Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-01-01
NEW YEAR THOUGHTS
DIR. TAIMAGE MAKES SOME PRAC-
TlCAL SUGGESTIONS.
I'VE Should Make the Most of Our
/ Brief Lives-InfideIity the Source
of Much WOe-Christ's MatchIess
:
Copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1901

of Much Woe-Christ's MatchIess
Stories.
copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1901
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31.-In this holt
iiay discourse DR.. Talmage takes the
opportunity of offering some very prac-
teal and useful suggestions; text,
Psalms xc 8, 1--WE spend our years as
a tale that is told"
The Israelites We're 40 years in the
wilderness, and during SO years of the
DO nothing is recorded of them, and.
suppose, no other emigrants had q
i1uller or more uninteresting time than
they had. SO they got to telling stories
stories concerning themselves or con-
corning others; stories about the brick
kiIns of Egypt, where they had toiled
in slavery; stories about how the wa
fers of the Red sea piled up into pal
isades at their crossing; story of the
lantern hung in the heavens to guide
them by night; stery of ibises destroy
ing the reptiles of the wilderness;
stories of personal encounter. 1T must
have been an awful thing to have had
nothing to do for So years except to
get lost every time they tried to escape
from the wilderness. So they whiled
away the time in story telling. In
deed. there were persons whose one
business was ito narrate stories, and
they were paid by such trif1es as they
could pick up from the surrounding
listeners. To such instances our text
refers when it says, 1--WE spend our
years as q tale that is told"
At this tremendous passage from the
year 1899 to the year 1900 1T will do us
all good to consider that our whole life
is a story told-a good story or a bad
story. a tragic story or a mfrthfu1 story,
q wise story or a foolish story, clean
story or a filthy story. a story of sue
cess or a story of failure. I'VE spend
our years as a tale that is told''
In the, first place. | remark that ev-
cry persons life is very interesting
story. My text does not depreciate ''a
tale that is told" We have all of us
been entertained by the story teller
when snow bound in the rail train, or
In the group a winters night in the
farmhouse. or gathered around blaz-
ing hearth with some hunters at the
mountain inn. Indeed, it is q praise
worthy art to imperSonate good story
well. If you doubt the practical and
healthful and inspiring use of such
story, take down from the library
Washington Irying's 'Tales of a TRAY
eIer" or Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice
Told Tales But as interesting as any
of these would be the story of many
an obscure life if the tale were as we'll
told. Why do we all like biographies
and autobiographies? Because they
are stories of eminent human lives.
But the story of the life of a back
woodsman, of a man who looks stupid,
Of one about whom you never heard a
word, must be just as thrilling on 6
small scale as on a large scale is a life
of a Cyrus or a Caesar, or a PizarrO,
or Mark Antony. or Chariemagne.
Life Experiences.
g If you get the confidence of that very
plain man just come out of the back
woods and can induce him to give the
stirring experiences of his life, he will
tell you that which will make your
blood curdle and your hair stand on
end; that night when a panther dis
puted his pathway on the way home;
that landslide, when the mountains |
seemed about to come down on his /
cabin; that accident to his household |
and no surgeon within 10 miles; that /
long storm that shut them in and the |
food was exhausted; that contest at his |
doorway with bandits. who thought |
there might be within something worth |
taking: that deathbed with no one but !
himself to count the f1uttering pulses.
Oh, yes, while 1--WE spend our years
as tale that is told,' it is an interest |
ing story. 1t is the story of an i'm
mortal, and that makes it interesting. /
He is launched on an ocean Of eternal |
years. In a voyage that will never ter !
inmate. He is striking the keynote of |
an anthem or q dirge that will never
come to it's last bar. That is what !
makes the devotional meetings of mod /
sern times SO much more interesting /
than they used to be. They are filled /
not with discourses by laymen on the |
subject Of justification and sanctifica- |
ton, which lay discourses administer
more to the facetfous than to the edi- /
flying, but with stories Of what God |
has done for the soul-how everything |
suddenly changed; how the promises !
became balsamic in times of lacera- /
ton; how he was personally helped out |
and helped up and helped on. Nothing !
can stand before such a story of per-
sonal rescue. personal transformation, /
personal illumination. The mightiest /
and most skillful argument against I
christianity collapses under the I'M
grammatical but sincere statement.
The atheistic professor of natural phi
lIosophy goes down under the story of
that backwoodsman's conversion.
Start Anew.
All that elaborate persuasion of the
MD folks of tha folly of OiVinO o.
tive life too soon means nothing as
Il,