The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1889-12-14

and courageous man is on the platform.
Then the last strains of the hymn dies
away. Jones is on his feet and the
silence of ten or fifteen seconds gives
double emphasis to his opening sem
tence. He asks that the contributions
be large ''for the sake of the sun,
moon and stars and the aurora
borealis." For start this is striking
enough. He takes little time to warm
up, but in a quarter of an hour the man
can be measured by the material he
has furnished, though there will be
surprises to the end. The voice is not
musical, but it falls pleasantly on the
ear, and is powerful en- ough to dis
pense with that bugbear of the plat
DEMONSTRATING to the point of crack
ing. 1t is instantly seen that q south
ern tongue is at work, the 'ah'' broad
as an Africans, doing duty constantly,
but not disagreeably, as substitute
for 81" This is one OF his sentences:
':Ah talk mighty plain, ah do"
There is no dearth of ideas, no
searching for them. They battle to
the surface in such luxuriance and
profusion that they seem to be con-
tending for priority of expression.
tine thing is unmistakable: He has
mapped out in advance but few
leading thoughts. All the rest is left
to the spur of the moment; the de-
tails must take care of themselves
when the time comes. Jones is one OF
the men of whose sermons distinct
ideas can be readily conveyed to those
who have had no chance to listen to
him. His word pictures are realistic
and vivid; they are drawn with a few
touches and thrown aside without re-
luctance. He does not loiter over
them. Some are faint but bright little
sketches, others stand out in crimson
coloring. Look at this sanguinary
scene:
ga drunken father kicked out the
brains of his child. He hurries to the
bar-room where he was crazed; the
blood gushes from his lungs, and he
reels backwards, dead! Let us put our
ear to the mothers heart and listen to
the blood drip! drip! drip!'
This is tragedy in three sentences
with all the accumulated horrors of a
long chapter. Two sentences deal
with death, and the third, though it
doesn't, is more dramatic than the 9TH
err two put together. Only born art
ist could lift it into such commanding
relief. Take another tragedy in two
sentences:
"a drunkard's daughter died in the
morning, and he promised her as she
passed away that he never would take
another drop save from her fingers.
That night the neighbors found him
drinking from bottle about which he
had clasped the fingers of the dead
girl!''
Nothing can exceed the intensity of
such touch as this. At other times,
however, he is moro diffuse, hammer
ing at an idea until it is thinner than
beaten gold. 1t is assailed from before
and behind. Laying siege to it delib-
erately enough at first, he skirmishes
about with light musketry, like cat
playing with mouse. Then the big
gun opens fire. There is a deafening
cannonade all along the line, and with
an overwhelming charge, the fort is
taken by escalade. 1t has been beaten
and battered into ruins, with not sur
vivor left to tell the tale. Suddenly
the roar stops, and the scene changes
like magic. He faces about, looks di-
rectly at some one on the platform, and
in a voice which had lost nine-tenths
of its volume, caressingly and almost
appealingly asks:
"Ain't that so; amt l right"
The antithesis is complete. II is a
remarkable transaction, and the effect
is indescribable. A leap from pole to
pole, from hurricane to dead calm is
not more radical. But it is not all
tragedy and blood-red coloring. Start
ling contrasts prevail everywhere, but