Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-09-07
TALMAGE IN CANADA.
Great Results Hang on What
Seem Very Slender Cir
cUmstances.
There Are No 1nsignifcances in Our Lives.
The Casual, the Accidental, Are Parts
of Great Plan.

ground at Grimsby, Can. The subject Of
ms sermon was Great Results May
Depend on Small Events. DIR. Talmage
took for his text: Through window,
in a basket, wasI let down by the wall.
Ii. Cor. ii, 33. He said:
Damascus is city of white and glisten-
ing architecture sometimes called the
eye of the East" sometimes called "a
pearl surrounded by emeralds;" at one
time distinguished for swords of the
best material called Damascus blades,
and upholstery of richest fabric called
damasks. Ahorseman by the name of
Paul, riding toward this city, had been
thrown from the saddle. The horse had
dropped under flash from the sky.
which at the same time was so bright it
blinded the rider for many days, and l
think so permanently injured his eye
sight that this defect of vision became
the thorn in the flesh he afterwards
speaks of. He started from Damascus
to butcher Christians, but afterth that hard
fall from his horse he was changed
man and preached Christ in Damascus
till the city was shaken to its founda-
ton.
The mayor gives authority for his ar
rest, and the popular cry is Kill him!
Kill him!" The city is surrounded by a
4 ulSA wall, duu Iue SuIeS are WdtcAcu Wy
the police lest the Cilician preacher
escape. Many of the houses are built on
the wall, and their balconies projected
clear over and lowered above the gardens
outside. 1t was customary to lower
baskets out of these balconies and pull
up fruits and flowers ifromthe gardens.
To this day visitors ut the monastery Of
Mount Sinai are lifted and let down in
baskets. Detectives prowled around from
house to house looking for Paul, but his
friends hid him now in one place, now
in another. He is no coward, as fifty in
cidents in his life demonstrate. But he
! feels his work is not done yet, and SO he
evades assassination. Us that preacher
here?" the foaming mob shout at one
house door. rs that fanatic here!" the
police shout at another house door.
Sometimes on the street incognito he
passes through cloud of clenched fists,
and sometimes he secretes himself on the
housetop. At last the iDfuriate popu-
lace get on sure track of him. They
have positive evidence that he is in the
house of one of the Christians, the bal
cony of whose home reaches over the
wall. Here he isl Here he isl" The
vociferation andblasphemy and bowling
of the pursuers are at the front door.
They break in. Fetch out that Gospel
izer, and let us hang his head on
the city gate. Where is he?" The
emergency was terrible. Providentially
there was good stout basket in the
house. Paul's friends fasten rope to
the baket. Paul steps into it. The
baskst is lifted to the edge Of the balcony
on the wall, and then while Paul holds
on to the rope with both hands his
friends lower away, carefully and eau
tiously, slowly but surely, further down
and further down, until the basket
strikes the earth and the apostle steps
out, and afoot and alone starts on that
which has astonished earth and Heaven
Appropriate entry in Pauls diary OF
, travels: Through window, in bas-
ket, was I let down by the WALL"
Observe, first, on what slender ten
ure great results hang. The ropemakel
: who twisted that cord fastened to that
lowering basket never knew how much
would depend on the strength of it.
How if it had been broken and the
> apostles life had been dashed out:
2 What would have become of the Chris
tian Church? All that magnificent mis-
sionary work in Pamphilia, Cappadocia,
Galatia, Macedonia would never have
> been accomplished. All his writings
: that make up so indispensable and en-
chanting part of the New Testament
> would never have been written. The
: story of resurrection would never have
9 been SO gloriously told as he told it
: That example of heroic and triumphant
endurance at Philippi, in the Mediter-
l ranean euroclydon. under tlagellatiol
and at his beheading would not have
: kindled the courage Of 10000 martyr
doms. But that rope holding that bas
: ket, how much depended on it? So agar
q and again great results have hung OF
what seemed slender circumstances.
Did ever ship of many thousand tom
1 crossing the sea have such importan
J. passenger as had once boat of leaves
. from taftrail to stern only three or fou
. feet, the vessel made waterproof by
coat Of bi,nmen, and floating on tn
b Nile with the infant lawgiver of thu
, Jews on board? What if some crocodile
$ should crunch it? What if some of tn
}, cattle wading IN for drink should SIM
Y it? Vessels of war sometimes carr
: forty guns looking through the port
y. holes ready to open battle. But tina
u tiny craft on the Nile seems to be arme'
i with all the guns of thunder that bonn
= barded Sinai at the law giving. On no,
fragile craft sailed how much of histor
ical Importance!
y The parsonage at Epworth, England
i is on fire in the night, and the fathe
rushed through the hallway for tn
rescue of his children. Seven childrel
g are out and safe on the ground. but on
| remains in the consuming building
!. That one wakes, and, finding his bed O.
fire and the building crumbling, come
4: to the window, and two peasants make
4 ladder of their bodies, one peasan
!, standing on the shoulder of the Other
and down the human ladder the boy de
: scends-John Wesley. II you woul
know how much depended on that lad
!, der of peasants ask the millions Q
!. Methodists on both sides of the sea. AS
L their mission stations all around tn
s world. Ask their hundreds of thousand
: already assembled to join their founder
who would have persisted but for tn
S living stairs of peasants shoulders.
b An English ship stopped at Pitcair
Island, and right in the midst of SUI
rounding cannibalism and squalor, tn
u passengers discovered Christian col
ony of churches and schools and beau
] tiful homes and highest style of relie
j.. ion and civilization. For fifty years IL
: missionary and no Christian infuenc
. had landed there. Why this oasis c
Q light amid desert of heathendon
I Sixty years before ship had met dis
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