The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-06
os ANGELES, Cal, September g.

In this sermon the preacher shows that there are crises in every life which, like a revelation of the un- seen, teach lessons that should never be ignored or forgotten. The text is II Cor inthians xii, 3, q knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body l cannot tell; God knoweth)."
 A friend of mine was some time ago reading that fascinating book of Frances Hodgson Burnett entitled The one 1 Knew Best of All and for a long time he did not know that the heroine or the book and the author were one. He fol- lowed the little girl step by step as she grew up until this fact suddenly dawned upon him. Why" he said. Mrs. Bur nett is writing the history of her own life" The same fact is true about the autobiographes of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hughes and Lord Byron and Thomas De Quincey. When you read David Copperfeld you are reading, with an added touch of romance, the au- tobiography of Charles Dickens When you read "Tom Browns School Days you are reading Thomas Hughes early life at Rugby. When you read "Childe Harold" you are reading a uniformed and distorted history of the life of Lord Byron. When you read the Confessions of an Opium Eater" you are reading of the chamber of horrors In which De Quincey lived for many years. These au- thors may not have said in plain words that the characters of their autobiogra- phies were reincarnations of themselves. but they were. just as the prominent men and women of social and political England of the Victorian era moved through the pages of Disraelrs novels masqueradlng under fictitious names.
 Paul was writing the chapter Of my text in the third person. There had been many criticisms made against the great apostle because, though he had never seen Jesus. he assumed authority as teacher of Christianity.
 If you examine Paul's writings careful ly you will find that he uses the personal pronoun "I' far more than any other inspired writer in either the New Testa- ment or the Old His enemies claimed that he was a blatant, conceited boaster. So in order to disarm any unjust criti- cisms he describes one of the most im- portant experiences of his life. referring to it in the third person He said, II knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body l cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth); such an one caught up to the third heaven" Then Paul goes on and tells how this man, this third person. who was himself, had the most marvellous manifestation of Gods power dUu lONt. All lllt llIllt llt 1OTllllliduS are reading this account methinks we can hear him say: ''Dou you suppose Paul Is alluding to himself? Do you sup pose Paul himself has been in paradise?' Indeed l have often thought that by put ting this divine manifestation in the third person Paul made it even more powerful than if he had directly spoken of it as having occurred to himself.
 Now, it has always been a debatable | eli ct, ,t,x glorious revelation which came to Paul really was. It was evidently one of the important moments if not the supreme moment of Paul's life. Why so over whelming was it that Paul could not tell whether he was in the flesh or out of the flesh when his spiritual exaltation cured He could not tell whether his spirit was confined in its tenement of clay or whether his soul for little while left his body and took its flight into the unknown world, as our sous will depart when the breath stops and the pulse ceases to beat and the physi- clan pronounces us dead. Though many commentators may try to tell us what this Pauline revelation was, I am not going to try to explain 1t. I do not think Paul wanted us to know what it was
 The Presence of God.
 Paul does not say what he saw or heard in this wonderful vision AS a man admitted to an audience with a king or emperor Is expected to maintain deco rous silence about the interview, so Paul says 1t was not lawful to utter the words he heard in the third heaven. We can understand that There are some of our own experiences about which we shrink from speaking. They are too sol emn, too sacred, for utterance. But what an effect they have had on our lives! It would be useless for an infidel to tell some of us that there is no God; we know there is. There have been times when He has come so close to us that we have been conscious of His presence; we have felt Him near to us. It is about these times, more common than we sometimes think, that l would speak to you this morning.
 Your first great moment of spiritual ecstasy may have come to you as a re- action from almost miraculous es- cape from death in early youth I do not know what that escape was. Perhaps you were skating upon the ice on the river and suddenly you come too near an air hole and in you went. You can feel the horror of that cold plunge now. You felt the swift current gripping you as though 1t was a fend with million hands and all those hands were trying to drag you under the ice. You remem- Der well holding out your arms to sa 5e yourself and the ice breaking as you tried to lift yourself upon the smooth surface. Or perhaps the miraculous es- cape from death came when you as a little boy were down by the old saw mill fishing. Your mother had forbidden you to go into boat
 For some time you had been fishing cn the shore But the waters out in the mid dle of the pond did look so inviting. The Ir,rx4 T 1z.Ir l. your bare feet you began to run across them. Then when you found just the right place to cast your line, you dropped it. But after the first nibble of fish those big logs under your feet began to roll. Then the other logs began to force them in. Then those huge logs were closing over your head when your little companion lay down flat upon his stomach and extended to you his fishing pole and pulled you out just in time. Or per haps your narrow escape from death came in some awful runaway You see now the horses plunging and taking the bits in their teeth. You ca n hear the crash as the wagon Is shat tered against tree. Or perhaps like George Washington's mother, during a thunderstorm, you had friend struck dead before your eyes by the lightning I do not know what that early escape was but this do know-there Is hardly a man, woman or child who has not in youth come so near death as to almost feel the cold air of the tomb flaming the cheek. Why. you were so near death that just one step more and you would have been over the