Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-08-30

on that ladder of peasants, ask the mill
lions of Methodists on both sides of
the sea. Ask their mission stations all
around the world. Ask their hundreds
Of thousands already assembled to join
their founder, who would have per-
ished but for the living stair Of peas
ants shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn
island, and right in the midst of sur
rounding cannibalism and squalor the
passengers discovered a Christian col
ony of churches and schools and beau
tiful homes and highest style of reli-
gion and civilization. Fir so years no
missionary and no Christian influence
had landed there. Why this oasis of
Sixty years before a ship had met dis
aster, and one of the sailors, unable to
save anything else, went to his trunk
and took out Bible which his mother
had placed there and swan ashore, the
Bible in his teeth. The book was read
on all sides until the rough and vicious
population were evangelical, and a
church was started and an enlightened
commonwealth established, and the
worlds history has no more brilliant
page than that which tells of the trans
formation of a nation by one book. It
did not seem of much Importance
whether the sailor continued to
hold the book in his teeth or let it fall
in the breakers, but upon what small
circumstances depended what mighty
results!
Practical inference: There are no
insignificances in life. The minutest
thing is part of a magnitude. Infin-
ity is made up of infinitesimals; great
things an aggregation of small
things. Bethlehem manager pulling on
star in the eastern sky. One book
in a drenched sailors mouth the evan
gelization of multitude. One boat
of papyrus on the Nile freighted with
events for all ages. The fate of
from a window on the wall. What
you do, do well. If you make a rope,
make it strong and true, for you
know not how much may depend on
your workmanship. If you fashion a
boat, let it be waterproof, for you
know not who may sail in it. If you
put Bible in the trunk of your boy
as he goes from home, let it be re-
membered in your prayers, for it may
have mission as farreaching as the
book which the sailor carried in his
teeth to the Pitcairn beach. The
plainest mans life is an island be-
tween two enthusiastically past
ripping against his shoulders, eter-
nifty to come touching his brow. The
casual, the accidental, that which
merely happened so, are parts of a
great plan, and the rope that let's the
fugitive apostle from the Damascus
wall is the cable that holds to it's
mooring the ship of the church in the
storm of the centuries.
Again, notice unrecognized and I'M
recorded service. Who spun that
rope? Who tried it to the basket
Who steadied the illustrious preacher
as he stepped into it? Who relaxed
not a muscle of the arm or dismissed
an anxious look from his face until
the basket touched the ground and
discharged it's magnificent cargo
Not one of their names has come to
us. But there was no work done that
day in Damascus or in all the earth
compared with the Importance of
their work. What if they had in their
agitation tied a knot that could slip?
What if the sound of the mob at the
door had led them to say: s'Paul
must take care of himself, and we
will take care of ourselves" No, no!
They held the rope, and in doing so
did more for the Christian church
than any thousand of us will ever ac-
complish. But God knows and has
made record of their undertaking.
And they know.
How exultant they must have felt
when they read his letters to the
Romans, to the Corinthians, to the
Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the
Philippians, to the Colossians, to the
Thessalonians, and when they heard
how he walked out of prison, with
the earthquake unlocking the door
for him, and took command of the
Alexandrian corn ship when the
sailors were nearly scared to death
and preached a sermon that nearly
shook Felix off his judgment seat. I
hear the men and women who helped
him down through the window and
over the wall talking in private over
the matter and saying: "How glad
I am that we effected that rescue! In
coming times others may get the
glory of PauPs work, but no one shall
rob US of the satisfaction of knowing
that we held the rope"
Something occurs to me quite per-
sonal. I was the youngest of large
family of children. My parents were
neither rich nor poor. Four of the
sons wanted a collegiate education,
and four obtained it, but not without
great home struggle. We never heard
the old people say once that they
were denying themselves to effect
this, but I remember now that nv
parents always looked tired. 1 don't