Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/549

 I

Let us take to our hearts a lesson—no lesson can braver be— From the ways of the tapestry weavers on the other side of the sea.

Above their heads the pattern hangs, they study it with care, The while their fingers deftly move, their eyes are fastened there.

They tell this curious thing besides of the patient, plodding weaver; He works on the wrong side evermore, but works for the right side ever.

It is only when the weaving stops, and the web is loosed and turned, That he sees his real handiwork, that his marvelous skill is learned.

Ah, the sight of its delicate beauty, how it pays him for all his cost! No rarer, daintier work than his was ever done by the frost.

Then the master bringeth him golden hire, and giveth him praise as well, And how happy the heart of the weaver is, no tongue but his own can tell.

II

The years of man are the looms of God, let down from the place of the sun, Wherein we are weaving ever, till the mystic web is done.

Weaving blindly, but weaving surely, each for himself his fate— We may not see how the right side looks, we can only weave and wait.

But, looking above for the pattern, no weaver hath need to fear, Only let him look clear into heaven—the Perfect Pattern is there.

If he keeps the face of the Savior forever and always in sight His toil shall be sweeter than honey, his weaving is sure to be right.

And when the work is ended, and the web is turned and shown, He shall hear the voice of the Master; it shall say unto him, "Well done!"

And the white-winged angel of heaven, to bear him thence shall come down; And God shall give him gold for his hire—not coin but a glowing crown. (Text.)

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PAYMENT OF DEBTS

In a suit lately tried in a Maryland court, the plaintiff testified that his financial position had always been a good one. The opposing counsel took him in hand for cross-examination and undertook to break down his testimony upon this point.

"Have you ever been bankrupt?" asked the counsel. "I have not." "Now, be careful," admonished the lawyer, with raised finger. "Did you ever stop payment?" "Yes." "Ah, I thought we should get at the truth," observed counsel, with an unpleasant smile. "When did this suspension of payment occur?" "When I had paid all I owed," was the naive reply of the plaintiff.—Success Magazine.

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PEACE

The following outlook toward universal peace was written by George Frederick Knowles:

When navies are forgotten And fleets are useless things, When the dove shall warm her bosom Beneath the eagle's wings;

When memory of battles At last is strange and old, When nations have one banner And creeds have found one fold;

When the Hand that sprinkles midnight With its powdered drifts of suns Has hushed this tiny tumult Of sects and swords and guns;

Then hate's last note of discord In all God's worlds shall cease, In the conquest which is service, In the victory which is peace.

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"The inauguration of a monument of Christ, the Redeemer, on the Cordillera of the Andes," says Carolina Huidobro, in The Christian Herald (New York), "has a grand significance, at once political and social. The colossal statue upon a pinnacle 14,000 feet above the sea, surrounded by peaks of perpetual snow, dominating as it does the two countries which stretch out on either side