Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1900-01-09
PAST EXPERIENCES.
Dr.. Talmage Says They Should Be
Our Guides for the Future.
Some Practical ana Timely SuEGes.
tons as to Right Ltving-Our
Life as "a Tale That
In Told"
copyright 1890, by Louis Klopsch.l


mage takes the opportunity of Of
fering some very practical and use
full suggestions; text, Psalms, &c, Q:
''We spend our years as tale that Is
told"
The Israelites were 40 years in the
and during SO years of the
40 nothing is recorded Of them, and l
suppose no other emigrants had a
duller or more uninteresting time
than they had. So they got to telling
stories - stories concerning them
selves or concerning 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 cross
ing; story of how the lantern hung in
the heavens to guide them by night;
story of ibises destroying the reptiles
of the wilderness; stories of personal
encounter. 1t must have been an aw-
full thing to have had nothing to DO
in 80 years except to get lost every
time they tried to escape from the
wilderness. So they whiled away the
time in story telling. Indeed, there
were persons whose one business was
to narrate stories, and they were
paid by such trifies 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 life is story told--a good
story or bad story; a tragic story or
a mrthful story; wise story or
foolish story; clean story or filthy
story; story of success or story OF
failure. 1--WE spend our years as q
tale that is told"
In the first place I remark that
every persons life is very interest
ing story. Ny text does not depre-
ciate "a tale that is told" We have
all of us been entertained by the
story teller when snow bound in the
rail train; or in the group u winters
night in the farmhouse; or gathered
around blazing hearth with some
hunters at the mountain inn. Indeed,
| it is a praiseworthy art to imperson-
ate good story we'll. If you doubt
| the practical and healthful and inspir-
ing use Of such story, take down
from the library Washington lrving's
"Tales of a Traveller" or Nathaniel
Hawthorne's "T'wice Told Tales" But
as interesting as any Of these would
be the story of many an obscure life
if the tale We're as well told. Why dc
we all like biographies and autobiog
raphies? Because they are stories OF
eminent human lives. But the story
of the life of backwoodsman of c
man who looks stupid, of one abou
whom YOU never heard aword, must bt
lust as thrilling on a small scale as OF
larger scale is the life of Cyrus, o.
a Caesar, or Pizarro, or Mark An
tony. or q Charlemagne, or the lat
Gen. Gordon, who was upon parnpe
leading his soldiers with nothing bu
a stick in his hand, and his troop
cried: Gordon, come down. Yol
will be killed." But he did not com
down, and one of the soldiers said
at is all right. He don't mind bein'
killed He is one of those blessed
Christians"
If YOU get the confidence of tina
very plain man just come out of tn
backwoods and can induce him to Civ
the stirring experiences of his life, h
will tell you that which will maA
your blood curdle and your hair stan
on end. That night when a panthe
disputed his pathway on the wa
home; that landslide when the mour
tains seemed about to come down o
his cabin; that accident to his house
hold, and no surgeon within Is miles
that long storm that shut them in an
the food was exhausted; that contes
at his doorway with bandits VIII
[, thought there might be within SOM
e thing worth taking; that deathbe'
with no one but himself to count til
fluttering pulses.
As Oliver Cromwell on the annive
sary of his greatest victory followe
his darling daughter to the grave, so
the humblest and most unpretendin
life there has been a commingling I
gladness and gloom, of triumph and d
spair. Nothing that David Carrie
ever enacted at Drury Lane theater
u the way of tragedy or Charles Ma
thews ever played in Covent Garden
the way of comedy excelled thing
re which on small scale have been see
10 in the life of obscure men and wome
Many a profound and learned serme
has put the audience to sleep, viii
some man whose phraseclogy could NJ
be parsed and whose'attire was cut al
~ fitted and made up by plainest hous
wife has told the story of his life in
: way that melted the prayer circle in
tears as easily as warm April sun d
solves the snow of the previous night
Oh, yes, while 1--WE spend our yea
as tale that is told" it is an interestil
story. 1t is the story of an immort'
! and that makes it interesting. He
launched on an ocean of eternal veal
in a voyage that will never terminal
He is striking the keynote of an anthe
or a dirge that will never come TO
last bar. That is what makes the
votional meetings of modern times
much more interesting than they us
to be. They are filled not with d
courses by laymen on the subject
-, justification and sanctification, viii
J Law discourses administer more to
: facetious than to the edifying, but wi
y stories of what God has done
S the soul - how everything suddeI
changed; how the promises becal
tc balsamic in times of laceration; b
he was personally helped out