Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/215



The Bible was once compared to a great tree, with its books as branches, its chapters as twigs, and the verses as leaves. A minister, addressing a Sunday-school gathering, announced his text as "on the 39th branch, the 3d twig, and the 17th leaf." He said to his great audience, "Try to find my text." A little lad who was in the pulpit, owing to the crowded state of the church, answered "Malachi, third chapter, and seventeenth verse." The minister said, "Right, my boy; take my place and read it out." It so happened the boy's brother had died recently, and the sight of the little curly-headed lad, only eleven years old, with his little black gloves reading in silvery tones, "And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels," brought tears to many eyes. The minister laid his hand on the boy and said, "Well done; I hope one day you will be a minister." The lad was Henry Drummond, afterward the loved teacher of thousands in America and Great Britain. (Text.)

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See.

EARNESTNESS

Professor Ticknor, speaking in one of his letters of the intense excitement with which he listened to Webster's Plymouth address, says:

Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it is no connected and compacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of burning eloquence, to which his manner gave tenfold force. When I came out, I was almost afraid to come near him. It seemed to me that he was like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire.

The lips of the prophet of old were touched by the live coal. No great thing is ever done without earnestness. (Text.)

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When Patrick Henry concluded his well-*known speech in March, 1775, in behalf of American independence, "no murmur of applause followed," says his biographer. "The effect was too deep." After the trance of a moment, several members of the assembly started from their seats. The cry, "To arms!" seemed to quiver on every lip, and glance from every eye. What was the secret of his power? The spirit of freedom so completely filled him that it overflowed into all other lives with which he came in contact.

Every Christian is given a message that makes for eternal freedom. With what earnestness ought we to advocate this much greater cause. (Text.)

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EARTH, CRY OF

M. Guyau, in his "Sketch of Morality," relates a dream that he had. He felt himself soaring in heaven, far above the earth, and heard a weary sound ascending as of torrents amid mountain silence and solitude. He could distinguish human voices—sobs mingled with thanksgiving, and groans interrupted by benedictions; all melting into one heartrending symphony. The sky seemed darkened. To one with him he asked, "Do you hear that?" The angel answered, "These are the prayers of men, ascending from the earth to God." Beginning to cry like a child, the dreamer exclaimed, "What tears I should shed were I that God!" Guyau adds: "I loosened the hand of the angel, and let myself fall down again to the earth, thinking there remained in me too much humanity to make it possible for me to live in heaven."

It is that earth-cry that brings God down to help the needy.

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EARTH INCREASING

Accumulations of surface-matter are astonishingly rapid. Professor Newton estimates that 400,000,000 meteors fall to the earth annually. These add enormous quantities of matter to the earth, but do not, of course, account for all surface growth and changes. Modern London is built on the site of Roman London, but the ancient city is seventeen feet lower than the modern. The Jerusalem streets that Jesus walked through are twenty feet lower down than the streets of Jerusalem of to-day. One of the most interesting resorts in that city, in the time of Christ, was the pool of Bethsaida. Recently work being done by the Algerian monks has laid bare a large tank cut in the solid rock thirty feet deep.—Public Opinion.

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EARTH SOIL FOR HEAVENLY FLOWERS

The poor women in the tenements of the Whitechapel road in London had a contest, and the flowers that took the prizes were