Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/413



He spoke as if he had been a professor in every branch of science for a lifetime. Every technical term was at his tongue's end. Man was presented in spirit, soul and body as the most wonderful trichotomy of the universe; was analyzed, synthetized, exalted and glorified as the last and grandest work of God. He soared amid clouds and lightning and thunder and tempests; he was as familiar with anatomy as if he had been a Sir Charles Bell; with mental phenomena, as if he had been a John Locke; with mythology, as if he had been born a Greek and had lived in Greece a thousand years." At the conclusion of his sermons, congregations have been so "bewildered as to rise up in an unconscious way, facing each other, and not knowing for some moments whether to remain or leave the room." But how old was this wonderful man when he died? Just a little over forty years of age. Like David Livingstone in the African hut, William Elbert Munsey was found dead upon his knees by the side of his bed.—

(1738)

KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE

A news item from Denver, Colorado, says:

Determined to learn at first hand where and how the homeless and shivering men live who slept on the street, E. A. Brown, cousin of President W. C. Brown, of the New York Central, and himself independently rich, has been haunting the railroad and stock-yards and the slums of Denver for weeks. Drest in shabby and threadbare clothes, he has mingled with the unemployed and shared their experiences. He will use this experience to aid in securing the establishment of a municipal lodging-house, which will shelter the homeless during the winter months.

This is the scientific method of the social student to-day. It was first, however, the method of Christ. "He came to seek and to save that which was lost." (Text.)

(1739)

KNOWLEDGE, UNITY OF

The man who should know the true history of the bit of chalk which every carpenter carries about in his breeches pocket, tho ignorant of all other history, is likely, if he will think his knowledge out to its ultimate results, to have a truer, and, therefore, a better, conception of this wonderful universe, and of man's relation to it, than the most learned student who is deep-read in the records of humanity and ignorant of those of nature. (Text.)—

(1740)

KNOWLEDGE VALUES

All wealth is intelligence applied to raw material. The piece of paper cost half a farthing, but Tennyson's poem written there-*upon made it worth a thousand dollars. Just as a little canvas, worth two or three francs, took on a value of $200,000 when Millet mixed the colors with his genius and spread them over the waiting cloth. Civilization is a height on which man climbs hand over hand up the golden rounds of wisdom and knowledge.—

(1741)

KONGO PIONEER MISSIONARY WORK

Up the Kongo we went. One day Mr. Lapsley, my comrade, was sick with fever. As we attempted to land, we saw women catching up their babies and running to the jungle and men getting arrows to shoot. I stood over Mr. Lapsley and called, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" and asked them if we could sleep there for the night. "To-morrow we go away," I said. "No. Go away; go away," they cried. So we started for the other side and landed on the sandy bank. We got out the tent and had Mr. Lapsley carefully moved into his bed. Walking up and down the river bank we could hear the excitement on the other side. At twelve o'clock at night it still was going on. At two in the morning, those people had not retired; nor had I. So we said, "In the morning something will happen." Coming outside early, as we looked across the river we saw one of their war canoes filled with men starting up-stream, and then another. I ran to the tent and said to Mr. Lapsley, "Those people are coming; what shall I do?" He was there sick with fever, with no chance of running away. He said, "There is nothing that we can do." He meant by this that the Master could do something. I came outside. They had started in our direction. I could hear their war-whoop. Just at this extremity a hippopotamus came. We shot him. Then the thought came, why not offer them this meat? They were crazy for meat. I waded in the water to my waist and beckoned to them, calling out: "Come this way, all of you. Don't be afraid." The nearest canoe approached me as I was wading in the water, and I surprized the first man by say