He spoke as if he had been a professor in every branch of science for a lifetime. Every technical term was at his tongue's end. Man was presented in spirit, soul and body as the most wonderful trichotomy of the universe; was analyzed, synthetized, exalted and glorified as the last and grandest work of God. He soared amid clouds and lightning and thunder and tempests; he was as familiar with anatomy as if he had been a Sir Charles Bell; with mental phenomena, as if he had been a John Locke; with mythology, as if he had been born a Greek and had lived in Greece a thousand years." At the conclusion of his sermons, congregations have been so "bewildered as to rise up in an unconscious way, facing each other, and not knowing for some moments whether to remain or leave the room." But how old was this wonderful man when he died? Just a little over forty years of age. Like David Livingstone in the African hut, William Elbert Munsey was found dead upon his knees by the side of his bed.—F. F. Shannon.
(1738)
KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE
A news item from Denver, Colorado, says:
Determined to learn at first hand where
and how the homeless and shivering men
live who slept on the street, E. A. Brown,
cousin of President W. C. Brown, of the
New York Central, and himself independently
rich, has been haunting the railroad and
stock-yards and the slums of Denver for
weeks. Drest in shabby and threadbare
clothes, he has mingled with the unemployed
and shared their experiences. He will use
this experience to aid in securing the establishment
of a municipal lodging-house, which
will shelter the homeless during the winter
months.
This is the scientific method of the
social student to-day. It was first, however,
the method of Christ. "He came
to seek and to save that which was
lost." (Text.)
(1739)
KNOWLEDGE, UNITY OF
The man who should know the true history
of the bit of chalk which every carpenter
carries about in his breeches pocket,
tho ignorant of all other history, is likely,
if he will think his knowledge out to its
ultimate results, to have a truer, and, therefore,
a better, conception of this wonderful
universe, and of man's relation to it, than
the most learned student who is deep-read in
the records of humanity and ignorant of
those of nature. (Text.)—Thomas Henry
Huxley.
(1740)
KNOWLEDGE VALUES
All wealth is intelligence applied to raw
material. The piece of paper cost half a
farthing, but Tennyson's poem written there-*upon
made it worth a thousand dollars. Just
as a little canvas, worth two or three francs,
took on a value of $200,000 when Millet
mixed the colors with his genius and spread
them over the waiting cloth. Civilization is
a height on which man climbs hand over
hand up the golden rounds of wisdom and
knowledge.—N. D. Hillis.
(1741)
KONGO PIONEER MISSIONARY WORK
Up the Kongo we went. One day Mr.
Lapsley, my comrade, was sick with fever.
As we attempted to land, we saw women
catching up their babies and running to the
jungle and men getting arrows to shoot. I
stood over Mr. Lapsley and called, "Don't
shoot! Don't shoot!" and asked them if we
could sleep there for the night. "To-morrow
we go away," I said. "No. Go away;
go away," they cried. So we started for the
other side and landed on the sandy bank. We
got out the tent and had Mr. Lapsley carefully
moved into his bed. Walking up and
down the river bank we could hear the excitement
on the other side. At twelve o'clock
at night it still was going on. At two in the
morning, those people had not retired; nor
had I. So we said, "In the morning something
will happen." Coming outside early,
as we looked across the river we saw one
of their war canoes filled with men starting
up-stream, and then another. I ran to the
tent and said to Mr. Lapsley, "Those people
are coming; what shall I do?" He was
there sick with fever, with no chance of
running away. He said, "There is nothing
that we can do." He meant by this that the
Master could do something. I came outside.
They had started in our direction. I
could hear their war-whoop. Just at this
extremity a hippopotamus came. We shot
him. Then the thought came, why not offer
them this meat? They were crazy for meat.
I waded in the water to my waist and beckoned
to them, calling out: "Come this way,
all of you. Don't be afraid." The nearest
canoe approached me as I was wading in the
water, and I surprized the first man by say-
