Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/622



her, she appeared in the beautiful and celestial form of her true nature, followed them ever after with outstretched arms, lavished upon them her gifts, and filled their homes with happiness and wealth.—
 * forted her and encouraged her and aided

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RECORD, KEEPING THE

In "Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones," appears the following:

Start an engine from New York to San Francisco, and there is attached to its side a little piece of mechanism which indicates the number of miles it has traveled, the stoppages it has made, and how long it stopt at each station; and if you want to know the record of the journey you need not ask the engineer a word. The little piece of mechanism on the side of the engine tells you its record.

In the same way the thoughts, deeds, and progress of a soul are self-registering. (Text.)

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RECORD, LIVING

The tympanum of the ear will vibrate no longer when the music or the clamor that arrested and aroused it has subsided into silence. But that invisible yet living spirit, which watches through the eye, and harkens through the ear, and which takes instant note of whatever surrounds it, has caught the sight and the sound now vanished, and it will keep them forever. It writes its records, not as the Roman laws were written, first on wood, then on brass, and afterward on ivory; but at once on a tablet more impressible than wood, more vivid than brass, more precious than ivory, and more imperishable than either.—

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We are all writing our lives' histories here, as if with one of these "manifold writers," a black blank page beneath the flimsy sheet on which we write; but presently the black page will be taken away, and the writing will stand out plain on the page behind that we did not see. Life is the filmy unsubstantial page on which our pen rests; the black page is death; and the page beneath is that indelible transcript of our earthly actions, which we shall find waiting for us to read, with shame and confusion of face, or with humble joy, in another world—

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Recovery, Difficulty of—See.

Recovery, Instant—See.

Recuperation—See.

Redeemed by Song—See.

REDEMPTION FROM EVIL

Our forefathers sat in despair before yellow fevers, black deaths, sweating-sicknesses, cholera, and similar pestilences, but science is now gradually feeling its way to the minute and obscure causes of epidemic diseases, and year by year we draw closer to the time when it may probably put into our hands the means not only of arresting these epidemics, but of stamping them out altogether. The physician has become familiar with the bacteria; and with ceaseless patience he tracks down the mischief to its origin and birth. The scientist anticipates the time when the whole range of zymotic disease will be conquered. Will any call this foolish dreaming, and argue that because these sad scourges have always been they always will be? Such a pessimist is unworthy of the privilege of living in this glorious age. It is a delightful and legitimate hope that the race may yet master all its physical foes.

But if these physical evils are to be subdued, is not that moral evil, which is the root of all other evils, to be subdued also? Christ came to assure us of this, and the absolute casting out of the demon is the sign of the glorious truth.—, "The Transfigured Sackcloth."

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Reductio ad Absurdum—See.

REENFORCEMENT FROM WITHOUT

Many a man who, standing alone, fails in fruitfulness, might reenforce his powers by availing himself of the help of others, much as this pear-tree was reenforced:

An ingenious plan to save a dying pear-tree was adopted in the gardens of L. M. Chase, of Boston. The mice had girded the tree so that it seemed bound to die. Mr. Chase planted four small trees around it, and close to it, cut off the tops, pointed the ends, and, making incisions in the bark of the pear, bent the small trees, and grafted