Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1900-01-05
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE EMINENT DIVINE'S SUNDAY
DISCOURSE.
Subject: New Year Thouglits-We Should
Make tho Most of Our Brief Lives
Infldelity the Source of Much Woe
Christ's Matchless Stories.
copyright, Louis Klopsch. 1922. ]

Chr1sts Matchless Stories.
copyright. Louis Klopsch. 1921
WASHINGTON, D. Gin this discourse Dr..
Talmage takes the opportunity Of Offering
somo very practical and useful suggestions;
text, Psalms xc., 9, eve spend our years
as a tale that Is told"
The Israeltes were forty years In the
wilderness, and during thirty Eight years
Of the forty nothing Is recorded OF them,
and suppose, no other emigrants had
duller or more uninterestiDg 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 tolled in slavery;
stories about how the waters OF the Red
Sea piled up into palisades at their cross
ing; story Of tho lantern hung in the henv-
ems to guide them by night; story Of ibises
destroying the reptiles Of the wilderness;
stories Of personal encounter. 1t must
have been an awful thing to have had moth
ing to DO for thrty-eight years except TO
get lost every time they tried TO escape
from the wilderness. SO they whiled away
tho time in story telling. Indeed, there
were persons whose one business was to
parrate stories, and they were paid by
such tribes as they could pick up from the
surrounding listeners. To such instances
our text refers when it says, eve spend
our years as tale that is told"
At this tremendous passage from the
year 1899 10 the year 1900 it will do US all
good to consider that our whole life is a
story told-a good story or bad story, a
tragic story or a mirthful story, wise
story or q foolish story, a clean story or
filthy story, q story Of success or story OF
failure. eve spend our years as tale
that is told"
Tn 1,n A. al rar orl-
persons life Is very interesting story.
My text does not depreciate Ga 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 winters night
in the farmhouse, OF gathered around
blazing hearth with some hunters at the
mountain inn. Indeed, 1t is a praiseworthy
art to impersonate good story well. 1t
you doubt the practical and healthful and
inspiring use Of such a story, take down
from the library Washington Irving's
italics OF Traveller or Nathaniel Haw.
thorne's "Twice Told Tales" But as in.
~terestng rs any of these would be the
story of many an obscure life IL tho tale
were rs well told. Why do We all like
biographies and autobographies? Be-
| cause they are stories of eminent human
lives. But tho story Of the life Of a back
wooGsman, of man who looks stupid, OF
one about whom you never heard word,
must lie just as thrilling on a small scale
as on n large scale is life OF Cyrus, or
Cesar, or Pizarro, or Il Mark Antony, or
a Charlemagne.
II you get the confidence Of that very
plain man just come out Of the backwoods
and can induce him to give the stirring eX-
pericnces OF his life, be will tell you that
which will make your blood curdle and
your hair stand on end; that night when
panther disputed his pathway on the way
home; that landslide when the m ountains
seemed about to come down on bis cabin;
that accident to his household md no sur.
geon within fifteen miles; that long storm
that shut them in ald the food was ex
hausted; that contest at his doorway with
bandits, who thought there might be with
in something worth taking; that deathbed,
with no one hut himself to count the fut-
ter,ng pulses.
Oh, yes, while Eve spend our years as
tale that is told" it is an interesting story.
1t is the story Of an immortal, and that
makes 1t interesting. He Is launched on an
ocean of eternal years, in O voyage that
will never terminate. He Is striking the
keynote o. an anthem or dirge that will
never como y its last bar. That Is what
makes the devotional meetings OF modern
times so much more interesting than they
used to be. They are filed not with dis
courses by laymen on tho subject Ut Justi-
flcaton and specification, which lay dis
courses administer more to the facetious
than to the edifying, but with stories OF
what God has done for the soul-how every
thing suddenly changed; how the promises
became balsamic in times OF liberation;
how he was personally helped out and
helped up and helped on. Nothing can
stand before such story OF personal res
cue, personal transformation, personal
illumination The mightiest and most
sklIful argument against Christianity col
lapses under the ungrammatical but SIM,
cere statement. The atheistic professor OF.
natural philosophy goes down under the
story Of that backwoodsman's conversion.
Ali that elaborate persuasion OF the old
folks of the folly OF giving up active life
too soon mems nothing rs compared with
the simple incident you may relate to
them of the fact that Benz Franklin
was Governor or Pennsylvania at eighty
two years of age and that Dandolo, OF Ven
ice at ninety years Of age, although his
eyesight had been destroyed through be-
ing compelled by his enemies to look into
q polished metal basin under the full blaze
of the sun until totally blind, yet this sight
less nopagenaran leading an army TO the
successful besiegement OF Constantlnople!
Whenan oil man hears Of such incidents,
he puts aside his staff and ear trumpet and
starts anew.
The New Testament suggests the power
OF the tale that is told" Christ was the
most effective story teller OF oil the ages.
The parallels are only tales we'll told.
Matchlesg stories: That OF the traveller cut
ND by the thieves and the Samaritan pay
ing his board bill Mt 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 help
ing him celebrate the fact that ii was SAFE In
the barnyard; that Of the bad boy, reduced
to tho swines' trough, greeted home with
such banqG citing and iewclry that 1t atuffed
the older son with jealousy and dlsgruntle.
ment: that Of The Pharlsee full OF bragga-
docio and the publican shifting his breast
with a stroke that brought down the heav-
CTS in commiseretion; stories about lep-
rosy, about paralysis, about catalepsy,
about dropsy, about ophthalmia-stories
that He so we'll told that they have rolled
down 10 the present and Will roll down
through the entire future.
l heard Daniel Baker, the wonderful
evangelist of his time, preach what sup
posed was great sermon, but l remem-
Der nothing of it except story that he
told, and that, judge from the seeming
effect, may that afternoon have brought
hundreds into the kingdom of God. l
heard Truman Osborne preach several SER
mons, but remember nothing OF what he
said in public or private except story
that he told, and that was, among other
things. tho means of my salvation. The
lifelong work of John B. Cough, the great
est temperance reformer of all time, was
the victory OF anecdote, and who can ever
forget bis story of Joel Straton touching
him on the shoulder or Of Deacon Moses
Grant at Hopkinson, or OF the. outcast
woman nicknamed "Hell Fire." but re-
deem ed by the thought that she "was ono
of us?' Dwight l.. Moody. the evangelist
of worldwide fame and usefulness, who re-