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About The Plattsmouth daily herald. (Plattsmouth, Nebraska) 1883-19?? | View Entire Issue (Aug. 27, 1888)
LAYTOUOUTnHEnRASKA MONDAV. AUGUST 27. 1888. IIEKALD: V RESULTS MAY DEPEND CN 6MALL EVENTS. Tbcro Aro No lotlffolfltfUiCM la Oar XJroa. 7b C'iul. tl Accidental, Are 1'itrts of a ;rrt I'lun TJi Omnlprrarnce of Mnttivr'a I'rsjum. Gp.imsbv, Can., Aug. 20. The Ilev. T. Do Witt Tahnage, D.D., of iSrooklyn, preached on tho camp ground at this place today. All Canada is represented in tlio ifimifimo throncm a.sctiiMcd. Ir. Tahnage has preached at Grimsby many mriimi'is. This closes hi Bummer al wncc. Ho has preached, lectured and visited in thirteen ttatcs of tlio Union this MimnxT. his audiences iiumlx-ring ten and fifteen thousand eople. Tlio subject of his wrmon hero to-day was '(Jreat Kiwult May I-jk-ikI on Small Events." Dr. Tahnage took for his text: Through a windotv, in a basket, was I ha down l.y tho wall." II Cor. ii, 'M. Ilo Kiid: Damascus is a city of white and glisten ing architecture nometimes called "the eye of the east,' sometimes called "a tarl surrounded ly emeralds," at ono ft ne ditiiiguishc-d for swords of tho best material ralletl Damascus blades, and upholstery of richest fabric called damasks. A horseman by the namo of I'aul, riding toward this city, had been thrown from tho huddle. The horse had replied under a Hash from tho sky, which at tho same time was no bright it blinded tho rider for many days, and I think so icmiaijently injured his eye night that this defect of vision liecame the thorn in tho ll.h ho afterwards speaks of. He started from Damascus to butcher Christians, but after that hard fall from his horso ho was a changed man and preached Christ in Damascus till the city was bhaken to its foundation. Tho mayor gives authority for his ar- rest, and "the popular cry is "Kill hiuit ' Kill hint!" Tho city is surrounded by a high wall, and the gates are watched by the iolico lest tho Cilician preacher escaix'. Many of tho houses aro built on 1 tho wall, and their lalconies projected clear over and hovered alovo the gardens outside. It was customary to lower baskets out of these balconies and pull up fruits and llowers from the gardens. To this day visitors at tho monastery of Mount Sinai aro lifted ami let down in baskets. lVu-ctives prowled around from house to house looking for l'aul, but his friends hid him now in ono place, now in " another. Ho is no coward, as fifty inei ccnU in his life demonstrate. Hut he feels his work is not done yet, and so he evades assassination. "Is that preacher here?" the foaming mob shout at ono house door. "Is that fanatic here?" the liolico shout at another house door, tiometlme on the street incognito ho passes through a cloud of clenched fists, and sometimes ho secretes himself on tho Jiousetop. At last the infuriate popu lace get on sure track of him. They Jiavo positive evidenco tliat he is in the house of ono of the Christians, the bid cony of whoeo home reaches over the 'Tr..v ho in! Hero he is!" The vociferation and blasphemy and howl ing of the pursuers are nt tho front door. They break in. "Fetch out that Gosic!izer, and let us hang his head ,011 tho city gate. Where is he?" The .'emergency was terrible. Providentially there was a good stout basket in the house. I'aul- friends fasten a rope tc the basket. l'aul stops into it. The basket is lifted to the edge of the balcony tho wall, and then while l'aul Jiolds on to tho rojHj with both hands his friends lower away, carefully and cau tiouslv, slowly but surely, further down and further down, until the basket strikes the earth and the ppostlo steis out, and afoot and alone starts on that famous missionary tour, tho story of which has astonished earth and heaven. Appropriate entry in Paul's diary of travels: "Through a window, in u bas ket, was I let down by the wall." Observe, first, on what a slender tenure great results hang. Tlio rii-muker who twisted that cord fastened to that lower ing liaskct never knew how much would depend "on the strength of it How if it had been broken and the apostle's life liad been dashed out? What would have be come of the Christian church ? AU that magnificent missionary work in Pam T.hili.i. Cmividocia. Galatia, Macedonia . -"could never have been accomplished. Alibis writings that make up so indis- reusable and enchanting a pan or jn New Testament would never have been " written. The story of resurrection would never have been so gloriously told as ho told it. That examplo of heroic and triumphant endurance at Phiiippi, in the Mediterranean euroclydon, under flagellation and at his beheading would not have kindled the courage of ten thousand martyrdoms. But that rope holding that basket, how much depended on it! So again and again great results have hung on what seemed slender cir cumstances. " Did ever ship of many thousand tons crossing the 6ea have such important pas senger as had once a boat of leave?, from taflrail to stern only three or four feet, the vessel made waterproof by a coat of bitumen and floating on tho Nile with the infant lawgiver of the Jews on board? What if some crocodile ifixSild crunch it? What if somo of " - the cattle wading in for a drink . slioul J 6ink it? Vessels of war sometimes carry forty guns looking through the port holes ready to open battle. But that tiny craft on "the Kile seems to bo armed with all the guns of thunder that bom barded Sinai at the law giving. On how fragile craft sailed how much of his torical importance! The parsonage at Epworth, England, 13 on liro in the night, and the father rushed through the hallway for the res cue" of his children, Seven children are out and safe on tho ground, but one re mains in the consuming building. That one wakes, and, finding his bed on fire nd tho building crumbling, comes to Nie window, and two j-easants mako a ladder of their bodies, one peasant stand ing on the shoulder of the other, and down tho human ladder the boy descends Jolin Wesley. If you would know how much depended oit that ladder of pcas 4 ants ask the millions of Methodists oa both 6ides of tho sea. As their wiisicn Nations all around the world. Atk ' :ir hundreds of thousands already -ded to join their founder, who would hare perched but for the living stairs of peasants' e boulders. An English ship stopjied at Titcairn Ldand, and right in tho midst of sur rounding cannibalism and squalor, the passengers discovered a Christian colony of churches and schools and lieautiful homes and highest stylo of religion and civilization. For fifty yearn no mission ary and no Christian influence hail landed there. Why this oasis of light amid a desert of heathendom? Sixty years lie foro a ship had met disaster, and ono of tho sailors, unable to save anything else, went to his trunk and took -out a Bible which his mother had placed there, and swam ashore, the Bible held in his teeth. Tho liook was read on all sides until the rough and vicious imputation were tvangeliwd, and a church was started, and an enlightened common wealth established, and tho world's his tory has no more brilliant page than that which tells of the transformation of a nation by ono lxiok. It did not seem of much imNrtance whether tho sailor continued to hold the lHk in his teeth or let it fall in tho breakers, but upon what small circumstances deiendd what mighty results! Practical inference: There are no in significances in our lives. The minutest thing is part of a kjugnitude. Infinity is made up of infinitesimals. Great things an aggregation of small things. Bethlehem manger pulling on a t.tar in tho eastern sky. One look in a drenched sailor's mouth tho evangelization of a multitude. One boat of papyrus on the Nile freighted with events for all ages. The fate of Christendom in a 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 a boat let it Iks waterproof, for you know not who may sail in it. If you put a Bible in the trunk of your 1-oy as ho goes from home, let it be heard in your prayers, for it may have a mission as far reaching as the ImxjIc which the sailor carried in his teeth to tho Pitcaim lieaeh. Tho plain est man's life is an island between two eternities eternity past rippling against his shoulders, eternity to coino touching his brow. The casual, the accidental, that which merely hapiens so, are parts of a great plan, and tho rope that lets tho fugitive aistle from the Damascus wall is the cable that holds to its mooring the ship of the church iu tho northeast storm of the centuries. Again, notve unrecognized and unre corded ser-. ices. Who spun the rope? Who tied 'c to the basket? Who steadied th :"u.uriou3 preacher as ho stepped into it; Who relaxed not a muscle of tho arm or dismissed an anxious look from his face until tho basket touched the ground and discharged its magnificent cargo? Not one of their names has come to us, but there was no work don that day in Damascus or in all tho earih ' compare. with the im portance of their work. What if they had in the agitation tied a knot that could slip? "What if - the sound of a mob at the door had led them to suyi "l'aul must take care of himself, and we will tako caro of ourselves." No, no! They hell the ic.jm5, and in doing so did more for the Christian church than any thousand of us will ever accomplish. But God knows and ha3 made eternal recotd of iheir undertaking. And they know. How exultant ttiey n.udt hare felt when they read his letters to the poiunns, to the Corinthians, to the Gala tlans, to tJie Ephe-sians, to the Fhilippi nns. to the Colutssians, to the Thessjlohi ans, to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to tho Hebrews, and when they heard how ho walked out of prison with the earthquake unlocking tho dxr for him, and took command of tho Alexan drian corn shin when tho sailors wero nearly scared to death, aud preached a sermon that nearly shook Felix oil his judgment seat. I hear the men and wo men who helped him down through ttits 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 otloi3 may get the glory of Paul's work, but no one shall rob us of the satisfaction of knowing that we held the rope." There are said to Lo alxwc sixty-nine thousand ministers of religion in this country, Ahout fifty thousand I war rant came from early homes which had to struggle for tho necessaries of lifo. The sons of rich bankers am mer chants generally become bankers and merchants. The most of those who be come ministers are the eons of those who had ten iflo struggle to get their- every day bread. Tho collegiate and theolog ical education of that son took every luxury from the parental table for eight yqars, The other children were moro scantily appareled. The son nt college every little while got a bundle from home. In it were the socks that mother !i:ul knit, sitting up late at night, her &j;;ht not as good a3 onoo it was. And there also were some delicacies from the sister's hand for the voracious sppctiie of a hungry student. The father swung the heavv cradle through the j wheat, the sweat rolling from his chin bedewing every step of the way, and then sitting down under tho cherry tree at noon thinking to himself: "I am tear fully tired, but it will pay if I can once see that boy through college, and if I can know that he will bo preaching tho Gosptl after I am dead." The younger children want to know why they can't have this ajd that as others do, and the mother says; "Be patient, my children, until your" brother graduates, and then you shall have more luxuries, but we must fc?e that boy through." The years go by and the son has been rrduined and is preaching the glorious Go.- cl, and a great revival conies, and. soul j by score3 and hundreds accept the Gospel from tho lips cf that young preacher, and father and mother, quite old now, are visiting the son at the vil lage parsonage, and at the close cf a Sabbath of mighty blessing father and mother retire to their room, the son lasting the way and asking them if he couM do anything to make them more comfortable, saving if they want any thing in the night just to knock on the j wall. And then all alotie father and mc-tlu r talk over the gracious influences j cf the day and say: Well, it was worth all we went through to educate that boy. I It was a hard pull, but we held on till j the work was done. The world may ; i.ot know it, but, mother, we held the rope, didn't wef" And the voice, treni- i tdous with joyful emotion, reniionds: "Yes, father; wo held the rope. I feel my work is done. Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in iieace, for mine eyes liave seen thy salvation.' "IVhaw P nays the father, "I never felt eo much like living iu my life as now. I want to see what that fellow is going on to do, he has lieguii so well." Something occurs to nic quite personal. I was tho youngest of a large family of children. My parents were neither rich nor pior; four of the sons wanted col legiate education, and four obtained it, tint not without great homo struggle. Wo never heard tho old ieopIe say once that they wero denying themselves to elfect this, but I re.uemlier now that my parents always looked tired. I don't think that they ever got rested until they lay down in the Sonimervillo cemetery. Mother would sit down iu tho evening, ami say: "Well, I don't known what makes nio feel so tired!" Father would fall immediately to sleep, seated by tho evening stand, overcome with the days's fatigues. One of the four brothers, after preaching tho Gospel for about fifty years, entered upon his heavenly rest. Another of the four is now 011 the other side tho earth, a mis sionary of tho cross. Two of us are iu this land in the holy ministry, and I think all of us are willing to acknowl edge our obligation to tho o'il folks at home. Al mt twenty-two years ago tho one, and about twenty-four years ago the other, put down the burdens of this life, but they still hold the rope. O men and women here assembled, you brag sometimes how you have fought jour way in the world, but I think there have leen helpful infiiiences that you have never fully acknowledged. lias there not been some influence in your early or present homo that tho world cannot see? Does there not reach to you from among tho Canadian hiils, or west ern prairie, or from southern plantation, or from English or Scottish or Irish home a cord of inlhience that has kept you right when you would have gone astray, and which, after you hail made a crooked track, recalled you? Tho rope may be as long as thirty years, or five hundred miles long,, or three thousand miles long, but hands that went out of mortal sight long ago still hold the rope: You want a very swift horse, and you need to rowel him with sharpest npiu, and to let tho reins lie loose mum the neck, and to givo a shout to a racer, if you are going to ride out of reach of your mother's prayers. Why, a ship crossing the Atlantic in seven days can't sail away from that! A sailor finds them on tho lookout as he takes his place, and finds them on the mast as he climbs the ratlines to disentangle a rope in the tenipesf-, and finds them swing ing on tho bammoi k when ho turns in. Why not be frank and acknowledge it tho "most of us would long ago have been dashed lo pieces had not gracious and loving hands steadily and lovingly and mightily held the rope. But there must como a time when we shall find out who these Damascene were who lowered Paul in tho basket, and greet, them and all those who have ren dered to God snd the world unrecognized and unrecorded services. That is going to bo tine of !o glad excitements of heaven tho hunting up and picking out of those who did good on earth and got no credit for it. Hero the church has been going on nineteen centuries, and this is probably the first sermon ever recogniz ing tho services of the people in that Damascus balcony. Charles Q, Finnoy said u uyii'" Christian: "Give my love to St. Paul w,..n you meet him." When you and I meet him, as wo will, I shall ask him to introduce me to those people who got him put of the Damascene peril. Wo go into long sermon to prove that we will bo able to recognize people in heaven, when there is one reason we fail to present, and that is lietter than God will introduce us. Wi shall have them all pointed out You would not be guilts of the impoliteness of having friends in your parlor not introduced, and celestial politeness will do.ma.nd that wo be maijd acquainted with all the heavenly household. What rehearsal of old times and recital of stirring reminis cences. If others fail to give in troduction, God will take us through, and before our first twenty-four hours in heaven if it were cal culated by earthly time pieces have passed, we shall meet and talk with more heavenly celebrities than in our entire mortal state we met with earthly celebrities. Many who made great noise of usefulness will hit on the last peat by the front door of the heavenly temple, while right up within arm's reach of the heavenly throne will be many who, though they could not preach themselves or do great exploits for God, nevertheless held the rope. Come, let us go right up and accost those on this circle of heavenly thrones. Surely they must have killed, in battle a million pien, Surely they must have been buried with all the cathedrals sounding a dirge and all the towers of all the cities tolling tho national grief. Who art thou, mighty one of heaven? "I lived by choice the unmarried daugh ter in an humble home that I might take caro of niy parents in their old age, and I endured without complaints all their querulousuess and administered to all their wants for twenty years." Let us pass on round the circle of thrones. Who art thou, mighty one of heaven? "I was for tliirty years a Chris tian invalid, and suffered all the while, occasionally writing a note of sympathy for those worso off than I, and was gen eral confidant of all those who had trouble, and onco in a while I was strong enough to make a garment for that poor family in the back lane." Pass on to another throne. Yv'ho art thou, mighty one of heaven? "I was the mother who raised a whole family of children for God, and they are out in the world Christian merchants, Christian mechanics, Chris tian wives, and J have had full reward of all my toil. " Lotus pass on in the circle of thrones. "I had a Sabbath school class, and they wero always on my heart, and they all entered the kingdom of God, and I am waiting for their ar rivr.l." But who art thou, the mighty one of heaven 011 this other throne? "In time of bitter persecution I owned a house iu Damascus, a house ou tho wall. A man who preached Christ was hounded from street to street, and I hid him from the assassins, and when I found them break ing in my houso and I could no longer keep him safely, I advised him to flea for his life, aud a basket was let down over the wall with the in al treat el man in it, and I was ono who heled hold tho rope." And I said: "Is tliat all?" and ho answered, "That is all." And while I was lost in amazement, 1 heard a strong voice that sounded as though it might onco have been hoarse from many exposures and triumphant as though it might have be longed to ono of tho martyrs, and it said: "Not many mighty, not many no ble are called, but God hath chosen tho weak things of tho world to confound tho things whih are mighty, and hase things of tho world and things which aro despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things which are, that no llesh should glory in his presence." And I looked to see from whence the voice came, and lo! it was tho very one who had said: "Through a window, in a basket, was I let down by tho wall." Henceforth think of nothing as insig nificant. A little thing may decide your all. A Cunarder put out from England for New York. It was well equipped, but in putting up a stove in the pilot liox a nail was driven too near the com pass. You know how that nail would all'ect the conqiass. The ship's officer, deceived by that distracted compass, put the ship two hundred miles off her right course, and suddenly tho man on tho lookout cried, "Laud ho!" and the ship was halted within a few yards of her demolition on Nantucket shoals. A six penny nail came near wrecking a Cu narder. Small iojkm bold mi;;;'.!y d. s tinies. A minister seated in Boston at his table, lacking a word puts his hand behind his head and tilts back his chair to think, and the ceiling falls and crushes the table and would have crushed him. A minister in Jamaica at night by t he light of an in sect, called tlio candle fly, is kept from stepping over a precipice a hundred feet. F. W. Koljertson, the celebrated English clergyman, said that he entered tho ministry from a train of circum stances started by tho barking of a dog. Had tho wind blown one way on a certain day the Spanish Inquisi tion would have been established in Eng land; but it blew the other way, and that dropped tho accursed institution with 75,000 tons of shipping to the bot tom of the sea or flung tlio splintered, logs on tho rocks. Nothing unimportant in your life or mine. Three noughts placed on the right side of the figure ono makes a thousand, and six noughts on tho right side of the figure one a million, and our nothingness placed on tho right side may lie augmen tation illimitable. All the ages of time and eternity affected by the basket let down from a Damascus baleonv. HITHER AND THITHER. The hardest of all church debts to get rid of is tho spiritual mortgage held by some powerful and mean predecessor. An infirmary for dumb animals is to be established in Philadelphia. The pur pose of the organization is the mainte nance of a society for the care of ill, aged and injured animals. One of tho curiosities on exhibition at tho Cincinnati centennial is a petrified watermelon, which was found near the quarries of the Southern Granite com pany, at Lithonia, Ga. At an Italian wedding tho other day ono of the gifts presented to the bride was a necklace representing tho nation:J. tri-color, composed alternately of k.te, diamonds, rubied und emeralds. A Tennessee negro has been selling largo numbers of common glass marbles to negroes as a protection against light ning. He says there would be lots of money i (he business if he could only get out of jail.' The Ukraine national committee have issued a proclamation "complaining of Russian oppression exercised upon a people of 2-j, 000,000, and denouncing tho Great Russians as orthodox Tartars and mere pretenders to Slavonic name." A council on tubercular diseases ha3 just sat in Paris. There M ere represen tatives from nearly every European coun try except Germany. The invited Ger man doctors are said to have sent very "unparliamentary" refusals. Workmen in a gravel bed on the West ern railway of Alabama recently came upon the skeleton of what they think was an Indian princess. On it was found, a silver coronet, silver bracelets, a neck lace made of silver buckles, tied together with a silk ribbon, and a peculiar knife with a saber blade. Tho length of pipe laid m Paris for the distribution of power by compressed air already exceeds thirty miles. The com pressing engines are of 3,000 horsepower, and about 8,000,000 cubic feet of air are compressed daily to a pressure of eighty pounds per square inch, at an expendi ture of fifty tons of coal. The Pittsburg Steel Casting company have produced a cast steel shell, the first aver made in the world. Steel shells bave been made in England, but they svere cut from a forged ingot and then bored, necessarily making them very ex pensive. The company has received an experimental order for 500 shells. Fall River has one conscientious citizen, lie has a mare for " sale, and instead of telling the public that the animal is kind and gentle, suitable for ladies to drive and a household pet, he states frankly that her disposition is so sour that she hates herself, and that he would recom mend the creature to nobody unaccus tomed to horses. A baker in Bloomsbury, England, 6ued a man for $12.50 for bread fur nished. The man entered a counter claim for $45 for the value of a dog. The evidence was tliat the baker's boy leav ing bread left the gate of the customer open, and the dog ran out and was lost. The court held that if the man could not tako care of the dog himself he ought not to expect the baker's boy to do it, and judgment was for the baker. "o Ketter Tliau liefore. Whoever would five Us life over again that he mitrht live a better life would da i well to remember that he would do no j better than he is now doing. If you j want to begin over again begin now, and ' don't tliink to order a new cradla and ' begin being a baby over again. Cliru V tiaa at Work, ' The Plattsmouth Herald Is enjoying a DAILT A.ITD WEEKLY EDITIONS. The Tear Will be one liming which the Piibjccl t national interest :ml importance will he strongly aitaleil und the election of si President will take place. 'Ihe people of Cas.s County who would like to learn .f Political, Commercial and Social Transactions of this year and would keep apace with the times should Foi: Daily or Weekly Herald. Now while we have the suhjeet he fore the people we will venture to speak ol our Which is first-class in all respects and from which our joh printers are turning ont much satisfactory work. PLATTSMOUTH, Bom in both its 1888 KITH KR TIIK "VIP Ml Lo 111 M NEBRASKA, '. i I 1