Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/740



"Well, now," I said, "let us put our hand on that. Will you give the Lord your voice for the next ten days?" Said she, "I will."

I shall never forget that Sunday evening. I asked her to sing, and she sang. She sang the gospel message with the voice she had, feeling that it was a poor, worthless thing, and that night there came out of the meeting into the inquiry room one man. That man said to me afterward that it was the gospel that was sung which reached his heart; and from that day to this—that is now eleven or twelve years ago—that man has been one of the mightiest workers for God in that city and country I have ever known. How was it done? A woman gave the Master what she had.—The Church Advocate.

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TALENTS, BURIED

Half a billion dollars is the value of the buried talent (hoarded money) of the United States, according to investigations made by the Federal Government, the conclusions of which recently were made public by Postmaster-General Meyer in The Woman's World. Even at the rate proposed for postal depository savings, 2 per cent, the idleness of the $500,000,000 costs its possessors $10,000,000, a sum equal to the entire public debt of the United States in 1839, and almost as much as the Government spends annually in maintenance of Indians. However, money is accounted worth in business not less than 4 per cent, and very few securities, particularly in the West, earn less than 4 per cent. The basis of computation of the $20,000,000 annual loss caused by the safety-deposit sort of security was that rate. In the industrial world money—and the very money that is now "hoarded"—is worth more than 4 per cent. The money panic of 1907 never would have happened if the buried talent of $500,000,000 had been in circulation, according to financial authorities. As the buried talent is loss financially, so it is in every domain of possibility. In the moral and spiritual life it is even worse; the disinclination to use becomes in time inability to use. (Text.) (3170)   TALENTS DIFFER  Ralph Waldo Emerson teaches the lesson that everything is needed in its own place, in this quaint bit of verse:  The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel; And the former called the latter, "Little prig." Bun replied, "You are doubtless very big, But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together, To make up a year And a sphere; And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I. Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I can not carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut." (Text.) (3171)    Tales That Won Fame—See. Talk—See. TALKING AND SICKNESS  The Emmanuel movement in San Francisco, so far at least as it has to do with St. Luke's Hospital, is a confest failure. The local experiment has lasted a year, and every effort, it is claimed, has been made to give the prescribed treatment a thorough test. The hospital's psychopathic ward has been discontinued, and the clerical superintendent of the mental healing part of the institution, the Rev. A. P. Shields, D.D., has sent in his resignation. "It was found," says Bishop Nichols, "impossible to secure beneficial results by placing patients in a psychopathic ward associated with a hospital. All the depressing influences of the hospital bore down upon them. The constant atmosphere of suffering made a cure impossible, and, finally, we were forced to the conclusion that we had failed." This same reasoning condemns the cause of those people outside of hospitals who are always talking of disease and fatalities (unless it be distinctly for curative purposes in the case of disease), so helping to make the more depressive the depression of mental and nervous sufferers. There are well people who always, by their lugubrious manner or talk, carry about with them the atmosphere of the sick-room—who are simply walking hospitals.—The Observer.

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Taming Animals—See.

Tampering with Peril—See.