Connecticut western news., 1894-03-15
MoAENTOUS TRIPLES.
REV DR. TAlMkGE BREACHES AN iN- TEREST,NG SERMON IN MOBILE.

REV. DIR. TAlMkGE BREACHES AN iN-
 TERESTlNG SERMON IN MOBILE. "Unappreciascd Ssrvfceap" Taken as the Subject of the Text-Little Things of Great Rss1lts-- Nothing Is Insignificant. The Escaps In Basket.
 MOBILE, March 11.-Rev. T. De Witt ralmage, D. D., who is now visiting the south, selected as the subject of today's sermon "Unappreciated Services" the text being taken from II Corinthians Ri, S8, Through window. in basket, was let down by the wall"
 Damascus is city of white and glis- tening architecture sometimes called "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 dam asks.
 A horseman of the name of Paul, rid ing 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 think so per manently injured his eyesight that this defect of vision became 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 till the city was shaken to it's foundation.
 CRY OF THE MOB.
 The mayor gives authority for his ar rest, and the popular cry is: Kill him! Kill himr" The city is surrounded by 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 their balconies projected clear over and hovered above the gar dens outside. It 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 an other. He is no coward, as 90 incidents in his life demonstrate. But he feels his work is not done yet, and so he evades assassination. ''Is that preacher hereY' the foaming mob shout at one house door. A'.Is that fanatic here9" the police shout 1t another house door. Sometimes ou the street inco ynito he passes through a crowd of clinched fists, and sometimes he secretes himself on the housetops. 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 heis! Here he isf' The vo- ciferation anl blasphemy and bowling of the pursGers are at the front door. They break in. Fetch out that gospel izer and let us hang his head on the city gate. Where is heY' 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 ahands his friends lower away, carefully and cautiously, slowly, but surely, far ther down and farther 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 Paurs diary of tray els, Through window, in a basket, was I let down by the wall"
 SLENDER THREADS.
 Observe first on what a 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 out7 What would have become of the Christian church? All that magnificent missionary work in Pamphylia, Capadocia, Galatia, Mace donia, would never have been accom- pIished. All his writings that make up go indispensable and enchanting a part of the New Testament would never have been written. The story of resurrection would never have been 30 gloriously told as he told it. That example of heroic and triumphant endurance at Phiiippi, in the Mediterranean euroclydon, under fiagellation and at his beheading would not have kindled the courage of 10000 martyrdoms. But the rope holding that basket, how much depended on iti So again and again great results have hung on what seemed slender circumstances.
 Did everehip of many thousand tons crossing the sea have such important pas senger as had once boat of leaves, from taffrail to stern only three or four feet, the vessel made waterproof by coat of bitumen and floating on the Nile with the infant lawgiver of the Jews on board? What if some crocodile should crunch it? What if some of the cattle wading in for Q drink should sink it? Vessels of war sometimes carry 40 guns looking through the portholes, ready to open bat tle But that tiny craft on the Nile seems to be armed with all the guns of thunder that bombarded Sinai at the lawgiving. On how fragile craft sailed how much of historical inportancel
 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 to the window. and two peasants make a ladder of their bodies, one peasant stand ing on the shoulder of the other, and down the human ladder the boy de- scends-John Wesley. If you would know how much depended on that lad der of peasants. ask the millions of Meth odists on both sides of the sea. Ask their mission stations all round the world. Ank the hundreds of thousands already ascended to join their founder. who would have perished but for the living stair of peasants shoulders.
 An English ship stopped at Pitcairn