The Washington weekly post., 1900-01-02

NaS IftfSeEAtis neire1 Uut. 81u httilfH ~
and helped Cn, Nothing can stand te-
fore such q story OF personal rescue. per
sonal Transformation. personal illumina-
ton. The mighfiest and most Skillfui ar
Elment against Christianity coilapses uh-
der that ungrammaticai but sincere state
meHt The atheistic professor OF natural
philosophy goes Down under the story CI
that backwoodsman's conversion.
Parables Are All Coed stories.
"Au that elaborate persuasion OF the
old folks Of the folly OF giving I'D active
life too soon means nothing IS compared
with the simple incident you may relate
to them of the fact that Benjamin Frank
lin was governor OF Pennsylvania at
eishty-two years Of age. AMI that Dandoio
OF Venice at ninety years Of age although
his eyesight had been destroyed through
being compelled by his enemies 20 look
into a polished metal basin under the fuli
blaze Of the sun until totsly blind; yet
this sightless nonogenarian ed an army
to the successful besiegernent OF Con-
stantinoplei When an old man hears OF
such incidents he puts aside MS staii
and ear trumpet and starts anew.
The New Testament suggests the
pover OF the tale that is told Christ
was the most effective story-teller of all
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 TIE 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 MIN
celebrate the fact that il was safe III the
hr,, 4. - -. I'D hot raIllRaI
to the swines' trough, greeted home with
such bandueting and jewelry that II
stuffed the older son with jealousy
and disgruntlement; that of the Pharisee
full of braggadocio, and the publican
shifting his breast with a stroke that
brought down the heavens in commisera-
ton; stories about leprosy. about paraly-
sis, about catalepsy, about dropsy, about
ophthalmia-stories that He so we'll told
that they have rolled down to the present
and will roll down through the entire
future.
''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
Anecdotes Have Saved Souls.
81 heard Daniel Baker, the wonderful
evangelist of his time, preach what,
suppose, was a great sermon, but I re-
member nothing of it except a story that
he told, and that, judge from the SEEM
ing effect. may that afternoon have
brought hundreds into the kingdom Of
God. 1 heard Truman Osborn preach sew
eral sermons. but 1 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 3. Cough, the
greatest temperance reformer of all time,
was the victory of anecdote, and who can
ever forget his story OF Joel Stratton
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 us% Dwight l.. Moody whose
departure has put millions in mourning.
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 disinthrallment, tell of
it. Tell it in the most pointed and dra-
matte way you can manage. Tell Il soon,
or you may never tell it at all o, the
power of The tale that is toldr An hour S
discourse about the fact that blasphemous
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 cen
tury, thirtysix profane men formed them
selves into a club, calling themselves So
ciety of the Druids.' They met regularly
TO deride and damage Christianity. One
night in their awful meeting they burned
a Bible and administered the sacrament
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 il
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. Incidents
like that sworn to would balk any pro-
posed irreverent and blasphemous be-
havior.
They Bring Truth Straight HouIe.
'In what way could the fact that infi-
deity will not nelp any one die well be so
pow erfully presented as by the incident
concerning a man falling i'll in Paris just
after the death Of Voltaire, when pro-
fcssional nuTse was called IN and size
asked: Is the gentleman a Christian"
Why do you ask thai" said the mes
serger. The nurse replied: Il am the
nurse who at5enCed VOltair, in his last
illness, ard for all the wealth of Europe /
would Iever see another iHfidel die What
discourse IN its mo"al and spiritual eject
could equal tale like that?
"Yon might argue upon tie tac. that
those fallen are our brothers and sisters,
but could We impress any one with such
a truth SO well as by the scene near Vic
toria Park, London, where men were dig
ging a deep drain, and the snoring gave
way anc a great pile Of eartn fell upon
the workmen. A man stood there with
his hands ih his pockets. looking at those
who ere trying 20 shovel away the earth
from those who were buried, bui when
some one said to the spectator: Bill your
brother is down there thea the So ctator
threw of his coat and went TO work with
an agony Of earnestness 10 fetch u2 his
brother What course OF argument could
so well as that incident set :orth that
when we toll for the salvation of q soul
il is q brother whom We are trying 10
save?
"a second reading of my text reminds
me that life is not only story told. bit
that it is briee story. A long narrative
stretched out indefinitely loses its inter-
est Ii is generally the story that takes
only a minute or half a minute 10 re-
hearse that arrests the attention. And
that gives additional interest 20 the story
of our life. 1t Is a short story. Subtract
from our life all the hours OF necessary
sleep, all the hours Of incipaeity through
fatigue or Illness, ell the hours of child-
hood and youth before We get fairly to
work, ard you have abbreviated the story
Of life so much that you can appreciate
the. Psalmisrs remark. when he says
Thou hast made my days as 4 hsno 5
BREADTH and can appreciate the Apostle
James expression, when he compares ETe
10 a vapor that appeareth for little sea-
son, and then vanishes away
Life Is buI a Brief Tale.
TT does not take long to tell all the vi
eissitudes Of iife-the gladness and the
griefs. the arrivals and the departures
the successes and the failures, the
victories and the defeats, the ups
and the downs The longer We live me