The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-01-05

all the ages. The parallels are only
tales well told. MatcffIess stories. That
Of the traveller cut up by the thieves
and the Samaritan paying his board
bill at the tavern; that of the big din
ner, to which the invited guests sent
in fictitious regrets; that OF the shep-
herd answering the bleat OF the los
sheep and adj the rural neighbors that
night helping him celebrate the fact
that 1t was safe in the bIrnyarl; that
of the a boy, reduced to tn swines'
trough, greeted home with such BAN
quoting and jewelry that i stuff ID the
older son with jealousy and ~disgrunae-
aent: that Of the Pharesee full IF 5rag-
gadocio and the publican shifting his
breaSt with a stroke that brought down
the heavens in commisara.ion Stories
about leprosy. about paralysis, about
catalepsy, about dropsy, about oph;hal-
mia-stories that he SO veil tod hat
they have rolled down TO the present
and will roll down through the entire
future.
INSPIRED ANECDOTES.
The most of the Old Testament is
made up Of inspired anecdotes about
Adam and Eve, about Jacob, about
Esau. about Ahab and Jezebel, about
Jonah, about Daniel, abou Deborah,
about VaShti, about men and women
of whom the story gave an accurate
photograph long before human protog-
raphy was born. Let all Christian
workers, prayer meeting takers, Sun
day school teachers and preachers
know the power of that which my tcxe
calls the 'itale that is told"
I heard Daniel Baker, h wonderful
evangelist of his time, preach what L
suppose was a great rmo but / re-
member nothing of it except a story
that he told, and that, l judge from the
seeming effect, may that afternoon
have brought hundreds into the king
dom of God. ] heard Truman Os-
borne preach several sermons, but L
remember nothing of what he said i'll
--b,ic or private except a story that
he told, and that was, among other
things, the means of my salvation. The
lifelong work of John b. Cough, the
greatest temperance refOrmer of all
time, was the victory of a~necdote, and
who can ever forget his story of Joel
Straton touching him on the shoulder,
| or of Deacon Moses Grant at Hopkin-
ton. or Of the outcast woman, nick
named Hell Fire" but redeemed by
the thought that she was one of u.s."
Dwight l.. Moody, the evangelist of
worldwide fame and usefulness, who
recently passed to his great reward on
high, during his valuable labors in the
pulpit welded the anecdote for God
and heaven until all nations have been
moved by 1t.
If you have had experiences of par
don and comfort and disinthrallment,
tell of it. Tell it in the most pointed
and dramatic way you can manag
Tell it soon, or you may never tell 1t
at all. Oh, the power of 1.-THE tale that
is told" An hours discourse about the
fact hat blasphemous behavior is some
times punished in this world would not
-~N ~ 90 ~ &c n mr. Crnrxy
that in a town of New York state, at
the close of the last century, thirty
six p~rofane men formed themselves
into a club, calling themselves Society
of the Druids.' They met regularly
to deride and damage Christianity. One
night in their awful meeting they burn
ed a Bible and administered the sac
rament to a dog. Two of them died
that night. Within three days three
were drowned. In five years all the
thirty-SiX came to a bad end. Before
justices of the peace it was sworn that
| two were starved to death, seven were
drowned, eight were shot, five COM
mitted suicide, seven died on the gall
lows, one was frozen to death, and
three died accidentally. Incidents like
that, sworn to, would balk any pro-
posed irreverent and blasphemous be-
havior.
In what way could the act that in
fidelity will not help any n die well
be so powerfully presented as by the
incident concerning a man falling i'll in
Paris just after death Of VOltaire, when
a professional nurse was called in and
she asked, us the gentleman a Chris
tain?' why do you ask that?" aid
the messenger. Il am the nurse who
attended Voltaire in his last illness, and
for all the wealth Of Europe I would
never see another infidel die" What
discourse in it's moral and spiritual eff
feet could equal a tale like that?
SAVING A BROTHER.
You might argue upon the fact that
those fallen are our brothers and sis
tiers. but could we impress any one with
such a truth so we'll as by the scene
near Victoria park, London, where men
were digging a deep drain and the
snoring gave way and a great pile Of
earth fell upon the workmen. A man
stood there with his hands in his pock-
cts looking at those who were trying
to shovel away the earth from those
who were buried, but when some one
said to the spectator, BILL your broth
er is down there" then the spectator
threw off his coat and went to work
with an agony Of earnestness to fetch
up his brother. What ours of argu-
ment could so we'll as that incident set
forth that when ve toll for the saliva