Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/45



done to stir the sinners to repentance, so he prepared a strong sermon on the second coming of Christ. He told how the world would go on in its sin and wickedness, and at last Gabriel would sound his trumpet and time would come to an end. He described the horrors of the lost and the joys of those who were saved. The sermon grew in intensity, and he brought his people up to a grand climax, when suddenly the sound of a trumpet smote the ears of the anxious throng.

There was a great sensation, and many fell upon their knees in terror and began to repent and pray. Women screamed and strong men groaned. Pandemonium was let loose for a few minutes. After the terror had somewhat ceased the preacher called to a man up a tree, and he descended with a long tin horn in his hand. The speaker then turned in fierce wrath and upbraided the people. He cried out in stentorian tones that, if a man with a tin horn up a tree could frighten them so, how would it be in the last great end when Gabriel's trumpet sounded the knell of the world! The sermon had a great effect upon the vast audience, and many hundreds flocked to the front and were converted.

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AROUSEMENT BY A THOUGHT

It is not infrequent to find a really great mind sunk in apathy for want of a compelling thought, a dominant idea, a commensurate ambition. Then something rouses such a mind, and at the touch of a magic wand its slumber is broken. Some hint drops like a seed into its prepared soil, and the mind becomes so renewed and vitalized that henceforth it scarcely seems the same. This was precisely the history of Gibbon's intellect. The moment when his imaginative sympathy was touched with the thought of the past glory and present degradation of Rome, was the moment that freed all the latent powers of his genius, as ice is thawed by the sudden burst of summer warmth. And in that moment, also, his years of wide and irregular study bore fruit.—, "The Makers of English Prose."

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Arousing an Undutiful Son—See.

Arrested Development—See.

Arriving—See.

Art—See ; ;.

Art, Age in—See.

Art as a Transformer—See.

ART, DECLINE OF

As long as a family thought itself comfortably furnished with a chest or two, a wardrobe, a box-bedstead, a dozen earthenware pots of different sizes, and three or four vessels of pewter or copper, each one of these objects of utility might become a vehicle for a good deal of artistic thought. The piece would be handed down from mother to daughter, from father to son. At all events, it would be made with that possibility in mind. It was made to last, and in an artistic community it would be the object of a good deal of careful consideration as to its form and as to the little adornments that might be added to it. Now, however, when the poorest family requires two hundred utensils of one and another kind, and finds, moreover, that these utensils are furnished at an incredibly low price by great companies which make them by the thousand and force them upon the customer with favorable opportunities for immediate delivery and gradual payment, the possibility of having the common objects of life beautiful has gone.—, "Lubke's History of Art."

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ART, DEVOTION TO

The secret of success in any calling is an enthusiasm for our work like that of this artist:

The steamer was anchored in Glacier Bay, and he [R. Swain Gifford] was alone on the beach near Muir inlet, sketching. He was making a sketch of the Muir glacier, which was 250 feet above water and two miles wide. Suddenly he noticed an enormous mass of ice breaking away from the glacier. It was several hundred yards long, and Gifford quickly realized that he was witnessing something few men had seen. He saw his danger if he stayed on the beach, but he wanted a picture of that huge detached mass of ice. He had his camera with him; he quickly adjusted it and took a snap-shot. He didn't lose a minute then in collecting his tools and running as fast as he could to the high ground.