The Russellville Democrat., 1888-09-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Small Events Sometimes Prolific of
 Great Results.
Helpful Influences In Every Day Life that Rarely Receive Full credIt-Incf- dents in Our Lives that Have
 Shaped Our Destinies.

ever and will bear repeating. His text was:
 Through window, fin a basket, was lot down by the wall 1T. Cor. H., 3a
 Damascus is city of white and glisten- Ing architecture, sometimes called "the eye of the East" sometimes called Ia pearl surrounded by emeralds," at one time distinguished for swords of the best material called Damascus blades, and upholstery of richest fabric called 1amasks. A horsesnan by the name of Paul, riding toward this city had been thrown from the sad- dle. The horse had dropped under afiash from the sky, which at the same time was so bright it blinded the rider for many days, and think so permanently injured his eyesight that this defect of vision be- came the thorn in the flesh he afterward speaks of. He started for Damascus to butcher Christians. but after that hard fall from his horse he was changed man and preached Christ in Damascus ill the city was shaken to it's founda- ton.
 The mayor gives authority for his ar . rest and the popular cry is; "Kill himl kill himp The city is surrounded by a high wall, and the gates are watched by the police lest the. Cilician preacher es- cape Many of the houses are built on the wall, and iheir balconies projected clear over and lowered above the gardens outside. It was customary to lower baskets out of these balconies and pull up fruit and flowers from the gardens. To this day visitors at the monastry 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 inci- dents in his life demonstrate. But he feels his work is not done yet, and so he evades assassination.
 'Ts that preacher here" the foaming mob shouts at one door.
 s'Is that fanatic here?u the police shout at another house door. Sometimes on the street incognito he passes through a crowd of clenched fists. and sometimes he secretes himself on tho house -tops. At last the infuriated populace get on sure track of him. They have positive evidence that he is in the house of one of the Christians, the balcony of whose home reaches over the wall. "Here he is !! Here he isl" The vociferation and blas- phemy and bowling of the pursuers are at the front door. They break in. Fetch put that Gospelizer and let us hang his head on the city gate. Where is he?"
 The emergency was terrible. Provf- dentially, there was good stout basket In the house. Paul's friends fasten a rope to the basket Paul steps Into 1t. 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 F.xl1x tiously, slowly but surely, further down and further down, until the basket strikes she 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. Appro- priate entry in Paul's diary Of travels:
 Through a window, in basket, was let aowh by the wall.
 Observe, first on what slender tenure great results hang. The rope-maker who twisted that cord fastened to that lower. ing basket never knew how much would depend on the strength of 1t. How if 1t aad been broken and the apostles life had been dashed outy What would have become of the Christian Church? All that magnificent missionary work in Pamph,tia, Cappadocia, Galatia, Mace- donia would never have been accom- plished. All his writings that make up 50 Indispensable and enchanting part of the New Testament would never have been written. The story of resurrection would never have been so gloriously told as he told 1t. That example of heroic and triumphant endurance at Philippi, in the Mediterranean euroclydon, under fagel- lation, and at his beheading would not have kindled the courage of ten thousa and martyrdoms. But that rope holding that basket how much depended on iti So again and again great results have hung on what seemed slender circumstances.
 Did ever ship of many thousand tons crossing the sea have such important passengers as had once a boat of leaves, from taffrail to stern only three or tour feet, the vessel made waterproof by . coat of bitumen and floating on the Milo with the infant Law-giver of tho Jews on board? What if some crocodile should crunch itf What if some of the cattle wading in for drink should sink it? 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 bombarded Sinai at tho law-giving. On how fragile craft sailed how much of historical im- por,ancei
 The parsonage at Epworth. England, is on fire in the night and the father rushed through the hallway for the rescue of his children. Seven children are out and safe on the ground, but one remains in the consuming building. That one wakes and, finding his bed on fire and the build idg crumbling, comes to the window, and two peasants make a ladder of their bodies. one peasant standing on tho shoulder of the other, and down the hn : man ladder the boy descends-John Wes- ley. If you would know how much dc- pends on that ladder of peasants ask tho millions of Methodists on both sides of the sea. Ask their mission stations all around the world. Ask their hundreds of thousands already ascended to join their founder, who would have perished but for the living stairs of peas nts' shoulders.
 An English shipstopped at Pitcairn Isl and. and right fin the midst of surround ing caunibalism and squalor, the pas- sengers discovered Christian colony of churches and schools and beautiful homes, and highest style of religion and civilization. For fifty years no mission ary and no Christian influence had land ed there. Why this oasis of light amid a desert of heathendomf Sixty years be- fore A ship had mot disaster, and one of the sailors, unable to save any thing else, went to his trunk and took out Bible which his mother had placed there and swan ashore, tho Bible held in his teeth. The book was read on all sides until the rough and vicious population were evangelized, and church was started, and an enlightened commonwealth es- tabIished. and the worlds history has no more brilliant page than that which tells of the transformation of nation by one book It did not seem of much import ance whether the sailor continued to hold the book in his teeth or let it fall in the breakers, but upon what small circum- stance depended what mighty results
 Practical inference: There are no in- signifcances in our lives. The minutest thing'is part of Ia magnitude. Infnity is