The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-08-30
TALMAGE IN CANADA.
GREAT RESULTS MAY DEPEND ON
SMALL EVENTS.

There Are No Insignifcances i'm Our Lives
Tho Casual, the Accidental. Are Parts
of a Great Plan-7he Omnipresence of
Mothers Prayers.
GRMsBY, Can, Aug. 26.-The Rev.
T. De Witt Talmage, DID,, of Brooklyn,
preached on the camp ground at this
place today. All Cana la is represented
IN the immense throngs assembled. DR..
Talmage has preached at Grimsby many
summers. This closes his summer alb
sence. lie has preached, lectured and
visited i'll thirteen states of the Union
this summer, his audiences numbering
ten and fifteen thousand people The
subject OF his sermon here to-day was
''Great Results May Depend ON Small
Events" DR.. Talmage took for his text
Through window, in basket, was /
let down by the wall" ii Cor. ii, 33.
lie said:
Damascus is a city of white and glisten-
ing architecture sometimes called 1.-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. A horseman by the name of
Paul, riding toward this city, had been
thrown from the saddle. The horse had
dropped under a 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 after that hard
fall from his horse he was a changed
man and preached Christ in Damascus
till the city was shaken to its foundation.
The mayor gives authority for his ar
rest, and the popular cry is xiii him!
Kill himl" The city is surrounded by
high wall, and the gates are watched by
the police lest the Cihcian preacher
escape. Many of the houses are built ON
the wall, and their balconies projected
clear over and hovered above the gardens
outside. 1t was customary to lower
baskets out of these balconies and pull up
fruits and flowers from the gardens. To
this day visitors at 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 Incl
cents in his life demonstrate. But he
feels his work is not done yet, and SO he
evades assassination. sis that preacher
here?'' the foaming mob shout at one
house door. SIS that fanatic here2" the
police shout at another house door.
Sometimes on the street incognito he
III Of oil cf
and sometimes he secretes himself on the
housetop. At last the infuriate 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. 'cHere he is Here he isp' The
vociferation and blasphemy and howl
ing of the pursuer5 are at the front
door. They break in. Fetch out
that Gospelizer, 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 basket. Paul steps into it. The
basket 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
famous missionary tour, the story of
which has astonished earth and heaven.
Appropriate entry in PauPs diary of
travels: Through window, in a bas-
ket, was l let down by the wall"
Observe, first, on what slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened to that lower
ing 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 out2 What would have be-
come of the Christian church? All that
magnificent missionary work in Pam
philia, Cappadocia, Galatia, Macedonia
would never have been accomplished.
All his writings that make up SO indis-
pensable and enchanting a part of the
New Testament would never have been
written. The story of resurrection would
never have been SO gloriously told as he
told it. That example of heroic
and triumphant endurance at Philippi,
in the Mediterranean euroclydon, under
.nagellation and at his beheading would
not have kindled the courage of ten
thousand martyrdoms. But that rope
holding that basket. how much depended
on It'll So again and again great results
have hung on what seemed slender cir
cumstances.
Did ever ship of many thousand tons
crossing the sea have such important pas
senger as had once boat of leaves, from
snff TO cto lu !, Tant
the vessel made waterproof by coat of
bitumen and floating on the Nile with
the infant lawgiver of the Jews
ON board? What il some crocodile
should crunch it? What il some of
the cattle wading in for drink should
sink itl Vessels of war sometimes carry
forty guns looking through the port
holes ready to open battle. But that tiny
craft on the Nile seems to be armed
with all the guns of thunder that bonn
barded Sinai at the law giving. On how
fragile craft sailed how much of his
torical importancel
The parsonage at Epworth, England,
is on fire in the night, and the father
rushed through the hallway for the res
cue of his children, Seven children are
out and safe on the ground, but one re-
mains in the consuming building. That
one wakes, and, finding his bed on fire
and the building crumbling, comes tc
the window, and two peasants make 9
ladder of their bodies, one peasant stand
ing on the shoulder of the other, anC
down the human ladder the boy descend
john Wesley. If you would know how
much depended on that ladder of peas
ants ask the millions Of Methodists ol
both sides of the sea. As their mission
stations all around the world. Asl
their hundreds of thousands alread.,
ascended to join their founder, VIII