Connecticut western news. [volume] (Salisbury, Litchfield Co., Conn.) 1871-1970, 1901-06-06


trenches of those who fell in the year
1919 during the Napoleonic wars. Only
10000 men butchered in four months.
would ask him how he likes that.
The country is beautiful and | would
ask our friend To cross with me to
Leipsic and examine the grave trenches
opened there. Only 101. 100 fallen oh
both sides, That is all. Come on, my
friend, and see the further work Of
the great emancipation and reformer at
Borodino, which | had an opportunity
of looking at last summer. Only lC0.-
900 dead men as result of the battle!
Pass by as hardly worth looking at
Austerlitz, where the work of our re-
former left $4,000 Of the slain, and
come to Waterloo. to find that only
st, 900 dead men were left on the field.
Alas for the work of this great enamel
pator and reformer! He turned Eu-
rope into Il charnel house and filled Eu-
rope with widowhood and orphanage
and childlessness. Though he was the
brilliant man of the ages, would it not
have been better for the world Ii he
had died in his cradle six weeks after
he was born? Compare that with the
man who had one talent and that the
talent of invention. He was born on
farm in Spencer, Mass, In 1919. He
went to the district school In the win
ter and never had any other literary
advantages. He became a machinist
In 1916 he came on to a battlefield
where more women have been slain
by the needle than in the wars l spoke
of men were slain by the sword. Elias
Howe, He could not make an grafton.
He could not marshal host. He could
not write a constitution. But he could
contrive a sewing machine, which said
to millions of beggared, consumptive,
bent over, half blinded sewing women:
go free! Take back your health!
Recover your eyesight! Come down
out of that garnet! Go freer
Make Good Use of Your Talent.
Is your talent that of persuasion?
Make good use of 1t. We all have 1t to
some extent, yet none of us think of 1t
as a talent. But it Is the mightie2 of
talents. Do you know that this one
talent will fetch the world back to
God? Do you know it is the mightiest
talent of the high heavens? Do you
know that it Is the one talent chiefly
employed by all the angels of God
when they descend to our world-the
| talent of persuasion? Do you realize
that the rough lumber lifted into
cross on the hill back of Jerusalem was
| in persuasion as well as sacrifice? That
is the only, absolutely the only, persua-
| sion that will ever induce the human
race to stop it's march toward the city
| of destruction and wheel around and
| start Tor the city of light. Now may
| the Lord this moment show each one of
| us that to a greater or less extent we
have that one talent of persuasion and
| impel US to the right use Of 1t. You say
you cannot preach a sermon, but can
not you persuade some one to go and
| hear a sermon? You say you cannot
| sing, but cannot you persuade some one
| to go and hear the choir chant on
| Christmas or Easter morning2 Send a
bunch of flowers to that invalid In the
| hospital, with a message about the land
| where the inhabitants never say, Il am
! sick" There is a child of the sSreet.
Invite him into the mission school.
| There is man who has lost his for
tune in speculation. Instead of jeering
at his fall go and tell him Of riches that
never take wings and fly away. Buckle
on that one talent of persuasion, o
man, o woman, and you will do a
work that heaven will celebrate 10000
years.
! Among the 114,OO0 words of Noah
| Webster's vocabulary and the thou
sands Of words since then added to our
English vocabulary there is one out
mastering word the power of which
cannot be estimated, and 1t reaches so
far up and so far down, and that is the
word come" 1t has drawn more peo-
pie away from the wrong and toward
the right than any word l now think
Of. 1t has at times crowded all the II
gates of heaven with fresh arrivals. 1t
| will yet rob the path of death of the
last pedestrians. 1t will yet chime so
loudly and gladly that all the tolling
bells of sorrow will be drowned with
the music. 1t is piled up in the Bibles
| climax and peroration, And theSspirit
| and the bride say come, and let him
that heareth say come, and let him that
Is athirst come" Have 1t on the point
of your pen, have it on the tip of your
tongue. Monosyllables are mightier
than polysyllables, and that word
come" isVhe mightiest of monosylla-
bles. Shakespeare says of one of his
characters, "She speaks poniards, and
every word stabs." We may say Of
others, they speak words which are Of
balm and music, are light and life.
Master one of those words, harness one
of thoN words, project one of those
words, prove the full plenitude and
power of one of those words. David
| Garrick, the dramatist, said he would
give 100 guineas if he could say "oh"
as George Whitefield said 1t. What
might we not give If we could say
"come" as Jesus said it? Some one
has said that syllables govern the
world, and 1 think that one syllable
might save the world. But 1 cannot
particularize. Whatever be your one
talent, cultivate it. Once fully realize
that you have something with which to
enhance heaven and take hold of the
eternities, and 1t will add a new bank
of keys to the music of your soul. You
are ordained to some kind of work by
the laying on of the hands of the Lord
God Almighty. If you cannot do any
thing else, go around and feel sorry for
somebody. When some one asked.
What is the secret of William Wilber-
forces power" the answer was, His
power Of sympathy" And there are
100000 people who have the same
qualification If they only knew it.
Sympathy! If you cannot restore the
child to that bereft parent or the for
tune to that bankrupt financier or
health to that confirmed invalid or an
honorable name to that wrecked char
acter, you can at least feel sorry for
the misfortune or the bereavement or
the suffering. sympathy! If you have
not the means to do anything else, go
and sit down and cry with them. That
is the way Christ did when he went out