The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1900-01-03

n u
q ing some very practical and useful
suggestions; text, Psalms xc., 8, I'VE
spend our years as a tale that is told
The Israelites were forty years in the
wilderness, and during thirty eight years
of the forty nothing is recorded of them,
and, Isuppose, no other emigrants had
duller Or more uninteresting time than
they had. So they got to telling stones
stories concerning themselves or con-
corning 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 to guide them by night;
story of ibises destroying the reptiles Of
the Wilderness; stories of personal en-
counter. 1t must have been an awful
thing to have had nothing to do for thir-
freight years except to get lost every
time they tried to escape from the will
derness. So they whiled away the time
in story telling. Indeed there We're per-
sons whose one business was to narrate
stories, and they We're paid by such tribes
as they could pick up from the surround
ing listeners. To such instances our text
refers when it says, I'VE spend our years
as q tale that is told" es.g4 aal
At, this tremendous passage from the
year 1899 to the year 1900 it 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 mirthful story; a wise
story or a foolish story; a clean story or
filthy story; lal story8of success OF a
story of failure. I'VE spend our years
as a tale that is told.p - =; s.. ~,
Oh, yes, while we spend our years as
tale thu. is tod'' It is al interesting
story. 1t is the story Of an Immortal,
and that makes it interesting He is
launched on an ocean of eternal years. in
a voyage that will never terminate. He
is striking the keynote Of an, anthem OF a
= dirge that will never come to it's last bar.
! That is what makes the devotional meete
ings of modern times so much more inter-
testing than they used to be. They are
filled not with gdiscourses by laymen ION
]. the subject Of justification and sanctfiea
tom which lay tliseourses administer
more to the facetious than to the edify-
( ing, but with stories of what God has
done for the sorl-how eFerything sud.
! denly changed; how the promises became
balsamic in times ofzlaceration; how he
was personally helped out and helped up
and helped on Nothing eanfstan1 before
such a story Of personal rescue, personal
transformation, personal Inflammation!
The mightiest and most skillful argument
/ against Christianity collapses under the
j ungrammatical but sincere statemeat.
The atheistic professor, of natural philos-
, ophy goes down under the story Of that
Observation-Disclosures 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 at 81
years of age and that Danoldo of Venice
at 80 years of age, although his eyesight
had been destroyed through being COM.
! PEELED by his enemies to look into pol
ished metal basin under the full blaze of
the sun until totally blind, yet this sight
( less nonagenarian leading an army to the
successful besiegement of Constantine
! pie! When all old man hears Of such in
cidents, he puts, aside his staff and ear
trumpet and starts anew.
The New Testament suggests the DOW
er of the tale that is told Christ was
the most effective story teller of all the
ages. The parallels are only tales we'll
told. Matchless stories: That OF the
traveller cut up by the thieves and the
Samaritan paying his board bill at the
tavern; that of the big dinner, to which
the invited guests sent in fictitious re-
grets; that of the shepherd answering the
bleat of the lost sheep and all the rural
neighborS that night helping him cele-
brate the fact that it was safe in the
barnyard; that of the bad boy, reduced
to the sWines' trough, greeted home with
such banquetlng and jewelry that it
stuffed the older son with jealousy and
disgruntlement; that of the Pharisee full
of braggadocio and the publican shifting
his breast with stroke that brought
down the heavens in commiseration
stories about ieprOsy, about paralysis,
anout catalepsy, about dropsy, about
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES that he so we'll told
that they have rolled down to the pres
ent and will roll down through the entire
future. tic N
Inspired Anecdotes.
The most Of the Old Testament is 4
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 III IcCUFdle pDOCOGraDl
long before human photography was
born. Let all Christian workers, prayer
meeting takers. Sunday school teach
ers and preachers know the power of
that which my text calls the tale that
is told"
Ii you have had experiences OF pardon
and comfort and disinthrallment, tell of
it. Tell it i'll the most pointed and dra
matic way you can manage. Tell it soon,
or you may never tell it at all. Oh, the
power Of 1.-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 a town
of New York State, ar the close of the
last century, thirty-six profane men
formed themselves into a club, calling
themselves Society of the Druids.'
They met regularly to derde and dam
age Christianity. One night in their
awful meeting they burned Bible and
administered the sacrament to a dog
Two of them died that night. Within
three days three were drowned In five