Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1900-01-04
tCopyright, Louis Klopsch. 1901


tCopyrght. Louis Klopsch. 1897
WASHINGTON, Dec. 81 In this holiday
discourse DR.. Tolmagc takes the orportu-
nifty of offering some very practical and
useful suggestions; text Psalms &c, 8,
I'VE spend our years as tale that is
told"
The 1sraelites were 40 years in the will
derness, and during 3S years Of the 40
nothing is recorded of them, and, ] sup
pose, no other emigrnnts had duller or
more uninteresting time than they had.
So they got TO telling stories-storics con-
corning themselves or concerning others;
stories about the brick kilns of Egypt
where they had toiled in slavery; stories
about how the waters OF the Red sea
piled up into palisades at their crossing;
story of the lantern hung in the heavens
10 guide them by night; story of ibiscs de-
stroying 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 got
lost evsh time they tried to escape from
the wilderness. So they whilcd away the
time in story telling. Indeed there were
persons whose one business was to mar
rate stories and they were paid by such
rifles as they could pick up from the sur
rounding listeners. To such instances
our text refers when It says, I'VE spend
our years as ii tale that is told"
At this tremendous passage from the
ear 1899 to the year 1900 it will do us
III good 10 consider that our whole life is
story told-a good story or n bad sto-
Y; a tragic story or n mirthful story; n
wise story or foolish story; n clean sto-
y or n filthy story; story OF success or
story of failure. I'VE spend our years
as tale that is told"
In the first place | remark that every
persons life is very interesting story.
My text does not depreciate "a tale that
is told" We have all OF us been enter
tanned by the story teller when snow
bound in the rail train; or in the group "A
winters night in the farmhouse or gath
cred around blazing hearth with some
hunters at the mountain inn. Indeed II
is q praiseworthy art to impersonate
good story well. If you doubt the prac-
teal aud beautiful and inspiring use OF
such a story, take down from the library
Washington Irvings Tales of a Ira veil
pr" or Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice
Told Tales" But as interesting as any
Of these would be the story Of many an
obscure life, il the tale were as well told.
Why do we all like biographies and auto
biographies? Because they are stories Of
eminent human lives. But the story OF the
life of a backw oodsman, of a man who
looks stupid, of one about whom You
never heard a word. must be just as
thrilling on a small scale as Oh larger
scale is life OF Cyrus. or a Caesar, or
4 Pixsrro, or a Mark Antony. or a Char
lemague, or the late General Gordon,
who was upon a parapet leading his SOL
diers with nothing but stick in his
hand. and his troops cried: Gordon, come
down. You will be killed" But he did
not come down, and one OF the soldiers
said; 1T is all right He don't mind be-
ing killed. He is one of those blessed
Christians"
The Experiences of Life.
II 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
curde and your hair stand on end. That
night when a panther disputed his path
way 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 15
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 fluttering pulses.
AS Oliver Cromwell on the anniversary
of his greatest victory followed his dar-
ling daughter to the grave, SO in the hum
blest and most unpretending life there
has been commingling of gladness and
gloom, of triumph and despair. Nothing
that David Garrick ever enacted at Dru-
~ Lane theater in the way of tragedy or
Charles Matthews ever played in Covent
Garden in the way of comedy excelled
things which on small scale have been
seen In the life of obscure men and wom-
en-. Many a profound and learned SER
mon has put the audience to sleep, while
some man whose phraseology could not
be parsed and whose attire was cut and
htted and made up by plainest housewife
has told the story of his life in n way
that melted the prayer circle into tears as
easily as warm April sun dssolves the
snow of the previous night.
Oh, yes, while I'VE spend our years as
tale that is told" it is an interesting sto-
ry. 1t is the story OF an immortal, and
that makes it interesting. He is launch
ed on an ocean of eternal years, in Il voy.
age that will never terminate. He 10
striking the keynote of an anthem or q
dirge that will never come to its last bar.
That is what makes the devotional meet.
ings Of modern times so much more inter.
esting than they used to be. They are
filed not with discourses by laymen on
the subject OF justification and sanctMca-
ton. which lay dscourses administer
more TO the facetious than TO the cdify-
ing. but with stories of what God has
done for the soul-how everything sud-
denly changed; how the promises became
balsamic in times of liberation; how he
was personally helped out and helped up
and helped on. Nothing can stand before
such story of personal rescue, personal
transformation, personal illumination.
The mightiest and most skilful argument
against Christianity collapses under the
ungrammatical but sincere statement.
The atheistic professor Of natural philos-
ophy goes down under the story of that
backwoodsman's conversion.
All that elaborate persuasion OF the old
folks OF the folly Of giving up active life
too soon means nothing as compared with
the simple incident you may relate to
them of the fact that Benjamin Franklin
was governor of Pennsylvania ut SO
years of age and that Dandolo of Venice
Mt 80 years OF age, although his eyesight
had been destroyed through being com.
PEELED by his enemies to look into a pol