Preaching, Roosevelt's—See Speaking to do Good.
Preaching Spoiled—See Sympathy, Lack
of.
PREACHING THE WORD
When Dr. Cuyler, of Brooklyn, died, the
Sunday-school remembered that he used to
come in every now and then during the years
of his history, and repeat just a single verse
from the superintendent's desk; and the next
Lord's Day after the funeral, they marched
up in front of it in a long line, and each
scholar quoted any of the texts that he
could recollect. The grown people wept as
they saw how much there was of the Bible in
the hearts of their children, which this one
pastor had planted. Yet he was a very
timid and old-fashioned man; he said he had
no gift at talking to children; he could only
repeat God's Word. If preachers and teachers
would follow such a simple example,
what a power there would be in their ministrations.
(Text.)
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PRECAUTION
A California vine-grower, in a region
where once in a great while the temperature
fell a few degrees below the freezing-point,
thus endangering his crop, rigged up an
electric-alarm system which signalled to him
when the temperature out in the fields had
fallen low enough to require the lighting of
fires to prevent frost. A neighbor, more
fond of his ease, immediately improved on
this apparatus. He fixt his brushwood ready
for firing, and then arranged his electrical
apparatus so that when the temperature fell
to thirty-two degrees a current should be
sent through a platinum wire in some fine
combustibles and light the fires, instead of
signaling him to do the work himself. The
apparatus is cheap and more reliable than
hired men, so that it is likely to be adopted
in the parts of the state exposed to inopportune
frosts.—Philadelphia Ledger.
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Justice Willes about 1780 sentenced a boy at Lancaster to be hanged, with the hope of reforming him by frightening him, and he ordered him for execution next morning. The judge awoke in the middle of the night, and was so affected by the notion that he might himself die in the course of the night, and the boy be hanged, tho he did mean that he should suffer, that he got out of his bed and went to the lodgings of the high sheriff, and left a reprieve for the boy, or what was to be considered equivalent to it, and then, returning to his bed, spent the rest of the night comfortably. (Text.)—Croake James, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."
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PRECAUTIONS
The day when an engineer could drive
his train ahead at full speed, at his own
discretion, and make up as much lost time
as the recklessness of his daring permitted,
has passed with the romantic age of railroading.
No longer does he gamble thus with
death to win back minutes. A cool-nerved
human machine sits in an office miles away
and tells him exactly how fast he may go.
Mute signals stretch out their arms to him
by day or glow red-eyed at night along the
track and halt him if he rides too fast or
if there is danger ahead. At intervals of
from a thousand feet to five miles there
are towers with men in them who note the
minute and second of his passing, and telegraph
it forward and back over the line.
Nowadays the engineer is rarely out of touch
with possible orders for more than a few
minutes at a time. In place of the daring
and the old speed madness that used to
characterize the making up of time, the man
who lasts the longest now in the cab is the
one who possesses the calculating skill developed
by long experience. He accomplishes
much more simply by taking advantage of
every trifle in winning back his time second
by second.—Thaddeus S. Dayton, Harper's Weekly.
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It is said to be scarcely possible to induce working men engaged in dangerous employments to take the most rudimentary precautions against disease and accident. The knife-grinder neglects his mask, the collier his lamp; they are ingenious in evading the regulations framed for their safety.
Similarly in our recklessness and presumption
we ignore the things which are designed
to secure the safety of our character,
the peace of our soul. Let us be
sure that we prize those manifold and
gracious arrangements by which God seeks
to save us from the power of evil, that we
profit by them to the utmost.—W. L. Watkinson,
"The Transfigured Sackcloth."
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