Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/554



seas of melody, into an ecstasy of delight, until the people wept from the excess of their emotions. That girl was Lillian Nordica.—, "Character Lessons."

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A pious woman, when it was decided to close the prayer-meeting in a certain village, declared it should not be, for she would be there if no one else was. True to her word, when, the next morning, some one asked her jestingly, "Did you have a prayer-meeting last night?" "Ah, that we did!" she replied. "How many were present?" "Four," she said. "Why, I heard you were there all alone." "No, I was the only one visible; but the Father was there, and the Son was there, and the Holy Spirit was there, and we were all agreed in prayer." Before long others took shame to themselves at the earnest perseverance of the poor woman, the prayer-meeting was revived and the church prospered. (Text.)

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See ;.

Perseverance in Saving—See.

Perseverance, Unexampled—See.

PERSIA, THE MOSLEM SITUATION IN

Perhaps I can not illustrate the degraded condition of the people in Persia better than by referring to the condition of women, because the key to the condition of the entire people is the condition occupied by their women. I will illustrate it by describing the manner of cultivating rice in northern Persia, in that portion bordering on the Caspian Sea. Among the people there, the planter as a rule marries as many women as he needs for the cultivation of his rice. They prepare the fields and sow broadcast in a seed-plot. These fields are not very large usually. The women further prepare it for cultivation by flooding the fields with water and then by plowing and cross-plowing under the water, standing in the great pools knee-deep or more. When the rice has grown to the height of six inches or more, the women go out in the early dawn and often they work with their babes strapt on their backs. It is necessary for them to transplant the little blades that have come up in the seed-plot; so they pull the rice plants up by the handful and transplant them, a few plants at a time, working steadily all day long until the evening twilight deepens and it is too dark to work any more, when they take refuge on a little elevation that may or may not be protected by a booth. There they remain during the night and are ready to start work again at the dawn. This they do, day after day. And when the harvest has come, and the crops have been gathered and safely placed in the storehouses, these women are probably divorced and turned out to live lives of misery and shame and degradation, until they may be so fortunate, as they would consider it, as to become the wives of other planters.

I will give you another illustration of their condition. Not long ago I was sitting in my study when a department representative came to me and said that, lying out in the open, behind the Legation, was a poor old sick woman; and he thought perhaps I might be able to do something for her, as she needed attention very badly. I went and investigated the case and found a poor, decrepit old woman. I say old woman, for tho she was only about thirty-five years of age, at thirty-five in Persia they become broken down and decrepit. I investigated her case, and my investigation revealed this story. She had been the wife of a certain man and had gradually been getting blind. She had also fallen and broken her hip-joint, and, being no longer able to do his work, he had carried her out in the open desert and left her to die there. We took her in our hospital, where our doctor cared for her; and when they washed her in order to dress her wounds, they found that she had maggoted bed-sores on her body. We did everything we could for her, and God in His mercy relieved her of her physical sufferings. It was His mercy that placed her in our hands for the last few days of her life, in order that she might hear the story of the love of Christ.—, "Student Volunteer Movement," 1906.

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PERSISTENCE

If the wind is in the east with a blue hazy atmosphere it seems to affect the fish in some unaccountable way, and while it lasts a rise can rarely be got out of them. I have noticed this hundreds of times, often when the water was in splendid fishing order, and the river full of new run fish, but whatever quarter the wind blows from there is always a chance while the fly is in the water, and to insure success the angler must make up his mind to have many blank