The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-03-16
GREAT RESULTS.
The Slender Tenure on Which They
Often Hang.
Dr. Talmage breaches to Southern Au'
dIence-The Story of Paurs Escape
The Good One Bible Did
Nothing Insignificant.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage preached
lately to a large congregation at Mo
bile. Ala, upon the subject of "Unap'
preciated Services the text being
taken from IL Corinthians, XII lbs;
Through a window in basket was
.Iet down by the wall" He said:
Damascus is a city of white and
glistening architecture sometimes
called ''the eye of the east" sometimes
called "a pearl surrounded by emer'
aids" at one time distinguished Tor
swords of the best material called
Damascus blades, and upholstery OF
richest fabric called damasks. A horse
man by the name of Paul, riding
toward this city, had been thrown
from the sa idle. The horse had dropped
under flash from the sky, which at
the same time was so bright it blinded
the rider for many days, and | think SO
permanently injured his e.5esight that
this defect of vision became the thorn
IN the flesh he afterward speaks of He
started for Damascus to butcher Chris
fians, but after that hard fall from his
horse he was changed man and
preached Christ in Damascus till the
city was shaken to its foundation.
The mayor gives authority for his ar
rest, and the populr cry is: xiii him!
Kill him. The city is surrounded by
a high wall and the gates are watched
by the police lest the Chilean preacher
escape. Many of the houses are built
on the wall and their balconies pro-
iected 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 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 incidents in his life demonstrate.
Bot he feels his work is not done yet,
and so he evades assassination SIS
that preacher here?" the foaming mob
shout at one house door. rs that
fanatic hereY' the police shout at an
other house door. Sometimes on the
street incognito he passes through a
crowd of clinched fists, and sometimes
he secretes himself on the house top
At last the Infatuated populace got on
sure track of him. They have positive
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.
'sFetch out that gospelizer, and let us
hang his head on the city gate. Where
is he?" The emergency was terrible.
Providentially there was good, stout
basket in the house. Paurs friends
fastened 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 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. Appro-
pirate entry in Paurs 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
60 that lowering basket never knew
how much would depend upon the
L Il -
broken and the apostles life had been
dashed out? What would have become
of the Christian church? All that mag
niicent missionary work in Pamphylia,
&lappadocia, Galatia, Macedonia would
never have been accomplished. All his
writing which make up so indispens-
able and enchanting part of the New
Testament would never have been
written. The story of resurrection
would never have been SO glouriously
told as he told it That ex-
ample OF heroic and triumphant
endurance at Philippi. in the Mediter-
ranean euroclydon, under flagellation
and at his beheading would not have
kindled the courage of 10000 martyr
Sioms. But the rope holding that
basket, how much depended on it! So
again and again great results have
hung on what seemed slender circum-
stances.
Did ever ship of many thousand tons
crossing the sea have such important
passenger as had once a 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 some croco-
die should crunch it? What if some
cattle wading in Tor a drink should
sink it? 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
-Ehat bombarded Sinai at the law-giv-
ing. On how fragile craft sailed how
amuch 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 build
ing That one wakes, and finding his
bed on fire and the building crumbling.
comes to the window, and two peas
ants 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
Won would know how much depended
on that human 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 ascend