Freezing the Balls off a Brass Monkey

In 1611, Johannes Kepler first proposed that the most efficient way to stack cannon balls was in a pyramid. This method was used to stop them from rolling around a ship's deck. To prevent the bottom layer from moving under the other balls, a metal plate was made from brass (to prevent rusting) with round indentations, called (for reasons unknown) a 'monkey'.

Brass contracts much faster than iron when chilled. If the temperature dropped too far, then the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Quite literally, "it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". The expression is not therefore as crude as gentler Englishmen and woman may have feared, but the coldness it bespeaks is just as chilling.

The Lord Jesus foretold in Matthew 24:12:

“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.”

This is a more terrifying prospect than any Beast from the East or re-run of 1948:

Abba Father, let me be
Yours and Yours alone.
May my will forever be
Ever more Your own.
Never let my heart grow cold,
Never let me go;
Abba Father, let me be
Yours and Yours alone.

-Dave Bilbrough