The Iola register., 1901-08-30

lions of Methodists on both sides OF
the sea. Ask their mission stations all
around the world. Ask their hundreds
of thousands already ascended 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
light amid a desert of heathendom?
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 a 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 evangelized, 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. 1t
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
resultsl
Practical inference: There are no
insignificances in life. The minutest
thing is part of magnitude. Infin-
ity is made up of infnitesimals; great
things an aggregation of small
things. Bethlehem manger pulling on
a star in the eastern sky. One book
in drenched sailors mouth the evan
gelization of a multitude. One boat
of papyrus on the Nile freighted with
events for all ages. The fate of
Christendom in basket let down
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 n
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 ternities-eternity 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 its
mooring the ship of the church in the
/ storm of the centuries.
Again, notice unrecognized and un.
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 muscle of the arm or dismissed
an anxious look from his face unit
the basket touched the ground and
discharged its magnificent cargo
Not one of their names has come tC
us. But there was no work done that
day in Damascus or in all the eartf
compared with the Importance ot
their work. What if they had in THEN
agitation tied a knot that could slip,
What if the sound of the mob at the
door had led them to say: "Pau
must take care of himself. and ",
will take care of ourselves" No. no,
They held the rope, and in doing S.,
did more for the Christian chmcl
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 fell
when they read his letters to tn,
Romans, to the Corinthians, to tn,
Galatians, to the Ephesans, to tn,
Philippians, to the Colossians, to tn,
Thessalonians, and when they heart
how he walked out of prison, will
the earthquake unlocking the dooI
for him, and took command of tn,
AleXandrian corn ship when tn,
sailors were nearly scared to deatl
and preached sermon that nearl,
shook Felix off his Judgment seat
hear the men and women who helped
him down through the window ant
over the wall talking in private Owe
the matter and saying: "How glat
l am that we effected that rescue! II
coming times others may get tn,
glory of Paul's work, but no one shall
rob us of the satisfaction of knowing
that we held the rope"
Something occurs to me quite per
sonal. | was the youngest of a larg,
family of children. My parents wer,
neither rich nor poor. Four of tn,
sons wanted collegiate education
and four obtained it, but not, withou
great home struggle. We never heart
the old people say once that the,
were denying themselves to effec
this, but | remember now that IN,
parents always looked tired. dom
think they ever got rested until the,
lay down in the Somerville cemetery
| lIothar would sit doNVn In tho ayar