Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1900-01-04


that they have rolled down to the pres-
ent 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. about Deborah, about Vashti,
about men and women of whom the story
gave an accurate photograph long before
human photography was born. Let all
Christian workers, prayer meeting talk
ers. Sunday school teachers and preach
ers know the power OF that which my
text calls the tale that Is told"
! heard Daniel Baker, the wonderful
evangelist Of his time, preach what sup
pose was a great sermon but | remember
nothing of it except a story that he told,
and that. judge from the seeming effect,
may that afternoon have brought hun
drcds into the kingdom Of God. heard
Truman Osborne preach several SER
mons, but | remember nothing Of what he
said in public or private except story
that he told. and that was among other
things, the means of my salvation. The
lifelong work of John Il. Cough, the
greatest temperance rcformer Of all time,
was the victory Of anecdote. and who can
ever forget his story OF Joel Straton
touching him on the shoulder, or OF Dea-
con Moses Grant at Hopkinton. or of the
outcast woman, nicknamed Hell Fire"
but redeemed by the thought that she
was one of usY' Dwight l.. Moody, the
evangelist OF worldwide fame and useful
ness. who recently passed to his great re.
ward on high, during his valuable labors
in the pulpit welded the anecdote for
God and heaven until all nations have
been moved by it.
If you have had experiences of pardon
and comfort and dsnthrallment, tell of
it, Tell it in the most pointed and dra
matte way you can manage. Tell it soon,
or you may never tell it at all. Oh the
power of 'the tale that is told" An
hours discourse about the fact that bias
phemous behavior is sometimes punished
in this world would not impress us as
much as the simple story that in town
Of New York state. at the close Of the
last century, 30 profane men formed
themselves into a club, calling them
selves Society Of the Druids." They
met regularly to deride and damage
Christianity. One night in their awful
meeting they burned a Bible and admin
istered the sacrament to dog. Two Of
them died that night. Within three days
three were drowned. In five years all the
80 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 committed suicide,
seven died on the gallows, one was frozen
TO death, and three died accidentally. In
cidcnts like that. sworn to, would balk
any proposed irreverent and blasphemous
behavior.
In what way could the fact that inf
deity will not help any one die well be so
powerfully presented as by the incident
concerning a man falling i'll in Paris just
after the death of Noltaire, when pro-
fessional nurse was called in and she
asked, is the gentleman a Christian 7"
"Why do you ask thatT' said the messen-
ger. Il am the nurse who attended Vol
talre in his last illness, and for all the
wealth Of Europe | would never see an
other infidel die" What discourse in it's
moral and spiritual effect could equal n
tale like that?
Saving q Brother.
You might argue upon the fact that
those fallen are our brothers and sisters,
but could we impress any one with such
truth so well as by the scene near Vic
toria park, London, where men were dig
gng 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 pockets 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 brother is down there" then the
spectator threw off his coat and went to
work with an agony of carnestness to
fetch up his brother. What course of ar
gument could so well as that incident set
forth that when we toll for the salvation
OF soul it is brother whom we are try
ing to save?
A second reading OF my text reminds
me that life is not only n story told, but
that it is brief story. A long narrative
stretched out indefinitely loses its inter
est 1t is generally the story that takes
only a minute or half a minute to re-
hearse that arrests the attention. And
that gives additional interest to the story
OF our life 1t is short story. Subtract
from our life all the hours OF necessary
sleep. all the hours Of incapacity through
fatigue or illness, all the hours OF child
hood and youth before we get fairly to
work, and you have abbreviated the story
Of life so much that you can appreciate
the psalmist's remark when he says,
Thou hast made my days as a hands
BREADTH" and can appreciate the apostle
James expression when he compares
life to "a yapor that appcareth for a lit
tie season and then vanishes away"
II does not take long to tell all the vi
cissitudes of life-the gladness and the
grefs. the arrivals and the departures,
the successes and the failures, the victo-
ries and the defeats, the ups and the
downs. The longer we live the shorter
the years. We hardly get over the Devil
dering fatigue of selecting gifts for chill
dren and friends and see that the pres
ents get off in time to arrive on the ap-
propriate day than we see another ad-
vancing group of holidays. Autumnal
fruit so sharply chases the summer har-
vest, and the snow OF the white blossoms
of spnngtime come so soon after the
SHOWS OF winter. 1t is a remark so often
made that II fails to make any impress
sion and the platitude that calls forth no
reply, How rapidly time goes"
Every century is big wheel of years,
which makes hundred revolutions and
breaks down. Every year is big wheel
of months and makes ~ revolutions and
then ceases. Biologists and theologians
go into celebrations Of guesses as to how
long the world will probably last; how
long before the volcanic forces will eX-
plode it, OF meteoric stroke demolish it.
N enl1 n "A lint NJ IN