The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-09-07
TALMAGFs SERMON.
Small Events Sometimes Prolific Of
Great Results.
helpful Influences In Every Day Life that
Rarely Receive Full Credit-1nci-
dents In Our Lives that Have
Shaped Our DestinIes.

following sermon at Gr1mSDys CANADA on
q recent Sabbath. It is not new one,
having been delivered elsewhere within
the past two years. It is good one, how
ever and will bear repeating. His text
was:
Through window, in basket, was let
down by the WALTZ. Cor. IL, 80.
Damascus is a city of white and glisten-
ing architecture, sometimes called ''the
eve Of the East" sometimes called ''a
pearl surrounded by emeralds," al one
time distinguished for swords Of the best
material called Damascus blades, and
upholstery Of richest fabric called
5amasks. A horseman by the
name of Paul, riding toward this
city had been thrown from the sad
die. The horse had dropped under ahash
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 a changed
man and preached Christ in Damascus
.ill 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
=
the police lest the Cilician preacher es-
cape. 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 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 Incl
dents in his life demonstrate. But he
feels his work is not done yet, and so he
svades assassination.
els that preacher here?" the foaming
mob shouts at one door.
as that fanatic here?'' the police shout
at another house door. Sometimes on
the street incognito he passes through
crowd of clenched fists, and sometimes
he secretes himself on the 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
I home reaches over the wall. "Here he is !
/ Here he is J" The vociferation and BIAS
I phemy and bowling of the pursuers are
at the front door. They break in. Fetch
out that Gospelizer and let US hang his
head on the city gate. Where is hep"
The emergency was terrible. PrOvi-
4 aentially, there was a good stout baske
In the house. Paul's friends fasten a
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.
/ tiousIy, 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
astouished earth and Heaven. Appro-
pirate entry in Paul's diary Of travels:
Through a window, in basket, was let
DOWN by the wall.
Observe, first on what a 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 it. How If 1t
Sad been broken and the apostles life
had been dashed out? What would have
become of the Christian church, All
that magnificent missionary work in
PamphiGa, Cappadocia, Galatia, Mace
donia would never have been accom-
plished. Ali his writings that make up
so indispensable 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 hagel-
lation, and at his beheading would not
have kindIed the courage of ten thous and
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 circumstances.
Did ever ship Of many thousand tons
crossing the sea have such important
4 - - Nernw
from taffrail to stern only three or four
feet, the vessel made waterproof by a
coat of bitumen and floating on the Nile
with the infant Law giver Of the Jews on
board? What if some crocodile should
crunch it? What If some of the cattle
wading in for a drink should sink 1t?
Vessels of war sometimes carry forty
guns looking through the portfolios,
ready to open battle. But that tiny craft
on the Nile seems to be armed with all
che guns OF thunder that bOmbarded
Sinai at the law-giving. On how fragile
craft sailed how much of historical i'm
pOrtance
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 anC
safe on the ground, but one remains IL
the consuming building. That one wakes
and finding his bed on fire and the build
tdg crumbling, comes to the window, and
two peasants make ladder of theil
bodies, one peasant standing on the
shoulder of the other, and down the hu
man ladder the boy descends-John Yves
lev If you would know how much de-
ponds on that ladder Of peasants ask the
( millions of Methodists on both sides o
the sea. Ask their mission stations al
around the world. Ask their hundreds o
/ thousands already assembled to join theil
founder, who would have persisted but 70
the living stairs of peas ants shoulders.
An English shipstOpped at Pitcairn Isl
and, and right in the midst Of surround
ing cannibaHsm and squalor, the pas
+ : sengers discovered Christian colony o
churches and schools and beautiful
homes, and highest style Of religion an
civilization. For fifty years no mission
arv and no Christian influence had land
ed there. Why this oasis of light amid
desert of heathendom9 Sixty years be
, fore'R ship had met disaster, and one o
the sailors, unable to save any thing else
went to his trunk and took out Bibl
which his mother had placed there an
swan ashore, the Bible held in his teeth
The book was read on all sides until tn
, rough and vicious population wer
evangelized, and church was started
and an enlightened commonwealth es
tablished. and the worlds history has n
more brilliant page than that which tell
Of the transformation Of nation by on
, book. 1t did not seem of much import
ance whether the sailor continued to hOl
the book in his teeth or let it fall in tn
| breakers, but upon what small circum
stance depended what mighty results
Practical inference: There are no IN
signifcances in our lives. The minutes
, thing is part OF Ia magnitude. Inhnity
made up of infnitesimals. Great things
an aggregation Of small things. Bethle
| hem manger pulling on star in the East
ern sky, One book in a drenched sailor
mouth the evangelization of multitude