Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/633



Haime was a Dorsetshire lad, violent in temper, gross in speech, utterly lawless in conduct. He was visited with what is to-day an almost unthinkable spiritual experience—a very violent temptation to blaspheme God. He yielded at last, in the silence of his heart framed the dreadful words, and was then told by the tempter, "Thou art inevitably damned." The unhappy youth was broken-*hearted. He swung for a time betwixt plans of suicide and wild rushes into vicious pleasure. The terrors of sin haunted him. He had experiences which can hardly be paralleled out of monkish literature.

"One night, as I was going to bed, I durst not lie down without prayer. So, falling upon my knees, I began to consider, 'What can I pray for? I have neither the will nor the power to do anything good.' Then it darted into my mind, 'I will not pray, neither will I be beholden to God for mercy.' I arose from my knees without prayer, and laid me down; but not in peace. I never had such a night before. I was as if my very body had been in a fire, and I had a hell in my conscience. I was thoroughly persuaded the devil was in the room."—, "Wesley and His Century."

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RENEWAL

M. E. Hume-Griffith, in her "Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia," tells of a little Persian boy badly dis-*figured from a "hare-lip," who was brought by his father to the medical mission at Julfa to be operated upon for the trouble.

The Persians believe that this congenital malformation is the mark left by the Evil One, so this afflicted boy was known in his village by the unenviable title "little devil," and had been a good deal tormented by his playfellows. The operation was a complete success. After ten days' careful treatment the dressing was finally removed, and the boy was handed a mirror that he might look for the first time upon his "new" face. Tears of joy rolled down his face as he kissed the hand that had wrought the change, and he murmured brokenly: "I am no longer a little devil, I am no longer a little devil!" And he went back to his comrades to be a hero and an idol.

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The difference between men who are taking in and giving out life and knowledge and men who are living in their own selfish circle is like the difference in lakes stated below:

Fresh-water lakes are always only expansions of rivers, due to the particular topographical configuration of a valley. They are all characterized by the fact that the water that they receive runs out, either continuously or intermittently, and that the chemical constitution of their water remains constantly the same as that of the streams and rivers of the same region.

Salt lakes, on the other hand, are always closed basins, without outlet, and their water is removed only by surface evaporation. These facts being well understood, we see at once why the former lakes contain fresh water and the others salt water.(Text.)—, Cosmos.

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See.

RENEWAL NECESSARY

If I have a certain sum of money, I can calculate what necessities it will meet, and how far it will go; but it will go only so far; beyond that is exhaustion. But if I have a bed of strawberries in my garden, after it has borne the crop of the season, and there is no more to be got from it, I can weed and cultivate and fertilize it, and next year it will bear again. And tho the whole bed shows exhaustion, I can set its runners in new rows and nurture them into new life, tho the old plants are only fit to be dug under; and I can renew the life of my bed, and after a season it will be as young and fresh and fertile as ever. I have completely renewed its life. So I can renew the life of a note, or lease, or partnership. So bodily strength, tho exhausted every day, is renewed every night; and even if impaired by disease, it may be recovered. There is nothing necessarily hopeless in the exhaustion of anything that has life in it; but all living things need renewal.—, "Sermons in Illustration."

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RENEWAL, SPIRITUAL

A lady calling upon a friend one day, exprest surprize that she had both windows open while the thermometer was at zero, saying that she never opened her windows