The Washington weekly post., 1900-01-02
LIFE'S TALE SOON TOLD
DIR. Talmage DiscOurses on the
Flight of Time.
POWER OFT LIES IN STORY BRIEF
Human struggle. simply Told Teach Hn-
Saved ~oui--Life bRt n Tale-Uniess 10 BE
Worthy SeBe eListen--TiHse Leaves shorf
Space to Tell It-Death seen >caIters Ev-
cry yAndieHce-Hsw To End the Century.

Dr Talmage dwelt upon the swiftness
/ OF Times flight In his discourse yester-
! day, taking for his objective lesson the
waning months of the eentury's end and
/ blddlng MS hearers make il worthy. He
| spoke or the passing years that leave no
/ more trace than an anec1ote heard once
I and forgotten, and took for his text:
fsaims, sO;ix: I'VE spend our years as a
| tale that Is told" DR. Talmage said:
| We are in tie last day of a stupendous
| year, the neurology of which includes,
among preachers, Bishop Williams, Bish-
| op Newman. DR.. Robinson Prof. Blake,
/ ana Mr.. Moody. Among generous souls
| Cornelius Vanderbilt, with his magnifi-
cent bequests. and Baroness Hirsch, who
| left hundred million dollars to charity.
Among strong men in all departments.
| Nelson Dingley and ex-Gov. Flower and
| Vice President Hobart and Justice Field,
the Jurist, and Louis Miller. the founder
| OF Chautauquas. and Ingersoll the agnos-
nc, ana eX-Attorney General Garland and
Robert Bonner and John Russell Young
ana President Faure, OF France A year
among whose obsequies was the burial of
| 4s5 sailors and soldiers at Arlington. A
| year among whose wonderful deeds was
the demanding and securing by the whole
/ world OF The liberation of Dreyfus
I the sufferings OF one man having ex-
cited the sympathy of the world. A
year among whose disasters was the
/ downfall Of Harpers' publishing house,
which mad for seventy-five years been one
/ or the mightiest agencies for the worlds s
/ betterment, and the shipwreck of the
/ Charleston and the Niagara and the Stel-
/ la and the Paris and the hurricane that
swept Porto P:co and the plunging of a
war In South Africa calling forth 10000
men from Great Britain and ali her avail
able war shipping. A year having among
its blessings the complete restoration of
our national prosperity, all the wheels of
the factories revolving, al! the useful pens
writing, all the industrious hammers
/ pounding, all the avenues of trade throng-
1 ed with bargain-makers, and more
churches than ever before stood with
1 wide-open doors inviting the world to par
/ don and comfort and life eternal.
You can afford to go, on, year 1897 You
have mad enough experiences for any year,
and have chimed enough JOYS and have
wept enough tears and shed enough blood
and achieved enough victories and suffer-
ed enough defeats and pushed the human
| race enough leagues ahead to quit this
| world and go up TO take your throne
/ among The greatest years in all chronol-
ogy. 1t is on the last day of such a year
we take our text which describes human
| life as a tale that is told
I stories Of the Israelites.
THE Israelites were forty years in the
wilderness, and during thirty-eight years
OF the forty nothing is recorded of them;
| r,4T
duller or more uninteresting time than
they had. So they got to telling stories
stories concerning themselves or concern
ing others; stories about the brick-kilns
OF Egypt, where they had toiled I'm slav-
cry; stories about how the waters of
the Red Sea piled up into palisades at
thelf crossing; story Of the lantern hung
II the heavens to guide them by night;
story of ibises destroying the reptiles of
/ the wilderness; stories of personal en-
counter. II must have been an awful
thing to have had nothing 10 do for thir
ty-eight years, except to get lost every
time they tried to escape from the wild
erness- So they whiled away the time in
story telling. Indeed, there were in ORR
entail lands persons whose one business
vas to narrate stories, and they were
PAID by such trifies as they could nick
Up from the surrounding listeners. To
such instances, our text refers when II
says: We spend our years as a tale that
IS told
Al this tremendous passage from tbe
Year 1889 TO the year 1896, II will do MS
an Sood 10 consider that our whole life
Is story tOld-a good story or a had
story; tragic story or a mirthful story:
a wise story Or foolish story: a clean
story a filthy 81
| or story of failure We spend our
years as a tale that is told
Every Life Has story.
in the first place. / remark that eyerz,
PERSONS life is a very interestinor storv
Ny text does not depreciate "a tale that
is tcld-' We have all of us been enter
tanned by the story-teIer when snow
hound in the rail train; Or in the groun
On winters night in the farmhouse: or
gathered around a blazing hearth with
some hunters at the mountain inn In
| deed, 1t is praiseworthy art to inner
senate good story well. If Won aoubt
the practical and healthful and inspiring
use Of such story, take down from the
library Washington Irving's Tales of a
Traveller or Nathaniel Hawtborne,s
Twice Tod Tales But as interesting
as any of these would be the story of
many an obscure life. if the tale were az
well told. Why do We all Ike biographies
ana autobiographies? Because they are
stores OF eminent human lives. But the
story or the life of a bGckwoodsman of
man VINO looks stupid, OF one about
"hom you never heard a word must be
JUST as thrllling on small scale. as on
a large scale is life of a Cyrus. or A
caesar, or PiZ9rro, or a Mark Antony
Or Charleinagne, or the late Gen. Cor
CON VINO was upon a paraDet leading his
soldiers with nothing but a stick in his
hand, and his troops cried: Gordon. come
down; You Will be killed But he did NOT
come down, and one Of The soldiers said.
IL Is all right. He don't mind being kin
Cd He Is one OF those blessed Christians,
II you get the confidence Of that very
pain man just come out OF the hack
WOODS and can induce him 20 give III.
SURFING experiences of his life. he will
tell you that which will MAKE YOUR bIocd
tur de and y0ur hair stand On end. That
tg1t when a panther disputed mis- pstb-
way on the way home. That landslide
wscH the mountains seemed about Ia
COM down on his cab!a. That accidcnt
tO his household and NJ surgeon within
nfp cen miles. That long storm that shut
Nii'~A +HI an tNE 200 Was exhausted
That contest at MIS- doorway with bardits
who thought there might BE- within some
thing worth taking. That deathbs1 win
no on e but himself 20 count the futterine
puLSos.
Power of a Simple Tale
lis Oliver Cromwell. on the anniyers-
AIRY OF his greatest victory, followed his
darling daughter TO the grave, so in the
humble ST and most Unpret5nding life there
has be En a commingling Of sladness ana
gi0oTz2. Of triumph and despair. Nothing
that u avid GaTrick ever enacted ar Dr,Iry
Lane 'Thesder in the way Of tragedy. or
Charlei Matthews ever played in Coyent
Garden in the way OF comedy, exceIIed
things IEhi en- on : small scale have been
seen in fh.e life OF obscure men and NO.
men. Many profound and learned SER
mon sas put the audience 10 sleep. while
some Ean whose phraseOlogy could not be
parsed and whose attire was cut and ft-
ted and made ap by plalnest housewife
has to d the story Of his life in a v..v
that melted tie prayer-circie into tears
"a ii fty ann