St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1900-02-03

min Franklin was governor of Penn
sylvania at So years Of age and tEat
DanGolo of Venice at 90 years OF age,
although his eyesight had been de-
stroyed through being compelled by ms
enemies to look into a polished metal
basin under the full blaze of .he sun
until totally blind, yet this sightless
noragenarian leading an army 10 the
successful besiegement of Constants
| nozzle! When an old man hears of such
incidents. he puts aside his staff and
ear trumpet and starts anew.
| The New Testament suggests the
| power of the stale that is told.' Christ
was the most effective story teller OF
ali the ages. The parallels are only
tales well teld. 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 TACT
that it was safe in the barnyard; that
of the bad boy. reduced to the swines'
| trough. greeted home with such BAN
quoting and jewelry that it stuffed the
older son with jealousy and disgruntle-
ment; that of the Pharisee full of brag-
yadocio and the publican shifting his
breast with stroke that brought down
the heavens in commiseration; stories
about leprosy. about paralysis, about
catalepsy. about dropsy, about ophthal-
mia-stories that he 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 Ahab 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 "tale
that is told"
/ I heard Daniel Baker. the wonderful
evangelist of his time, preach what /
suppose was great sermon. but re-
member nothing of il except story
that he told. and that. rjudge from the
seeming effect, may that afternoon
have brought hundreds into the king
dom of God. 1 heard Truman Osborne
preach several sermons, but / remem-
ber nothing of what he said in public
or private except a story that he told,
and that was, among other things. the
means. of my salvation. The lifelong
work of John e. Cough, the greatest
/ temperance reformer of alltime. wasthe
victory of anecdote, and who can ever
forget his story of Joel Straton touch
ing him on the shoulder, or of Deacon
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,
the evangelist of worldwide fame and
usefulness, who recently passed to his
great reward on high, during his val
liable labors in the pulpit welded the
anecdote for God and Heaven until all
Il
nations have been moved by it.
If You have had experiences of par
don and comfort and discnthrallment,
tell of it. Tell it in the mos; pointed
and dramatic way YOU car manage.
Tell it soon, or you may never tell 1t at
all. Oh. the power of 'sthe tale that is
told," An hours 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 n town of New
York state, at the close Of the last CEN
tury, 36 profane men formed them
selves into club. calling them
selves Society of the Druids." They
met regularly to deride and damage
Christianity. One right in their awful
meeting they burned Eible and adj
ministered the sacrament to a dog.
Two of them died that night. Within
three days three were drowned. In
five years all the Sc came to 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 gallows. one was frozen to death,
and three died accidentally. Incidents
like that, sworn to, would balk any pro-
posed irrcverent and blasphemous be-
havior.
In what way could the fact that in
fidelity will not help anyone die well
be so powerfully presented as by the
incident concerning man falling i'll in
Paris Just after the death of Voltaire,
when a professional nurse was called in
and she asked: rs the gentleman q
Christian?" "Why do you ask that?''
said the messenger. 81 am the nurse
who attended Voltaire in his last ill
ness. and for all the wealth of Europe
would never see another infidel 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 a truth so well as by the
scene near Victoria park, London,
where men were digging n deep drain
and the snoring gave way and great
pile Of earth fell upon the workmen.
A 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 of 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 a soul it is 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 it is brief story A
long narrative stretched out indef-
nitely loses its interest. II is general
ly the story that takes only minute
or half minute to rehearse that ar
rests the attention. And that gives