The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-08-28
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Eloquent Preacher in the
Dominion.
He breaches to the Canadians on "Great
Results May Depend on Small Events
An Interesting Discourse.

L
Brooklyn, preached on the camp ground,
this place. today All Canada is represented
in the immense throngs assembled. DIR, Tai
mage has preached at Grimsby many sum-
mers. This closes his summer absence. He
has preached, lectured and visited thirteen
states OF the union this summer, his audiences
numbering ten and fifteen thousand people.
The subject of his sermon here today was
Great Results May Depend on Small
Events" DR.. Talmage took for his text:
Through a window, in a basket was let
down by the wall. IL Cor. Oh. 2, " 80. He
said
! Damascus is a city of white and glistening
| architecture, sometimes called "the eye of the
east" sometimes called "a pearl surrounded
by cmeralds, 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 towards this city, had been thrown from
the saddle. The horse had dropped under
flash from the sky, which at the same time
was 50 bright it blinded the rider for many days,
| and, think so permanently injured his eye
| sight that this defect of vision became the
| thorn in the flesh he afterwards 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 Damas-
Gus till the city was shaken to its foundation.
The mayor gives authority for his arrest,
| and the popular cry is, "Kiil him Kill him 20
The city is surrounded by high WALL and the
gates are watched by the police lest the Gill
! cian preacher escape. Many of the houses are
built on tho WALL and their balconies project
ed clear over and lowered 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 lef down in basket DptnpfiVac prnWfa6
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
dents in his life demonstrate. But lie feels his
work is not done yet, and SO he evades assassi-
nation. as that preacher Eere?' the foam
! ing mob shout ut one house door. as that
fanatic here?" the police shout at
another house door. Sometimes on the
street incognito he passes through crowd of
cenched fists and sometimes he secretes him
self on the housetop. At last the infuriate
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 blasphemy
and bowling Of the pursuers are at the front
! door. They break in. "Fetch out that Cos
pelizer. and let us hang his head on the city
gate. Where is hep The emergency was
terrible. Providentially there was good
| stout basket in the house. Paul's friends fasten
the 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 cautiously, 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 Pauls diary of travels:
| Through a window, i'll a basket, was l let
| down by the wall"
4sr-f hot ac1oy, lnr
| great results hang. The Topemaker 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? What would have become of the Christ
ian church? All that magnificent missionary
work in Pamphilia, Cappadocia, Galatia,
! Macedonia would never have been accom-
| plished. All his writings that make
| up so 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 it. That
example of heroic and triumphant endurance
! at Phiippi, i'll the Mediterranean euroclydon,
| under hagellation and at his beheading would
! not have kiudled the courage of ten thousand
| martyrdoms. But that rope holding that
basket, how much depended on it! So again
| and again great results have hung on what
! seemed slender circumstances.
| Did ever ship of many thousand tons cross
| ing the sea have such important passenger as
had once a boat of leaves, from taffral to stern
| only three or four feet the vessel made water
| proof by a coat of btumen, and floating on the
| Nile with the infant lawgiver OF he Jews on
| board? What if some crocodile should crunch
| it? What if some of the cattle wading in for
drink should sink it? Vessels Of war some
! times carry forty guns looking through the
portfolios, ready to open battle. Butthat tiny
! craft on the Nile seems to he armed with all
the guns of thunder that bombarded Sinai at
the law-giying. On how fragile craft sailed
! how much of historical Importance
| 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 building crumbling, comes TO the win
| dow, and two peasants make ladder of their
! bodies, one peasant standing on the shoulder
OF the other, and down the human ladder the
| boy descendS-John Wesley. If you would
| know how much depended on that ladder of
| peasants ask the millions of Methodists on
! both sides of the sea. ASK their mission sta
tions all around the world. Ask their hum
! dredS and thousands already assembled TO Join
their founder who would have persisted but
! for the living stairs of peasants shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn island,
| and right i'll the midst of surrounding cann-
| balism and squalor the passengers discovered
I and beautiful homes, and highest style of re-
| hgion and civilization. For fifty years no
| missionary and no Christian influence had
landed there. Why this oasis Of light amid a
desert of heathendom? Sixty years before
| 81 ship had met disaster, aud one Of the sail
ors, unable 10 save anything else, went to his
trunk and took out Bible which his mother
had placed there and swan ashore. the Bible
held in his teeth. The book was read on all
sides until the rough and vicious population
were evangelical, and a church was started,
and an enlightened commonwealth established,
and the worlds history has no more brilliant
page than that which tells of the transforma-
ton of a nation by one book. 1t did not
seem OF much Importance whether the sailor
continued to hold the book in his teeth or let
it fail III the breakers, but upon what small
circumstance depended what mighty results
Practical inference: There are no insignif-
canoes in our lives The minutest thing is
part of magnitude. Infnity is made up OF
intinitesimalS Great things an aggregation Of
small things. Bethlehem mangerpulling on a
star in the eastern sky. One book in q
drenched sailors mouth the evangelization OF
a multitude. One boat of papyrus on the Nile
freighted with events for all ages. The fate
of Christendom in q basket let down from Q
window on tine wall. What you do, do well
| If Won mako rome make it strong and true