Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1901-09-05
NOTHING TOO LITTLE
TO Be OF TERRIBLE SIGNIFICANCE
Dr. TaImage's Discourse Treats of
The Importance of Things Conn
monty Overlooked

a WlHuoW IN q basket was L let
down by the wall
Sermons on Paul in Jail. Paul on Mars
hill, Paul in the shipwreck, Paul before
the sanhedrin. Paul before Felix. are
plentiful, but in my text we have Paul in
a basket.
Damascus is a city of white and giisten-
ing architecture, sometimes callel the
eye OF the East, sometimes called "a
pearl surrounded by emeraids," at one
time distinguished for swords OF the best
material called Damascus blades and up
holstcry of richest fabric called damask
A horseman OF the name OF Saul riding
toward this city had been thrown from
the saddle. The horse had dropped under
a fash from the sky which at the same
time was so bright it blinded the rider for
many days, and / think so permanently
injured his eyesight that this defect of
vision became the tI"in in the flesh he
afterward speaks OF. He started for Da-
mascus to butcher Christians, bat after
that hard fall from his horse he was
changed man and preached Christ in Da-
mascus till the city was shaken to its
foundation.
The mayor gives authority for his "a
rest, and the popular cry is, Kill him,
kill him. The city IS surrounded by q
high wall. and the gates are watched by
the police lest the Cilician preacher es-
cape. Many of the houses are built on the
wall, ana L1elf DdlCOnleS projected clear
over and lowered above the gardens out
side 1t was customary to lower baskets
out OF these balconies and pull up fruits
and flowers from the gardens 10 this
day visitors at the monastery of Mount
Sinai are lifted and let down in baskets.
Detectives prowled around from house to
house looking for Paul, but his friends
hid him now in one place, now in another.
He Is no coward, as fifty incidents in his
life demonstrate, but he feels his work is
not done yet, and so he evades assassina-
ton. us that preacher here?' the foam
ing mob shout at one house door. rs
that fanatic here?' the police shout at an
other house door Sometimes on the
street incognito he passes through a crowd
of chnched fists, and sometimes he secretes
himself on the house top. At last the in
furiate populace get on sure track of him.
They have positive evidence that he is in
the house Of one of the Christians, the bal
cony of whose home reaches over the
wall. Here he is! Here he is! !" The vo-
the pursuers are at the front door. They
break in. Fetch out that goSpelizer and
let us hang his head on the city gate.
Where is he?' The emergency was terri
BILE. Providentially there was good
stout basket in the house. PauPs friends
fasten rope to the basket: Paul steps
into it. The backet is lifted to the edge
of the balcony on the wall, and then while
Paul holds the rope with both hands his
friends lower away carefully and cautious
ly, slowly but surely, farther down and
farther down, until the basket strikes the
earth and the apostle steps out and afoot
and alone starts on that famous mission
airy tour the story of which has astonished
earth and heaven. Appropriate entry in
Pauls diary of travels: Through win
dow in a basket was | let down by the
wall"
I observe first on what slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemakers who
twisted that cord fastened to that lower
ing basket never knew how much would
depend upon the strength of it. How if it
had been broken and the apostles life
had been dashed out? What would have
become of the Christian Church? All that
magnificent missionary work in Pamphy-
liza, Cappadocia, Galatia, Macedonia. would
never have been accomplished. All his
writings that make up so Indispensable
and enchanting part of the New Tesla
ment would never have been written.
The story of resurrection would never
have been so gloriousiy told as he told it.
That example of heroic and triumphant
endurance at Philippi. in the Mediterra-
mean Euroc!v1On, under fagellation and
at his beheading would not have kindled
the courage of 10000 martyrdoms But
that rope holding that basket, how much
depended on it! SO again and again great
results have hung on slender circum-
stances.
Did ever ship of many thousand tons
crossing the sea have such an important
passenger as had once a boat of leaves
from taffrail to stern only three or four
feet, the vessel made waterproof by coat
of bitumen and floating on the Nile with
the infant lawgiver of the Jews on board?
What if some crocodile should crunch it?
What if some of the cattle wading in for
a drink should sink it?
Vessels of war sometimes carry forty
guns looking through the portfolios, ready
to open battle But the tiny craft on the
Nile seems to be armed with all the guns
of thunder that bombarded Sinai at the
lawgivlng. On how fragile a craft sailed
how much of historical Importance!
The parsonage at Epworth, England, is
through the hallway for the rescue Of his
children. Seven children are out and safe
on the ground, but one remains in the
consuming building. That one awakes
and, finding his bed on fire and the build
ing crumbling, comes to the window, and
les, one peasant standing on the shoulder
of the other, and down the human ladder
the boy descends-John Wesley.
If you would know how much depended
on that ladder of peasants, ask the mill
ions of Methodists on both sides OF the
the world. Ask their hundreds of thou
sands already assembled to join their foun
der, who would have persisted but for the
living stairs of peasants shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn
Island, and right in the midst of surround
ing cannibalism and squalor the passen-
gers discovered a Christian colony Of
and highest style of religion and civiliza-
ton. For fifty years no missionary and
no Christian influence had landed there
Why this oasis OF light amid desert of
heathendom? Sixty years before a ship
had met disaster, and one of the sailors,
unable to save anything else, went to his
trunk and took out a Bible which his
mother had placed there and swan ashore
the Bible held III his teeth. The book was
read on all sides until the rough and vi
clous 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 Transformation of
a nation by one book. 1t did not seem of
much Importance whether the sailor con-
tinued to hold the book in his teeth or
let it fall in the breakers, but upon that
small circumstance depended what mighty
results?
Practical inference: There are no insie-
nlhcances in life. The minutest thing is
part of a magnitude. Intinity is made UP
of infnitesimals; great things an aggrega-
ton of small things. Bethlehem manger
pulling on star in the Eastern sky One
book in drenched sailors mouth the
evangellzation Of a multitude. One boat
of papyrus on the Nile freighted with
events Tor all ages. The fate of Christen-
dom in basket let down from a window
on the wall. What you do. do we'll If
you make 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 hoy as he goes from
home, let it be remembered in your pray
ers. for it may have a mission as far-reach-
ing as the book which the sailor carried
in his teeth to the Pitcairn beach.
The plainest mans life is an island be-
tween two eternities-eternity past rip
pling against his shoulders, eternity to
come touching his brow. The casual, the
accidental, that which merely happened
- ol1~, L.