Poetry and morals; suggestive and illustrative anecdotes and poetical quotations for the use of preachers

Author's Preface

Illustrations are the feathers to the preacher's arrow. They are windows that let the sunlight into what otherwise to many hearers would be gloomy discussions. They serve as appetizers to people with a delicate appetite for spiritual things. The element of entertainment must not be left out of consideration in public speech of any kind. While the purpose to be simply an entertainer would be a low one for a preacher of the Gospel, still his preaching will have but little effect for good unless it is entertaining. The most striking figure used in the New Testament to describe the preacher's work is that of a fisherman. Now a fisherman has to deal with creatures that are not anxious to be caught. Their attention must be attracted and the bait used must appeal to them strongly in order to accomplish his purpose. So in the work of the fisherman in the spiritual realm. The sinner is not anxious to be saved ; his evil habits and the sinfulness of his heart work together to make him wary of the preacher and his message. If he is to be caught for Christ, he must be entertained, his attention must be attracted, and the sermon must be illuminated.

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AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

I have sought in this book, not only to give a large number of fresh illustrations from current life, but also to point the moral for several hundred poetical quotations. I am satisfied that there are great possibilities in poetical illustrations. Many preachers use them far too rarely. Neither in my own preaching nor in my observation of other preachers have I ever seen an apt poetical quotation used in a sermon without the immediate effect being to quicken the interest of every hearer. The large sale of " Anecdotes and Morals " has encouraged me to believe that my work in this direction is generously appreciated by my brethren in the ministry, and I hope that the present volume will be still more valuable to them.

Louis Albert Bauks.

Cleveland, October 16, 1900.

THE MANNERS OF THE SKY.

Emerson has given us a beautiful picture of the humanness of heaven, of the tenderness of God, and of the glad good cheer and hope of immortality, in these beautiful lines taken from his poem entitled "Threnody":

Eevere the Maker ; fetch thine eye Up to his style, and manners of the sky. Not of adamant and gold Built he heaven stark and cold ; No, hut a nest of bending reeds, Flowering grass and scented weeds ; Or like a traveler's fleeing tent, Or bow above the tempest bent ; Built of tears and sacred flames, And virtue reaching to its aims ; Built of furtherance and pursuing, Not of spent deeds, but of doing.

Silent rushes the swift Lord Through ruined systems still restored, Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless, Plants with worlds the wilderness ; Waters with tears of ancient sorrow Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow.

House and tenant go to ground, Lost in God, in Godhead found. 1

POETRY AND MORALS.

THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.

There is something pathetic in the ceaseless struggle of mankind to overcome disease and perpetuate human life a little longer on the earth. One serum and elixir follows another among the inventions of the scientists. Through the ages man has endeavored to get past the flaming sword set to guard the tree of life. Man has never given up the search for the fountain of youth, and the search was never more persistent than at the present time. The science of medicine has grown out of this instinct of self-preservation, and on it have been grafted superstitions and strange methods of treatment for the purpose of postponing if not defeating death. From many thousand years ago we get fragments of writing by Hermes Trismegistus, who is involved in Egyptian mythology and legend, teaching that there are certain remedies for disease that have a tendency to prolong life, with the possibility of insuring earthly immortality. The Greek historian Zosimus, in his writings, referred to drugs that would prevent the decay of the principle of life ; but he died in the middle of the fifth century before Christ, when fifty years old. Then we have the Persian physician Khazes, who delved deep into the mysteries of medicine and announced that he had found an elixir ; but he died in his fifty- third year. Roger Bacon early in the thirteenth century discovered a serum which he believed held the life energies of the human body; but he died. Then came Alfonso, " the wise, " who hoped to discover the elixir

THE RELIGION OF HOPE.

of life ; but he, too, died at the age of sixty-three. Ponce de Leon, the picturesque searcher for the spring of immortal youth, found death but not life. And so Pasteur is dead, and Koch will die. And how short human life seems after all these, compared even to that simple record of Methuselah in the Book of Genesis which says in sublime simplicity, "And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years " ; but the record closes with the fatal words, "and he died." This instinct of life which is in us all can be satisfied only with inn -mortality. Christianity with its divine promise of immortal life in heaven can alone satisfy the longings of the human heart. Christ said : " I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly. "

THE RELIGION OF HOPE.

Christianity is above all others the religion of hope. Christ arouses in the most despairing the hope of redemption, promising a new chance and better opportunity to the sinner. Tennyson brings this ray of Christian hope into the sad life of Queen Guinevere. It was too late for her to avert the sorrow and misery wrought by her sin, so far as this world was concerned, but heaven had its ray of hope for her. What pathos in the words Tennyson lets fall from her lips :

I think there was a hope, Except he mock'd when he spake of hope ; His hope he call'd it ; but he never mocks, Tor mockery is the fume of little hearts.

POETRY AND MORALS.

And blessed be the king, who hath forgiven My wickedness to him, and left me hope That in mine own heart I can live down sin And be his mate hereafter in the heavens Before high God.

A GOOD NAME.

An honored man has recently retired from the bench of the supreme court in the State of New York, after continuous service as a judge of the supreme court for thirty-six years. He had passed the age limit seven years, but so highly were his services appreciated that the State legislature passed a law giving the governor authority to continue his assignment. It is estimated that he has tried more than one hundred thousand issues of law and fact. So universally was he regarded to be an upright and wise judge that since his first candidacy he has been the candidate of all parties. What a precious reputation has this man won for himself ! It is a striking illustration of the truth of Solomon's proverb which says: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold."

NATURE'S RESTFULNESS.

That sense of restfulness which comes to a tired mind or a weary heart through the reliability of nature is described by no one more beautifully than by the poet Keats. In " Endymion " he has written :

A thing of beauty is a joy forever ;

. . . Such the sun, the moon,

CHARACTER THAT COUNTS. 5

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep ; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in ; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season ; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms.

And again lie says what many of ns have often felt :

. . . The trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self.

CHARACTER THAT COUNTS.

A jeweler in a Western town recently fonnd a precious treasure in a peculiar place. His home coffeemill was broken and he took it apart to find what was the trouble. He discovered that it had been wrecked by the action of a stone of some sort that had even cut its way into the metal of the grinders. He took the stone to his jewelry store and, putting it under a microscope, discovered that it was a large diamond of the blue tint variety and worth about two hundred dollars. It is thought that the diamond was mixed with the coffee when the grain was screened in South Africa, where the coffee was raised. The diamond was about the size of a coffee-grain and had the same dull color. What a striking illustration of the value of reality over sham and pretense ! The diamond was plain and unpretentious ; but being a diamond, whereever it was found, no matter how humble the circumstances or associations, it was a precious treasure. So true character will ever come to its own in the end.

It may be neglected and forgotten for a while, but genuine manhood and womanhood, however humble their associations, will make themselves felt, and God will honor them in his own good time.

THE LIMITATIONS OF "WEALTH.

Thomas Moore has set forth with graphic clearness the limitations of wealth in the power to buy immunity from the approach of the pale horse and his rider. Death is no respecter of persons and comes to the palace as well as the hovel. Moore's lines are true indeed :

If hoarded gold possessed the power

To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,

And purchase from the hand of death

A little span, a moment's breath,

How I would love the precious ore !

And every hour should swell my store ;

That when Death came with shadowy pinion,

To waft me to his bleak dominion,

I might by bribes my doom delay,

And bid him call some distant day.

THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE.

Many people grow weary in the struggle to overcome imperfect conditions, and are ready to cry out against the ceaseless efforts which progress requires. And yet struggle is the law of life, and it is not well for us to give way to that sort of hopeless yearning expressed in the lines of William Morris :

SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US. 7

Ah ! good and ill, When will your strife the fated measure fill? When will the tangled veil be drawn away To show us all that un imagined day?

SEEING OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US.

A drunkard in New Orleans was recently saved in a peculiar manner from continuing his career of dissipation. The young man in question was of a fine family and had splendid gifts, but was going down through strong drink as fast as it was possible for a man to go. His friends had pleaded with him, but he had taken their warnings as an insult. One day one of them, who was a court stenographer, determined to try a new tack with him. He was sitting in a restaurant, when the young man in question came in with a companion, and took the table next to him, sitting down with his back to him, and not seeing him. He was just enough intoxicated to be talkative about his private affairs, and on the impulse of the moment the stenographer pulled out his note-book and took a full shorthand report of every word he said. It was the usual maudlin folly of a young man with his brain muddled by drink, and included a number of highly candid details of his daily life — things which, when sober, he would no sooner have spoken of to a casual acquaintance than he would have put his hand in the fire. The next morning the stenographer copied the whole thing neatly and sent it to the young man's office. In less than ten minutes he came tearing in, his eyes fairly hanging out of their s

POETRY AND MORALS.

sockets. " G-reat heavens, Charley ! " he gasped, "what is this, anyhow?" "It's a stenographic report of your monolog at the restaurant last evening," his friend replied, and gave him a brief explanation. "Did I really talk like that ? " he asked faintly. " I assure you it is an absolutely verbatim report," was the reply. He turned pale and walked out. He never drank another drop. There are many men who would cease not only the sin of drunkenness, but other sins as well, if they could see themselves as other people see them.

AT THE END OF HIS ROPE.

There is an Oriental legend in regard to the prodigal son which teaches that the father had forgiven the prodigal time and again. Finally the old man despaired of his child. He felt that nothing could redeem so wayward a son, and expressed that conviction to him. He predicted that the prodigal, in his headlong course from, bad to worse, would ultimately arrive at the goal of self-destruction. "But when that evil day arrives," urged the old man, "you must hang yourself in this room where we now sit. Here is the rope. I will be dead and gone long before, but promise me you will fulfil my last wish and make away with yourself as I direct." To this the prodigal consented, and not long afterward the aged parent was gathered to his fathers. In due time the prodigal reached, in a painfully literal sense, the end of his rope. Making his way to the fatal apartment, he

THE MUSIC OF DEATH.

adjusted the noose, commended himself to Providence, and swung himself into the air, when down fell a trap in the ceiling and a shower of gold rained upon him as he arose from the floor with the end of the rope in his hands. The promise of God to lost sinners is better than that, for the prodigal thus dowered again with gold would still have the same vicious character which had led him to hang himself in despair. But to the prodigal who really comes back to God in repentance there is given a new heart and a new character, which enriches him with a gold far beyond earthly treasure in its power to bless.

LOVE RENEWING YOUTH.

The power of love to keep the heart young and to renew the youth of the soul is set forth in these splendid lines of Emerson in "The World- Soul " :

Spring still makes spring in the mind

When sixty years are told ; Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,

And we are never old.

Over the winter glaciers

I see the summer glow, And through the wind-piled snowdrift

The warm rosebud below.

THE MUSIC OF DEATH.

In Paraguay there is found occasionally a musical instrument called the skull-banjo. The manufacture has a peculiar history. The Indians of ancient times

POETRY AND MORALS.

were constantly engaged in warfare, and their primaryaim when thus engaged was to capture the chief of the opposing side. When captured, this personage was carried to their camp, and there cruelly murdered, and it was from his body that this gruesome, curious musical instrument was made. After the skull was thoroughly dried the top was cut entirely off. Over the opening thus made a piece of skin, taken from the body, was tightly stretched in the manner of a drum. In the back of the skull the two long bones from the limbs were inserted. The ends of these bones were joined together by one of the ribs from the body. Then throughout the length of these bones strings made from the skin of the body were tightly stretched. The instrument was then played like a mandolin or a banjo. The skull was left so that the jaws were movable. Therefore with each shake of the instrument the jaws wagged, and with any sharp jolt the teeth came together with a snap. One of these horrid instruments was sold the other day in London and brought a large price as a curiosity. This repulsive musical instrument suggests, however, the degradation which music is often used to cover up. The foulest brothels of the city, as well as the gilded palatial liquor-saloons, seek to fascinate their patrons with music. In the gilded palace as well as in the low dance-hall the grinning skull is beneath the music and the dance. Sin may put on a fascinating exterior, but the skull is in the closet, and the Bible is true when it says: "The wages of sin is death."

THE ANNOYANCES OF WEALTH. 11

REMEMBERED MUSIC.

Thomas Mobre calls attention to the power of a strain of music, heard again after years have passed, to awaken the deep founts of pathos in the soul :

When through life unblest we rove,

Losing all that made life dear, Should some notes we used to love,

In days of boyhood, meet our ear, Oh, how welcome breathes the strain !

Wakening thoughts that long have slept ; Kindling for her smiles again

In faded eyes that long have wept.

Like the gale, that sighs along

Beds of Oriental flowers, Is the grateful breath of song,

That once was heard in happier hours ; Filled with balm, the gale sighs on,

Tho the flowers have sunk in death ; So, when pleasure's dream is gone,

Its memory lives in Music's breath.

THE ANNOYANCES OF "WEALTH,

The great truth that the law of compensation comes in to add responsibility and peril to the reception of any blessing, was humorously illustrated not long ago in what in itself is a pathetic story told of the Queen of Italy and a poor child. Queen Margharita was one day walking in a Roman suburb when she noticed a pleasant-faced little girl and spoke to her. There was a little conversation, and the Queen asked the child what she could do in the way of needle-

POETRY AND MORALS.

work. "I can knit stockings, signora," replied the girl. "Do you know who I am?" continued the Queen. "Yes, signora, you are the Queen." "Well, then, make a pair of stockings and send them to the palace." A few days afterward the stockings arrived, and Queen Margharita in return for the gift sent the child a beautiful pair of rose-colored stockings, one filled with sweets and the other with money. Next day the Queen received a letter from her little friend couched in the following words : " Signora, your gift has caused me no end of tears. My father collared the money, my brother grabbed the sweets, and as for the stockings, why, mother put them on herself." The apostle knew what he was talking about when he said that riches brought with them " divers temptations " and difficulties.

REUNION WITH LOVED ONES.

In his poem "Prospice," Browning wrote his own hope and faith that he should meet again in everlasting reunion his dearly loved wife, whom he had " lost a while." The brave words ought to comfort every Christian heart thus bereaved :

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore,

And bade me creep past.

No ! Let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old, Bear the brant, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness, and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

The black minute's at end,

MAKE RELIGION ATTRACTIVE. 13

And the elements' rage, the fiend voices that rave,

Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a piece out of pain,

Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again,

And with God be the rest !

MAKE RELIGION ATTRACTIVE*

It is said that when General Wood was undertaking to establish good government at Santiago, one of his greatest difficulties was to get wealthy and well-educated natives to take official positions. They sulked and hung back because they thought too many positions had been given to Spaniards. In a small town near Santiago General Wood was anxious to secure a good Cuban mayor, but he was warned that every desirable man would decline it. One day the principal storekeeper of the town came to see General Wood about a small contract for fodder. He was a typical native of his class, fat, garrulous, and conceited, and it was evident that he was the chief gossip of his neighborhood. After concluding the business matter the general pretended to consult a letter. " By the way, senor,"he said, "you are an old resident of this country, and I would like you to give me a little advice." "I am at your Excellency's service," said the little storekeeper, swelling with pride. "Is it true, then, as is stated to me," continued the general, "that the Cuban gentlemen are very poorly educated, and fear to accept civil offices lest they appear to disadvantage compared with Spanish employees ? " " No,

POETRY AND MORALS.

your Excellency ! " roared the Cuban indignantly, "that's all Spanish lies! Some scoundrel Spaniard writes you that just for to make you prejudiced ! " The little Cuban then poured out his wrath and patriotism for half an hour. "Ah, well," said Wood quietly, " I merely wanted your opinion, and am sure I am very much obliged. You'll consider this conversation private, of course." "Certainly," said the storekeeper, and as the general anticipated he hurried home and told it to everybody in town. A few days later one of the leading Cuban citizens was appointed mayor, and at once accepted. He administered the office with great success. There is a suggestion in this, not only for preachers, but for all Christian workers who seek to attract others to the Christian life. Not only should we magnify that life by our own conduct, but we should seek to hold it up before the world in the most attractive and desirable way.

AUTUMN PICTURES.

To my mind no poet has sung so perfectly of autumn, and given us at once so beautiful, so suggestive, and so sublime a picture of the evening of the year, as Keats in his ode, " To Autumn " :

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness !

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun ; Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run ; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core ; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

A GREEDY SPIRIT.

With, a sweet kernel ; to set budding more And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind ; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers ; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook ; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, — While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue ; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn ; Hedge crickets sing ; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

A GREEDY SPIRIT,

A novel petition was recently submitted to the French Chamber of Deputies by a woman resident in the Finistere Department. She proposes that steps be taken to test the quality of sow's milk as a form of nourishment for babes. Donkey's milk, as is well

POETRY AND MORALS.

known, is superior to cow's for the purpose, but the employment of that of the domestic pig has the merit of novelty. Several doctors have already pronounced in favor of the innovation. It would be a sad thing to do this if there were any danger of children absorbing in that way in any greater degree the hoggish spirit. No one can study human life without perceiving everywhere a dominant spirit of greed, which is illustrated by no animal so perfectly as by the hog. The spirit of Christ is at war with this spirit of greed. A man maybe sure that it is not Christ's spirit which is possessing him unless he is becoming less greedy and more brotherly.

LAW AND FREEDOM.

G-oethe, in his sonnet "Nature and Art," puts in a strong light the great fact that true freedom can only come through law, and that discipline and self-control are always necessary for the development and exercise of great power :

Nature and art seem ofttimes to be foes, But, ere we know it, join in making peace ; My own repugnance, too, has come to cease, And each an equal power attractive shows.

Let us but make an end to dull repose ; When art we serve in toil without release, Through stated hours, absolved from vain caprice, Nature once more within us freely glows.

All culture, as I hold, must take this course : Unbridled spirits ever strive in vain Perfection's radiant summit to attain.

NOURISHING SWEETS.

Who seeks great ends must straitly curb his force ; In narrow bound the master's skill shall show, And only law true freedom can bestow.

THE ROCK OF AGES.

The largest block of granite ever quarried in the world was lately blown from the quarry in Red Stone, 1ST. H. It is forty-five feet long, thirty-five feet wide, and twenty-eight feet thick. The blast took three hundred pounds of powder, and the concussion shook the entire village. The cleavage was absolutely perfect, and the great stone split like a block of wood. But there is a stone no blast of earth's powder can ever rend asunder. It is the Eock of Ages that David sings about when he says, "For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion ; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me ; he shall set me up upon a rock."

NOURISHING SWEETS.

On a great sugar-plantation in Texas, where several hundred mules are employed, a new food for them has been introduced during the last few years. This food is pure, black molasses, and the animals are fed nothing else throughout the year. Large troughs have been built in the stables, into which the molasses is conducted by pipes direct from the refinery. The mules have a great fondness for the molasses, and are kept in prime condition all the time, tho the food is much cheaper than corn or oats. It is interesting to note that even mules thrive on sweets. Quick ob- 2

POETRY AND MORALS.

servers have long known that men and women will carry heavier loads and keep in better condition on kindness and sympathy than on any sort of nagging or criticism that was ever invented. If you want to get the best work out of any one, feed him well on love and good cheer.

POSITIVE CHARACTER,

Tennyson never wrote more truly than in that line- He makes no friend who never made a foe.

The jellyfish nature, which fits in everywhere and has no opinions or principles with backbone to stand up and bear the cross or die on the cross, has not stamina enough to conceive what real friendship means.

DUTY AND BLESSING.

Longfellow recalls "The Legend Beautiful," with its story of the old monastery, the monk in an agony of prayer on its cold stone floor, the sudden vision of the Christ that came to him there, and how just in the midst of his joy at the heavenly sight the bell pealed forth its message calling him to feed the poor beggars at the convent-gate. If he did not go the poor would suffer; but to go meant to leave the vision he had been longing for all his life. Says the poet:

Then a voice within his breast

Whispered, audible and clear,

As if to the outward ear : "Do thy duty ; that is best; Leave unto thy Lord the rest ! 19

WORTH SAVING.

The monk heeded it as the message of God, and went away to his task of service ; and when he came back, to his great delight, his Lord was still there, and with smiling lips he said,

Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled.

Blessing always comes through duty, and the heavenly vision can never be kept through self-indulgence.

"WORTH SAVING.

Not very long ago a mass of wet green paper, which was nearly pulp, was sent to the United States Treasury, with a statement properly verified that the gallon and a half of greasy, bad-looking, and worse-smelling stuff represented a large sum in the old compoundinterest notes of 1864. The Treasury clerks dried the matter and then carefully separated it, and found that the owner's statement was correct. The money was part of the contents of a safe on board a Mississippi steamer that was burned a few years ago, and the safe had been at the bottom of the river nearly a year before the unconsumed remnant of the boat was raised. There is something like that in human life. Many a poor battered man is, like that safe, holding great value in divine qualities bearing the image of God, which are worth any sacrifice to redeem and save. It is no matter how rusty and ugly the safe is, if there be only the priceless value within. Christian workers need to be on their guard lest, in the repulsive appearance of the safe, they forget the rich treasures it contains.