The Penn's Grove record., 1894-03-16
REV. DIR.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
subject: .sUnappreciatcd Services. $

TEXT: "Through a tcindols, in a bdske,,
nas I lei doon by he toaa."-H Corinthian'
xi., SO.
Damascus is a city Of white md glisteninl
architecture sometimes called "the eye ofthe
Fast" sometimes called "a pearl surround.
ed by emeralds,'' at one time distinguished
for swords of the best material, calle1 Da.
maseus blades, and upholstery of richest
fabric, called damasks.
A horseman OF the name Of Paul. ridint
toward this city, had been thrown from the
saddle. The horse had dropped under &
flash from the sky, which at the same time
was so bright it blinded the rider for many
dnys, and 1 think so permanently injured his
eyesight that this defect OF vision becamethe
thorn in the flesh he afterward speaks OF.
He started for Damascus to butcher Chris
tians, but after that hard fall from his horse
Je was a changed man and preached Chris
in Damascus till the city WAS shaken to Its
foundation.
The mayor gives authority for his arrest
and the popular cry is "Kill him! Krt
him = The city is surrounded by a higl
wall, and the gates are watched by the polio
lest the Ciiician preacher escape. Many ci
the houses ara built on the wall, and the
balconies projected clear over and hovers
above the gardens outside. 1t was customar,
TO lower baskets out of these balconies ant
pull up fruits and flowers from the garden.
TO this day visitors at the monastery oil
Mount Sinai are lifted and let down in bas'
kets.
Detectives prowled around from houss Il
mouse looking for Paul, but his friends hid
him, now in one place, now in another. He
is no coward, as fifty incidents of his life
demonstrate. But he feels his work is not
done yet, and so he evades assassination.
'.Is that preacher hsre?" the foaming mot
shout ut one house door. SIS that fanatic
here?" the police shout at another house
door. Sometimes on the street incognito he
passes through a crow,lof clenched fists, and
sometimes h ~secretes himself on the house
tops. AT last the infurlatei people get op
sure track OF him.
They have positive evidence that he is in
the house of one of the Christians, the bal
rony of whose home reaches over the wall.
''Here he is Here he is y The vocifera-
tion and ~blasphsny and bowling of tho pur-
suers are at the front door. They break in.
Fetch out that gospelizer and let us hang
his head on the city gate. Where is he?"
The emergency was terrible. Providentially
there was a good stout basket in the house.
Paul's friends fasten a rope to the basket.
Paul steps into it. The basket IL lifted to
the edge of the balcony on the wall, n
then while Paul holds on to the rope with
both hands his friends lower away. carefully
aud cautiously. slowly, but surely, farther
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 as
tonished earth and heaven. Appropriate an
try In Paui's diary of travels, Through a
window, In a basket, was l let down by the
wall"
Observe FIRST on what a slender tenurt
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened to that lowering
l1.tx.k 5000 l-a,, LArr 49, -N,.IJ lu~.-J
on the strength of ii. How II 1t had been
broken, andthe apostles life hadbeen dashed
out? What wouldhave become OF the Chris
tian Church? All that magnificent mission
airy work in Pamphylia, Capadocia, Galatia,
Macedonia, would never have been accom-
pIished. All 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 Philippf, in the Mediterranean
euroclydon, under fiagellation and at his be.
heading would not have kindled the courage
of IL, 900 martyrdoms. But the rope holding
that basket, how much depended on it So
again and again great results nave hung on
what seemed slender circumstances.
Did ever ship OF many thousand tom
crossing the sea have such important pas
senger as had once q boat of leaves, 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 SOM
crocodile should crunch i2 What If some
OF the cattle wading in for a drink should
sink it2 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 the guns
of thunder that bombarded Sinai at the law
triyfD0 I'm how fraUiIn araff aotIaI hnuu
much OF historical Importance.
The parsonage at Epworth, England, is OIL
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 con-
suming building. That one wakes, aud find
ing his bed On fire n the building crumb-
ling, m to the window, andtwo peasants
make a 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 stations all round
the world. Ask the hundreds of thousands
already assembled to join their founder, who
would have persisted but for the living stair
of peasants shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn island
and right In the midst of surrounding canni.
balism and squalor the passengers discov.
cred a Christian colony of churches and
schools and beautiful homes and highest
style Of religion INT civilization. For fifty
years no missionary and no Christian iniu.
ence had landed there Why tais oasis O.,
light amid a desert of h~eathendom2 Sixty
years before Q ship had met disaster, and one
Of the sailors, unable to save anything else,
went to his trunk andtook out a Bible which
his mother had placed there and swan
ashore. the RihlA held in his feefh
The book was read on all sides until thu
rough and vicious population were evangel-
lied, and q church was started, and an en-
lightened commonwealth established, and the
worlds history has no more brilliant page
than that which tells OF the Transformation
Of a nation by one book. 1t did not seem OF
much importance whether the sailor con.
tinued to hold the book in his teeth or let it
fall in the breakers, but upon what mail cir
cumstance depended what mighty results!
Practical inference-there are NO insignii-
canoes in our lives. The minutest thing il
part of a magnitude. Infinity is made up OF
infinitesimals great things an aggregation
Of small things. Bethlehem manger pulling
on a star in the eastern sky. One book in a
drenched sailors mouth h evangeli2ation
OF a multitude. One boat of papyrus on the
Nile freighted with events for all ages. The
fate of Christendom In a basket let down
from a window on the wall. What you do.
10 well. II you mhked rope, MAKE II strong
and true, for you know not how much may
depend on your workmanship. If you fashion
a boat, let 1t be waterproof, for you know
not who may sail in 1t.
II you put a Bible in the trunk OF your boy
As he goes from home, let IT be heard in your
prayers, for it may nave a mission as far
reaching as the book which the sailor car
ried in his teeth to the Pitcairn oeach. The
plairest mans lie Is an island between two
eternities eternity past ripping against his
shoulders, eternity to come touching his
brow. The casual, the accidental, that which
merely happened SO, are parts OF a great
plan, and the ropethat lets the fugitive apos-
tie from the Damascus wall Is the cable that
holds to Its mooring the shfA of the church
In the northeast storm OF the centuries.
Again, notice unrecognized and unrecorI
ed services. Who spun that rope? Who
tied it to the basket2 Who steadied the ~
iustrious preacher as he stepped into III
Who relaxed not a muscle Of the arm or dis
missed an anxious look from his face until
the basket touched the ground and dis!
charged its magnificent cargo? Not one Of
their names has come TO us, but there was
no work done that day In Damascus or In all
the earth compared with the importance OF
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