The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1900-01-05


NAUTICAL but sincere statement. The
atheistic professor OF natural philoso-
ply goes down under the story of that
backwoodsman' conversion.
The New Testament suggests the
power of the tale shat is told" Christ
was the most effective story teller OF
all the ages. The parallels are only
tales well 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 regrets; that of the shep-
herd answering the bleat of the lost
sheep and all the rural neighbors that
night helping him celebrate the fact
that IL was safe in the barnyard; that
of the bad boy, reduced to the swines'
trough, greeted home with such ban
quoting and jewelry that II stuffed the
older son with jealousy and disgruntle-
ment; that of the Pharisee full of brag-
gadocio and the publican shifting his
breast with a stroke that brought down
the keavens in commiseration; stories
about leprosy. about paralysis. about
catalepsy, about dropsy, about ophthal-
mia-stories that be so well 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 Ahnb and Jezebel, about
Jonah, about Daniel. about Deborah,
about Vashti, about men and women OF
whom the story gave an accurate photo
graph long before human photography
was born. Let all Christian workers.
prayer meeting takers, Sunday school
teachers and preachers know the power
OF that which my text calls the stale
that is told"
II you have had experiences OF par
don and comfort and disenthrallment,
tell of 1t. Tell II in the most pointed
and dramatic way you can manage.
| Tell IL soon, or you may never tell il at
all. Oh, the power of "the tale that is
toldl" An hours discourse about the
fact that basphemous 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, at the close Of the last CEN
fury, 80 profane men formed them
selves 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 adj
| ,f,fe no
| Two of them died that night. Within
three days three were drowned. In
i've years all the 36 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 galows. one was frozen TO death.
and three died accidentally. Incidents
like that, sworn TO, would balk any pro-
posed irreverent and blasphemous be
havior
In what way could the fact that in.
fidelity will not help anyone die well
be so powerfully presented rs by the
incident concerning a man failing Ill in
| Paris Just after the death Of Noltaire.
when professional nurse was called in
and she asked: "Is the gentleman a
Christian?" "Why do you ask that?''
said the messenger Sc am the nurse
who attended Voltaire in his last ill
ness, and for all the wealth of Europe
| would never see another intidel die"
What discourse in its moral and spirit
ual effect could equal tale like that?
You might argue upon the fact that
those fallen are our brothers and sis
tiers, but could we impress anyone
with such truth so well as by the
scene near Victoria park, London,
where men were digging II deep drain
and the snoring gave way and n great
pile of earth fell upon the worl1men.
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 earnestness
to fetch up his brother What course
of argument could so well as that in
cident set forth that when we toll for
the salvation of soul il is a brother
whom we are trying to save?
A second reading of my text re-
minds me that life is not only story
told, but that il is "A brief story. A
long narrative stretched out indef-
nitely loses it's interest. 1t is general
ly the story that takes only a minute
or half minute to rehearse that ar
rests the attention. And that gives
additional interest to the story of our
life. 1t is n short story. Subtract
from our lives all the hours of nee
essary sleep, all the hours of ncapac-
ity through fatigue or illness, all the
hours of childhood and youth before
we get fairly TO work, and you have
abbreviated the story of life so much
that you can appreciate the Apostle
James expression when he compares
life to "a vapor that appeareth for q
little season and then vanishes away