Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-04-06

the song OF Robert Burns, entitled. "A
Mans Man for a That" were only
the long-continued reverberaIon OF
what was said and done twenty GEN.
turtles before in that little kingdom
that the powers of Europe are now i'm
posing upon. Greece having again and
again shown that ten rlei: in the right
are stronger than a hundred men in
the wrong, the heroics of Leonidas and
Aristides and Themistocles will not
cease their mission until the last man
on earth is as free as God made him.
There is not on either side of the At
lantic today republic that cannot
truthfuliy employ the words of the text
and say. II am debtor to the Greeks.
But there is a better way to pay
them, and that is by their personal
salvation, which will never come to
them through books or through learned
presentation, because in literature ana
intellectual realms they are masters.
They can out-argue, out-Quote. out
dogmatize you. Not through the gate
OF the head, but through the gate OF the
heart, you may capture them. When
men of learning and might are brought
to God they are brought by
simples story of what religion can
do for soul. They have lost children.
Oh, tell them how Christ comfOrted
you when you lost your bright boy or
blue-eyed girl. They have found life
a struggle. Oh, tell them how Christ
has helped you all the way through.
They are in bewilderment. Oh, tell
them with how many hands OF JOY
heaven beckons you upward. When
Greek meets Greek, then comes the
tug of war;" but when a warm hearted
Christian meets n man who needs par
don and sympathy and comfort and
eternal life, then comes victory. II you
can, by some incident of self-sacrifice,
bring to such scholarly men and wom-
en- what Christ has done for their eter-
nal rescue, you may bring them in.
Where Demosthenic eloquence and Ho-
meric imagery would fail, kindly
heart-throb may succeed. A gentleman
OF this city sends me the statement of
what occurred few days ago among
the mines of British Columbia. 1t seems
that Frank Conson and Jem Smith
were down in the narrow shaft of a
mine. They had loaded an iron bucket
with COAL and Jim Hemsworth. stand
ing above ground, was hauling the
bucket up by windlass, when the wind
lass broke and the loaded bucket was
descending upon the two miners. Then
Jim HemswOrth, seeing what must be
certain death to the miners beneath,
threw himself against the cogs of the
whirling windlass. and though his
flesh was torn and his bones were
broken, he stopped the whirling wind
lass and arrested the descending bucket
and saved the lives of the two miners
beneath. The superintendent of the
mine few to the rescue and blocked the
machinery. When Jim Hemsworth's
bleeding and broken body was put on
litter and carried homeward, and
some one exclaimed: Jim, this is aw-
fulr he replied: "Oh, what's the diff
ference so long as ! saved the boysw
What an illustration is was of suffering
for others, and what text from which
to illustrate the behavior of our Christ.
limping and lacerated and broken apd
torn and crushed in the work of stop-
ping the descending ruin that would
have destroyed our souls! Try such a
scene of vicarious suffering as this on
that man capable of overthrowing all
your arguments for the truth, and he
Ia mr.
Illustrations from the classics, and it is
to him an old story, but Leyden lars
and electric batteries and telescopes
and Greek drama will all surrender to
the story Of Jim Hemsworth's. "Oh.
what's the difference so long as saved
the boys?
Then IL your illustration of Christ's
self-sacrifice, drawn from some scene of
today and your story of what Christ has
done for you does not quite fetch him
into the right way, just say to him,
Professor -Doctor-Judge! Why was
it that Paul declared he was a debtor
to the Creeks" Ask your learned
friend to take his Greek Testament
and translate for you. in his own way,
from Greek into English, the splendid
peroration of Paul's sermon on Mars
Hill, under the power OF which the
scholarly Dionysius surrendered, name
ly: THE times of this ignorance God
winked at; but now commander all
men everywhere to repent: because he
hath appointed day in the which he
will judge the world in righteousness,
by that man whom he hath ordained:
whereof he hath given assurance unto
all men, in that he hath raised him
from the dead" BY the time he has
got through the translation from the
Greek think you will see his lip trem-
BILE and there will come pallOr on his
face like the pallor on the sky at day
break. BY the eternal salvation of
that scholar, that great thinker, that
splendid man, you will have done
something to help pay your Indebted
ness to the Greeks. And now to God
the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, and
dominion and victory and song world
without end. Amen.
No Two Religion