Christ has stooped low
To rescue the soul that is lost in its sin,
And raise it to life and enjoyment again;
Groaning—
Bleeding—
Dying for thee,
The Crucified hung on th’ accursed tree!
His voice full of mercy falls now on your ear:
“There is mercy for you”—He will hear your weak prayer:
“O God, in the blood that for sinners did flow,
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).

What a warning to anyone who is eagerly seeking freedom from authority, the right to “do as I please,” and personal liberty to test all the lures of Satan!  How much better to “enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).