The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1900-01-10
A TALE THAT'S TOLD.
Rev. Or Talmage's Thoughts On
the Closing Year.
A SERMON FOR TIE TIMES
Some Practical and Timely s"g-
gestions as to Right L'V
ing. The sjgn'fi,
canoe Of Life.
A SERMON FOR THE TIMES.
cance Of Life.

Ia this holiday discourse Dr.. Tai,
mage takes the opportunity Of Offering
some very practical and useful sugges,
tions; text, Psalms xc, 9, We spend
our years as tale that IS told.
The Israelitcs were 80 yea's II the
wilderness, and during IS years of the
40 nothing is recorded OF them, an0' !
suppose, no other emigrants had a 0ui-
le- o. more uninterestiug time than
they had. So they got 10 telling stores
stories concerning themselves or coz u
ee-oips others: stories about the oiicS
k;lps Of Egypt, where they had tolled
in slavery; stories about how the wateTS
of the Red sea piled up into palisades
at their crossing; story Of the lantern
hung in tbe heavens to guide them by
eight: story of ibises destroying the
reotiles of the wilderness; stories OF
personal encounter. 1t must have been
an awfu. thing to have had nothing to
do for IS years except to GET lost every
time they tried to escape from the
wilderness. So they whiled say the
time in story telling. Indeed there
we're persons whose one business was
TO n.rrate stories, aud they were paid
By such trifes as they could pick up
from the surrounding listeners. 10
such instances our text refers when 1t
says, I'VE spend our years as tale
that is told.
At this tremendous passage from the
year 1899 to the year 1900 it will do US
all good to consider that our whole lie
is story told-a good story or bac
story; tragic story or q mirtatul story;
wise story or foolish story: clean
story or filthy story; story of sue.
cess or story Of failure. We spend
our years SIS tale that IS told
In the first place l remark that every
persons life is very interesting story.
My tex: dces nut depreciate "a tale
that is told" Ne have all Of US been
entertained by the story teller when
snow bound in the rail train; or in the
group awinter's night in the farmhouse;
or gathered around blazing hearth
with some hunters at the mountain
ina. Indeed it is praisewcrthy ar;
to inpersonate good story we'll. II
you doubt the practical and healthfui
and inspiring use Of such story, take
down from the library Washinnton lr'
Wings Tales of Traveller" or Ma:
thaniel Hawthorne's Twice Tolc
Tales" But as interesting as any Of
these would be the story Of many ar
obscure life, if the tale were as well told
Why do we all like geographic:
and autobiographies? Because they
are stories of eminent human lives
But the story of thelife Of backwooos
man, of man who looks stupid, Of on'
about whom you never heard word
must be just as thrilling on small
scale as on a larger scale is a life Of
Cyrus, or Caesar, or a Pizarro, or
Mark Antony, or a Charlenagne, o
4 the late General Gordon, who va
1pon parapet leading his soldier
with nothing but stick in his hand
aud his troops cried: Gordon, com
Down. You will be killed" But h
did not come down, and one of the sol
diers said; ''It is all right He don
mind being killed. He is one Of thos
blessed Christians. "
Ifyou get the confidence Of that yer,
plain man just come out Of the back
woods and can induce him to give tht
stirring experiences Of his life, he vii!
tell you tnat which will make you
blood curdle and your hair stand OF
end. That night when a panther dis
puted his pathway on the way home
that landslide, when the mountain:
seemed about to come down on hi:
cabin; that accident to his household
and no surgeon within IS miles; thai
long storm that shut them in and the
food was exhausted; that contest at hi:
doorSay with bandits, who thought
there might be xilhin-something worth
taking; that deathbed, with 40 one bu,
himself to couat ,he fatter.ng pulses.
As Oliver Cromwell on II" anniver-
ssry Of his greatest ,ic,ury ilo5ed
his darling daughter to the grave, 50
n the humbleSt and D!ost unpretcGiing
life there has been a commingIing OF
gladness aud gloom, Of triumph and
despair. Nothing that David Garrack
ever enacted at Drury 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 women. Many
) profound and learned sermon has
out the audience to sleep. while some
nan whose phraseology could not be
arsed and whose attire was cut and
atted and made up by plainest house
ife has told the story Of his life in a
@a ay that melted the prayer circle into
sars as easily as warm April sun dis
alves the sooW Of the previous night.
Oh, yes, while 'we spend our years
IS a tale that is told it is an interest
g story. It is the story Of an i'm
ortal, and that makes It interesting.
is launched on sn ocean Of eternal
ears, in voyage that will never ter
nate. Heis striking the keynote OF
= anthem or diyge that will never
,ene to its last bar That is what
makes the devotional meetings of
aodern times so much more intere sting
IAN they used to be. They are filed
90: with discourses by laymen on the
oject of justification aud sancti6ca-
4, which lay discourses administer
ere to the facetious than to the edify-
.ag, but with stories Of what God has
Gane for the soul-how everything sud
Gsaly changed; how the promises be-
cane balsamic in times of laceration;
h5R he was personally helped out and
ha.ped up aR6 helped on. Nothing can
s:a I'D before such story of personal
cue, personal transformation, per-
-.