Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/583

 Preaching, Roosevelt's—See.

Preaching Spoiled—See.

PREACHING THE WORD

When Dr. Cuyler, of Brooklyn, died, the Sunday-school remembered that he used to come in every now and then during the years of his history, and repeat just a single verse from the superintendent's desk; and the next Lord's Day after the funeral, they marched up in front of it in a long line, and each scholar quoted any of the texts that he could recollect. The grown people wept as they saw how much there was of the Bible in the hearts of their children, which this one pastor had planted. Yet he was a very timid and old-fashioned man; he said he had no gift at talking to children; he could only repeat God's Word. If preachers and teachers would follow such a simple example, what a power there would be in their ministrations. (Text.)

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PRECAUTION

A California vine-grower, in a region where once in a great while the temperature fell a few degrees below the freezing-point, thus endangering his crop, rigged up an electric-alarm system which signalled to him when the temperature out in the fields had fallen low enough to require the lighting of fires to prevent frost. A neighbor, more fond of his ease, immediately improved on this apparatus. He fixt his brushwood ready for firing, and then arranged his electrical apparatus so that when the temperature fell to thirty-two degrees a current should be sent through a platinum wire in some fine combustibles and light the fires, instead of signaling him to do the work himself. The apparatus is cheap and more reliable than hired men, so that it is likely to be adopted in the parts of the state exposed to inopportune frosts.—Philadelphia Ledger.

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Justice Willes about 1780 sentenced a boy at Lancaster to be hanged, with the hope of reforming him by frightening him, and he ordered him for execution next morning. The judge awoke in the middle of the night, and was so affected by the notion that he might himself die in the course of the night, and the boy be hanged, tho he did mean that he should suffer, that he got out of his bed and went to the lodgings of the high sheriff, and left a reprieve for the boy, or what was to be considered equivalent to it, and then, returning to his bed, spent the rest of the night comfortably. (Text.)—, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."

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PRECAUTIONS

The day when an engineer could drive his train ahead at full speed, at his own discretion, and make up as much lost time as the recklessness of his daring permitted, has passed with the romantic age of railroading. No longer does he gamble thus with death to win back minutes. A cool-nerved human machine sits in an office miles away and tells him exactly how fast he may go. Mute signals stretch out their arms to him by day or glow red-eyed at night along the track and halt him if he rides too fast or if there is danger ahead. At intervals of from a thousand feet to five miles there are towers with men in them who note the minute and second of his passing, and telegraph it forward and back over the line. Nowadays the engineer is rarely out of touch with possible orders for more than a few minutes at a time. In place of the daring and the old speed madness that used to characterize the making up of time, the man who lasts the longest now in the cab is the one who possesses the calculating skill developed by long experience. He accomplishes much more simply by taking advantage of every trifle in winning back his time second by second.—, Harper's Weekly.

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It is said to be scarcely possible to induce working men engaged in dangerous employments to take the most rudimentary precautions against disease and accident. The knife-grinder neglects his mask, the collier his lamp; they are ingenious in evading the regulations framed for their safety.

Similarly in our recklessness and presumption we ignore the things which are designed to secure the safety of our character, the peace of our soul. Let us be sure that we prize those manifold and gracious arrangements by which God seeks to save us from the power of evil, that we profit by them to the utmost.—, "The Transfigured Sackcloth."

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