Chapter D: L. Moody told this story of missionary self-sacrifice (3)

Two old darkies, lounging on a street corner in Richmond,
Va., one day, were suddenly aroused by a runaway team that
came dashing toward them at breakneck speed. The driver,
scared nearly to death, had abandoned his reins, and was
awkwardly climbing out of the wagon at the rear end. One of
the old negroes said: “Brer’ Johnson, sure as you born, man,
de runaway horse am powerful gran’ and a monstrous fine sight
to see.” Johnson shook his head doubtfully, and then replied,
philosophically, “Dat ’pends berry much, nigger, on whedder you
be standin’ on de corner obsarvin’ of him, or be gittin’ ober de
tail-board ob de waggin.”--MARION J. VERDERY.

(2400)

See DISTANCE.

* * * * *

A skilful artist was traveling in Egypt, painting pictures as
he went. One day he showed to a gentleman who had lived in that
country for many years one of his pictures of the Nile. The
friend criticized the picture somewhat severely, maintaining
that it was not true to nature. Here on the canvas the Nile
appeared blue and clear; whereas, through all the years of his
residence by the very banks of the river, he had never seen
its waters otherwise than brown and muddy. The artist replied
that he had painted it as it had appeared to him. He invited
his friend to a place situated at some distance from the stream
and then turned round to look back. To the astonishment of the
critic, there lay the river, clear, blue, and sparkling; however
muddy it might be at close quarters, when surveyed from afar
its surface reflected the brilliance of the sky overhead. The
gentleman admitted that he had always been content to gaze down
into the muddy waters by the bank and so had missed the charm of
the best view of the Nile.

Would it not be better for many of us, supposing some things seem to be unpleasant, or ugly, or unnecessary, to view them from a more favorable position?

(2401)

=Poison, Disguised=--See DEATH MASKED IN BEAUTY.

POISON DRINK

An officer from Japan, visiting America, one day, while looking
about a big city, saw a man stop a milk-wagon.

“Is he going to arrest the man?” he asked.

“No,” was the answer; “he must see that the milk sold by this
man is pure, with no water or chalk mixed with it.”

“Would chalk or water poison the milk?”

“No; but people want pure milk if they pay for it.”

Passing a whisky saloon, a man staggered out, struck his head
against a lamp-post, and fell to the sidewalk.

“What is the matter with that man?”

“He is full of bad whisky.”

“Is it poison?”

“Yes; a deadly poison,” was the answer.

“Do you watch the selling of whisky as you do the milk?” asked
the Japanese.

“No.”

At the markets they found a man looking at the meat to see if it
was healthy.

“I can’t understand your country,” said the Japanese. “You watch
the meat and the milk, and let men sell whisky as much as they
please.”

(2402)

=Poison Pleasures=--See PLEASURES, POISONOUS.

POISONS AND MEDICINES

Almost all medicines are poisons. That which saves life in one
dose causes death in another. There is no more useful medicine
in the modern pharmacopoeia than arsenic; yet three out of five
women who poison themselves do so with arsenic. Strychnine is
a terrible poison, but nux vomica is a most valuable drug.
In Greece criminals were sometimes forced to take their own
lives by drinking a cup of hellebore; we in our day cure many
diseases of the stomach with veratrum. If a drug which destroys
life under given conditions saves it in others, why may not a
disease germ which is noxious in one set of circumstances prove
beneficial when the circumstances are changed and the exhibition
of the germ regulated by scientific principles.--San Francisco
_Call_.

(2403)

POLICY, SELFISH

There is much that passes muster as acts of generosity which, if spiritually analyzed, would be found to be merely selfish policy, like that exercised by the spider:

The moment an ill-starred fly or other insect comes in contact
with the net of the spider, it is sprung upon with the rapidity
of lightning, and if the captured insect be of small size the
spider conveys it at once to the place of slaughter, and having
at its leisure sucked all its juice, throws out the carcass. If
the insect be large and struggles to escape, the spider envelops
its prey in a mesh of thread, and its legs and wings secured,
it is conveyed to its den and devoured. But when a bee or large
fly, too powerful to be mastered by the spider, gets entangled
in its toils, then the wary animal, conscious of its incapacity
to contend with such fearful odds, makes no attempt to seize or
embarrass the victim. On the contrary, it assists the entangled
captive in its efforts to free itself, and often goes so far
as to break that part of the web from which it is suspended.
This act has upon it the color of generosity, but it is really
nothing more than the performance of selfish cunning. The
tyrant, feeling himself incapable of doing an injury, determines
to have no molestation. To this end he performs an act of
manumission.

(2404)

=Polish=--See EDUCATION.

POLITENESS

“Women should not complain that they have to stand in
street-cars and other public conveyances,” said an old
gentleman. “Children learn common politeness at home, if they
learn it at all.

“On the car that I just left was a handsomely drest woman and
her son, a fine-looking boy of ten. The car was crowded when
I got on and the little man and his mother sat near the door.
As soon as I entered the boy made a motion to get up, but his
mother held him down.

“‘Mama, the man is lame,’ I heard him whisper. ‘I don’t care
if he is; you have paid for your seat and have a right to it,’
she answered him pettishly. The little fellow blushed at his
mother’s remark.

“Now, that woman will probably read the riot act to the next man
who refrains from giving her a seat in a crowded car, but what
can she expect when she teaches her own son to be discourteous
to the lame and the halt?” (Text.)

(2405)

=Politics=--See INTERESTS, SIGNIFICANT.

=Politics a Duty=--See BALLOT A DUTY.

POLITICS IN DISFAVOR

While the science of politics ought to be held in the highest esteem for what its true nature and possibilities are, yet in actual life and practise the reverse is often true. As an instance of popular disfavor, the following incident in _Success_ is in point:

Representative Lorimer, of Chicago, who is a great walker, was
out for a tramp along the conduit road leading from Washington,
when, after going a few miles, he sat down to rest.

“Want a lift, mister?” asked a good-natured Maryland farmer
driving that way.

“Thank you,” responded Mr. Lorimer, “I will avail myself of your
kind offer.”

The two rode in silence for a while. Presently the teamster
asked: “Professional man?”

“Yes,” answered Lorimer, who was thinking of a bill he had
pending before the House.

After another long pause, the farmer observed: “Say, you ain’t a
lawyer or you’d be talkin’; you ain’t a doctor ’cause you ain’t
got no satchel, and you shore ain’t a preacher, from the looks
of you. What is your profession, anyhow?”

“I am a politician,” replied Lorimer.

The Marylander gave a snort of disgust “Politics ain’t no
profession; politics is a disorder.”

(2406)

POPULARITY

John Wesley keenly appreciated the dangers that attend public favor.

Among the quaint but intensely practical counsels he gives are
some as to the art of escaping popularity:

How shall we avoid popularity? We mean such esteem and love
from the people as is not for the glory of God. 1. Earnestly
pray for a piercing sense of the danger and the sinfulness of
it. 2. Take care how you ingratiate yourself with any people
by slackness of discipline. 3. Or by any method which another
preacher can not follow. 4. Warn the people among whom you are
most of esteeming or loving you too much. 5. Converse sparingly
with those who are particularly fond of you.

Times and men are strangely changed since those words were
written. What preacher to-day has to study anxiously “how to
avoid popularity,” or finds any necessity for warning the people
among whom he labors against “esteeming him or loving him too
much!”--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2407)

=Population=--See CITIES OF THE WORLD; CITY, GROWTH OF A GREAT.

=Population, Non-Church and Church-Membership=--See CHURCH
STATISTICS.

=Population, Over-=--See SURVIVAL.

=Populations, Religious, of World=--See RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS OF THE
WORLD.

=Position, Advantage of=--See FAVORITISM.

=Position and Worth=--See WORTH, ESTIMATING.

POSSESSION

When the Australian miner was drowned because he had heavy bags
of gold round his waist, while trying to swim ashore from the
wreck, it was an open question which possest which. Just so I
am quite convinced that men stuffed with information or “the
science of the day” are not always possest of true wisdom.
Wisdom itself, anyhow, is not an end but a tool to work with.

(2408)

=Possessions=--See AMBITION.

POSSESSIONS, UNDESIRABLE

“The regular practise of the Christian is exceptional with the
world,” says a writer in the _Pacific Monthly_.

“Out in Kansas when the bottom dropt out of the great boom in
real estate some years ago, men found it harder to get rid of
property than to acquire it. A lawyer going through the country
one day met an old friend leading a reluctant cow toward town.
Inquiry brought out the information that the cow had been
secured in exchange for a city lot. ‘And do you know,’ said the
new owner of the bovine, ‘that I turned a neat trick on the old
granger! He can’t read a word, and in the deed I worked off two
lots on him instead of one.’”

(2409)

POSSIBILITIES, LATENT

The diamond unworn is still a diamond. And the power unused is
not therefore less real, or less majestic. What men do, is by
no means the measure of what they might do, if they used with a
rational energy their powers.--RICHARD S. STORRS.

(2410)

=Posthumous Blessing=--See REVENGE, A CHRISTIAN’S.

POST-MORTEM CONSEQUENCES

The start of tuberculosis in France in a serious sense may be
traced to the great importance of mummies and mummy-cases at the
time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, and this start gave
the disease its first great foothold in Europe, whence it has
spread all over the Eastern world and throughout the Western
hemisphere as well. Dead bodies preserved in the manner peculiar
to the Egyptians of the time of the Pharaohs are undoubtedly
favorite lodging-places for the tubercular bacilli. (Text.)

(2411)

POVERTY

This letter was left by Miss Alice Law, aged 26, an editor employed by a local publishing firm in Chicago, who committed suicide by asphyxiation:

I am ending my life because I am seized with an acute
disinclination to live, and I believe I have an absolute right
to end my life if I wish. The struggle is too hard. There is too
much work, too much monotony, too much weariness and not enough
art, music, recreation and rest.

I am to change it. I am in my right mind. My reasoning powers
are as good as ever. I go because I want to. The chief reason is
because I am too near starved. Let the State pay my expenses.
If I were blind, crippled or had an incurable disease the State
would be obliged to take care of me. So I think I will take
advantage of my rights and be buried at the public expense, as I
have no money to defray the putting of me under ground.

The prices charged for a casket and burial are too exorbitant
for persons in moderate circumstances. It just keeps the family
in bankruptcy for a year. This condition is outrageous, and I
do not want this injustice in my case.

Doubtless Christianity has achieved much, but in the light of such a revelation of suffering and despair, under conditions of modern life, there would seem yet much to do.

(2412)

* * * * *

At a dinner given in honor of Mr. Carnegie by the surviving members of the United States Military Telegraph Corps of the Civil War, he said:

Comrades, I was born in poverty, and would not exchange its
sacred memories with the richest millionaire’s son who ever
breathed. What does he know about mother or father? These are
mere names to him. Give me the life of the boy whose mother is
nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint,
all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No
servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the
best fortune. Some men think that poverty is a dreadful burden,
and that wealth leads to happiness. What do they know about it?
They know only one side; they imagine the other. I have lived
both, and I know there is very little in wealth that can add to
human happiness beyond the small comforts of life. Millionaires
who laugh are very rare. My experience is that wealth is apt to
take the smiles away. (Text.)

(2413)

* * * * *

The reason the Yankees are smart is because they have to wrest
a precarious subsistence from a reluctant soil. “What shall I
do to make my son get forward in the world?” asked an English
lord of a bishop. “Give him poverty and parts.” Well, that’s
the reason the sons of the Pilgrims have all got on in the
world.--JOHN R. PAXTON.

(2414)

=Poverty as a Stimulus=--See COMPENSATION IN TRIALS.

POVERTY, CHRISTIAN

When before in history was there such an inexpensive order of
preachers as these early helpers of Wesley? They laid up much
treasure in heaven, but had very empty pockets on earth. One
of them, John Lane, died at Epworth. His entire wardrobe was
insufficient to pay his funeral expenses, which amounted to £1
17s. 3d. All the money he possest was 1s. 4d., “enough,” records
Wesley briefly, “for any unmarried preacher of the gospel to
leave to his executors.” (Text.)--W. H. FITCHETT,
“Wesley and His Century.”

(2415)

POVERTY, EARLY, OF UNITED STATES

The present great wealth of this country forms a striking contrast to the facts given below:

So low were the funds in the public treasury of the United
States at the close of 1789 that the Attorney-General and
several Congressmen were indebted to the private credit of
Alexander Hamilton, their Secretary of State, to discharge
their personal expenses. President Washington was obliged to
pass a note to Tobias Leer, his private secretary, to meet his
household expenses, the note being discounted at the rate of
two per cent per month, and members of Congress were paid in
due-bills.

(2416)

=Poverty to Wealth=--See AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY.

=Power by Faith=--See FAITH AND POWER.

POWER CONTROLLED

These verses on the locomotive are from the New York _Christian Advocate_:

Steed, with the heart of fire! Steed, with the sinews of steel!
Full-blooded courser, careering onward, with rail and with wheel;
Black with fuliginous breathing--panting of wo and of weal.

Firm be his muscle who mounts thee, clear and true be his eye;
Generous his heart with compassion, willing if need be to die,
Who sets thy hot blood a-dancing, and forces thy clarion cry!

For he reins a mightier stallion--a swifter creature of awe,
Stronger and darker and wilder than the old Arabian saw--
His neck clothed with the thunder, and ravin and rage his law!

Like a planet out of its orbit he moves when he leaps his rail:
Hold him and guide him, O rider! thy purpose he will not fail;
But loose him, and man lies groaning, and women and children wail.

O mighty creature of commerce! That bringest the world its bread,
And bearest the journeying peoples with limbs of thunder and dread,
To thee my life is committed, and safely let me be sped!

Thou steed of fire and of iron, that bearest me on my way,
Is life or death in thy destined course, is rapture or sorrow--say?
O Christ of God, hold the driving-rod, and mount this steed to-day!

(2417)

=Power from God=--See SPRINGS FROM GOD.

POWER IN SELF-REPRESSION

Says a recent journal:

Many years ago, in the lecture-room of President Woolsey,
of Yale University, a young man who did not know his lesson
ventured to make a mock recitation and to give an impertinent
answer. The president was a man of fiery temper, tho it had been
curbed and subdued by the discipline of years. On this occasion
his face turned white; he bowed his head upon the desk before
him. There was a half-minute’s silence of death; he raised his
head, called upon another man, and the recitation went on. He
knew that if he spoke to the offender he would speak too much,
so he said nothing.

The students of that class knew well what a lava-flood was
penned up there. Self-repression did not seem to them a sign of
weakness--it was the greatest evidence of power.

Shall we call it a sign of weakness in God that he bears with
the sins of men? When God humbles himself to behold and to
forbear, shall we not see in this voluntary self-limitation one
of the proofs of his greatness? (Text.)

(2418)

POWER, SUSPENDED

In the early spring of 1848 occurred a natural phenomenon so
strange, so sudden, and so stupendous that the older inhabitants
of western New York still speak of it with awe and wonder. This
phenomenon was nothing less than the running dry of Niagara
Falls.

The winter of 1847 and 1848 had been one of extreme severity.
Ice of such thickness had never been known as formed on Lake
Erie that season. When the break-up came, toward the end of
March, a strong northeast wind was blowing, which piled the
great fields of ice in floes, and then in banks as high as
miniature icebergs. Toward night on March 30 the wind suddenly
changed to the opposite direction and increased to a terrific
gale, which hurled back the piled-up ice and drove it into
the entrance of Niagara River with such force that a huge and
almost impenetrable dam was formed. For a whole day the source
of the river was stopt up, and the stream was drained of its
supply. By the morning of the 31st the river was practically
dry, and thus for twenty-four hours the roar of Niagara Falls
was stilled. Then in the early morning of April 1, the ice-pack
gave way under the tremendous pressure from above, and the
long-restrained volume of water rushed down and reclaimed its
own.

(2419)

POWER THROUGH UNION WITH GOD

It is only when we link ourselves with the power that lifts that we can accomplish results which are beyond our strength.

A great weight was to be lifted a little way out from the shore.
Vain efforts had been made to bring it to the surface. Great
chains had been wrapt about the mass and stout steam-tugs had
puffed and strained without avail, and engines from the shore
had exerted all their power with no result. A young man offered
to raise the weight and he was told to try. A great flat barge
was towed out over the sunken hulk, about which chains had been
passed, and these were fastened to the barge. When the tide was
out, the chains were wrapt still closer; then the young man sat
down and waited. In the night the tide came in and the barge
rose steadily with the incoming tide, bringing with it the
burden to which it was chained. Higher and higher it rose, till
at last it was out of the mud and mire. The seemingly impossible
had been accomplished by linking the obstacle to the power of
the tide. (Text.)

(2420)

POWER WITHIN

Men and churches often wait for outside help to draw them along. They need the lesson taught in this anecdote:

When an engineer in Bolivia brought over the Cordilleras the
first locomotive ever seen in these latitudes, the native
Indians came up from the Amazon basin to see this sight, and sat
on their haunches discussing what this strange monster could be.
They said: “It is made to go; let’s make it go”; and so they
lassoed the buffers, and about thirty of them began to pull, and
drew the locomotive a few yards. They exclaimed, “Ay-ay-ay-ay
Tatai Tatito.” “The great and little father hath enabled us to
do something wonderful!”

The next day the engineer got up steam and hitched a couple
of cattle trucks to the locomotive and, when the Indians came
again, put them into the trucks and locked them in. Then he
stood on the fire-plate of the locomotive and opened the
regulator, and let the steam into the cylinder, and it began to
move the piston, and the piston the crank, and the crank the
wheel, and the wheel the locomotive; and the locomotive carried
the Indians along ten miles an hour! What did they not say to
their “great and little father!” But they learned this great
lesson--that locomotives are not made to be moved along by
outside human power, but by means of a power within, and so to
carry human beings along.

(2421)

=Practicable and Impracticable=--See PREDICTION, FALSE.

PRACTICAL RESPONSES CLARIFY CONFUSION

The acquisition of definiteness and of coherency (or constancy)
of meanings is derived primarily from practical activities. By
rolling an object, the child makes its roundness appreciable; by
bouncing it, he singles out its elasticity; by throwing it, he
makes weight its conspicuous distinctive factor. Not through the
senses, but by means of the reaction, the responsive adjustment,
is the impression made distinctive, and given a character
marked off from other qualities that call out unlike reactions.
Children, for example, are usually quite slow in apprehending
differences of color. Differences from the standpoint of the
adult so glaring that it is impossible not to note them are
recognized and recalled with great difficulty. Doubtless they do
not all feel alike, but there is no intellectual recognition of
what makes the difference. The redness or greenness or blueness
of the object does not tend to call out a reaction that is
sufficiently peculiar to give prominence or distinction to the
color trait. Gradually, however, certain characteristic habitual
responses associate themselves with certain things; the white
becomes the sign, say, of milk and sugar to which the child
reacts favorably; blue becomes the sign of a dress that the
child likes to wear, and so on, and the distinctive reactions
tend to single out color qualities from other things in which
they had been submerged.--JOHN DEWEY, “How We Think.”

(2422)

PRACTICAL, THE

According to Mr. Bliss Perry, the greatest idealists are the most practical workers:

Take those men of the transcendental epoch, whose individuality
has been fortunately transmitted to us through our literature.
They were in love with life, enraptured of its opportunities
and possibilities. No matter to what task a man set his hand,
he could gain a livelihood without loss of self-respect or the
respect of the community. Let him try teaching school, Emerson
would advise; let him farm it a while, drive a tin-pedler’s
cart for a season or two, keep store, go to Congress, live
the “experimental life.” Emerson himself could muse upon the
oversoul, but he also raised the best Baldwin apples and
Bartlett pears in Concord, and got the highest current prices
for them in the Boston market. His friend Thoreau supported
himself by making sandpaper or lead-pencils, by surveying
farms or by hoeing that immortal patch of beans; his true
vocation being steadily that of the philosopher, the seeker.
(Text.)--_Atlantic Monthly._

(2423)

PRACTISE

No man ever yet learned by having somebody else learn for him.
A man learns arithmetic by blunder in and blunder out, but at
last he gets it. A man learns to write through scrawling; a man
learns to swim by going into the water, and a man learns to vote
by voting.--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

(2424)

“Did you know this telephone business has resulted in a
telephone ear?” said a clerk whose work called him constantly
to the telephone, according to _The Tribune_, New York.
“I don’t mean that our hearing is injured, but that the left
ear becomes more keen than the right. If you’ll notice, all the
telephones are left-handed. That is, the instruments are so
placed that we hold the receiver with the left hand, so that we
may have the right hand free to use in taking notes of messages,
I presume. Of course, one naturally claps the receiver to his
left ear, as it would be almost impossible to twist it around
to his right ear. Consequently, the left ear gradually becomes
much sharper in catching sounds than the right ear. If you don’t
believe it, just try holding the receiver in your right hand
some time and use your right ear. You’ll find that conversation
which was perfectly distinct to the left ear sounds confused
and muffled to the right, and there is a distinct effort
to understand. It is simply that the left ear is a trained
telephone ear, while the right ear is not.” (Text.)

(2425)

* * * * *

Rubenstein--that thunderer of the keyboard--is credited with the
following dictum: “If I do not practise for a day I know it; if
I miss two days my friends know it; and if I miss three days the
public knows it.” (Text.)

(2426)

PRACTISE AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

Many children outside of the Sunday-school will learn the
Bible from Christian parents or will study it for themselves;
but there is no way, so far as I can conceive, of learning
the industrial work of the church except in some such
training-school as the young people’s society furnishes. For
this work can be learned only by doing it. It can not be taught
by text-books, or imparted by instruction. Like every other
kind of industrial training, it must be gained by practise. The
carpenter learns to build a house with saw and hammer and nails
in hand, not by reading an elaborate treatise on housebuilding.
The painter takes his easel and brush, and practises long
and patiently, if he would be an artist; there is no other
way. It is exactly the same with the necessary activities of
church life. If the church is worth sustaining, if its work is
to be done in the future, if we are to have prayer-meetings
and missionary activities and an earnest religious life,
if the Church is to be a power for good citizenship and
righteous living, it must have some such industrial
training-school.--FRANCIS E. CLARK, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association,” 1903.

(2427)

PRACTISE, GRADUATED

In drilling recruits for the Chinese army, each man is required
to carry sand in his knapsack. For the first day he carries
two ounces; on each succeeding day he increases this amount
two ounces, until at last he is carrying sixteen pounds.
These men can run at a dog-trot for ten consecutive hours
and arrive at the end of that time in a fit condition for
fighting.--MARSHALL P. WILDER, “Smiling ’Round the
World.”

(2428)

=Practising What They Preach=--See EVIL, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE.

PRAISE

Ruby T. Weyburn, in _The Youth’s Companion_, gives this fanciful origin of the music of praise:

The Jews have an old tradition that when the world was done,
And God from His work was resting, He called to Him, one by one,
The shining troops of the angels, and showing the wonder wrought,
The Master asked of His servants what they of the vision thought.

Then one white angel, dreaming o’er the marvel before him spread,
Bent low in humble obeisance, lifted his voice, and said:
“One thing only is lacking--praise from the new-born tongue,
The sound of a hallelujah by the great creation sung.”

So God created music--the voices of land and sea,
And the song of the stars revolving in one vast harmony.
Out of the deep uprising, out from the ether sent,
The song of the destined ages thrilled through the firmament.

So the rivers among the valleys, the murmur of wind-swept hill,
The seas and the bird-thrilled woodlands utter their voices still;
Songs of stars and of waters, echoes of vale and shore--
The voice of primeval nature praising Him evermore.

And the instruments men have fashioned since time and the world
were young,
With gifted fingers giving the metal and wood a tongue,
With the human voice translating the soul’s wild joy and pain,
Have swelled the undying paean, have raised the immortal strain!

(2429)

* * * * *

Perhaps in nothing connected with religious practise are opportunities more neglected than with regard to the praise of God. Multitudes who receive the bounties of Providence know nothing of the emotion of gratitude, and many awaken too late to a sense of their own ingratitude.

Billy Bray, the Cornish preacher, was a constant visitor among
the sick and dying. On one occasion he was sitting by the
bedside of a Christian brother who had always been very reticent
and afraid to confess joyously his faith in Christ. Now,
however, he was filled with gladness. Turning to Billy, whose
beaming face and sunny words had done much to produce this joy,
he said, “Oh, Mr. Bray, I am so happy that if I had the power
I’d shout ‘Glory.’” “Ah, mon,” said Billy, “what a pity it was
thee didn’t shout ‘Glory’ when thee hadst the power.” (Text.)

(2430)

See THANKSGIVING.

PRAISE DEPENDENT ON SUCCESS

Toward the close of his second administration, Grant thus reviewed, in a private conversation with Henry Clay Trumbull, the criticisms of his public career:

I don’t wonder that people differ with me, and that they think
I am not doing the best that could be done. I can understand
how they may blame me for a lack of knowledge or judgment.
But what hurts me is to have them talk as if I didn’t love my
country and wasn’t doing the best I knew how. It was just that
way in war-time. I didn’t do as well as might have been done.
A great many times I didn’t do as well as I was trying to do.
Often I didn’t do as well as I expected to do. But I had my
plans and was trying to carry them out. They called me “fool”
and “butcher.” They said I didn’t know anything and hadn’t
any plans. But I kept on and kept on, and by and by Richmond
was taken, and I was at Appomattox Court House, and then they
couldn’t find words enough to praise me. I suppose it will be
so now. In spite of mistakes and failures I shall keep at it.
By and by we’ll have specie payments resumed, reconstruction
will be complete, good feeling will be restored between North
and South; we shall be at Appomattox again, and then I suppose
they’ll praise me.

(2431)

=Praise Helpful=--See ENCOURAGEMENT.

=Praise, Judicious=--See HEART-HUNGER, SATISFYING.

PRAISE, SEEKING

A delicate woman, without children, and married to a superior
but occupied and preoccupied man, suffered intensely when her
husband neither perceived nor commented upon a new costume, or
upon some ornament she had added to the drawing-room. Never a
word of praise escaped his lips. One day she told him the sorrow
this caused her. “But what do you want?” he replied, distrest.
“I don’t know how to observe such things. What must I do?”

The wife reflected a moment, and then the two arranged that when
there was anything unusual the wife was to make him a certain
sign. His attention called, he would then understand, look, and
admire. “And now I am satisfied,” she said, a little ashamed of
her childishness. “What he says will not be spontaneous, I know,
and yet I shall be pleased to hear it; it will brighten my life.”

This absurd, and yet touching incident reveals a state of
mind that certain natures can not understand, but which
is, nevertheless, more common than we think.--DORA
MELEGARI, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(2432)

PRAISE-SPIRIT, THE

When Epictetus was a boy and a slave his angry master twisted his leg in an instrument of torture until it broke.

“Do you think,” he says after he has worked out his philosophy
of contentment, “that because my soul happens to have one little
lame leg I am to find fault with God’s universe? Ought we not
when we dig, and when we plow, and when we eat, to sing this
hymn to God, because He hath given us these implements whereby
we may till the soil? Great is God because He hath given us
hands, and the means of nourishment and food; and insensible
growth, and breathing sleep; these things we ought to hymn,
because He hath given us the power to appreciate these blessings
and continuously to use them. And, since the most of you are
blinded, ought there not to be one to fulfil this song for you,
and on behalf of all to sing a hymn of happiness to God? And
what else can I do, who am a lame old man, except sing praises
to God?”

This was the epitaph given him: “Epictetus, a slave maimed in
body, a beggar through poverty, and dear unto the immortals.”
(Text.)

(2433)

PRAISE, TIMELY

Mrs. Marion Hutson indicates in this verse the desirability of praising the worthy while they are alive to appreciate it:

Sometime in the future--God knows where--
This troubled heart will find surcease of care,
And then--when consciousness has left my breast,
And angel lips have kissed my own to rest,
It will not matter what the world has said.
Nor praise, nor censure can affect the dead.
But now? As balm of Gilead to me
A little word of praise or cheer would be.

(2434)

PRAISE, UNITED

The British Government at great cost is causing the national
anthem to be translated into the languages of India, including
Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, Bengali, Sanskrit, Hebrew,
Kavarese, Marathi, Gugerati, Tunjabi, Malay, Taniel, Tilugu,
Singhalese and Burmese, so that the natives in their jungles may
unite in “God Save the King” on all important occasions.

We have a greater spectacle described in Rev. 5:9–13, where the unity of praise includes all the tongues and nations of the earth.

(2435)

PRAISE, UNNECESSARY

An interesting story in regard to General Miles comes from a recent encampment of the Grand Army at San Francisco, and is published in _The Saturday Evening Post_. The General, while being entertained at a club, was rallied good-humoredly by an old-time comrade for his failure to win a laudatory “send-off” in his retirement papers.

“In reply to that,” remarked General Miles, “let me tell a
story. The application may seem a trifle egotistical, but as the
story is a good one, I’ll venture it.

“In the early days of the West an itinerant preacher, stopping
for refreshment one day at the pioneer home of one of his
parishioners, was served, among other things, with apple-pie.
It was not a good pie. The crust was heavy and sour, but the
encomiums which that preacher heaped upon it were great. The
good wife knew that she had had bad luck with the baking, and as
she was in reality an excellent cook, she determined that the
next time that preacher came her way he should have a pie that
was faultless.

“He told her when he was to return, and on that day she set
before him an apple-pie that was the real thing. He ate it, but
to her astonishment vouchsafed not a word of commendation. This
was more than the housewife would stand.

“‘Brother,’ she exclaimed, ‘when you were here last you ate an
apple-pie that wasn’t more than half-baked, and you praised it
to the skies. Now you have eaten a pie that nobody needs to be
ashamed of, but you haven’t a word to say in its favor. I can’t
understand it.’

“‘My good sister,’ replied the preacher, ‘that pie you served me
a few days ago was sadly in need of praise, and I did my full
duty in that direction; but this fine pie, bless your heart,
does not require any eulogy.’”

(2436)

=Praising Rival=--See SELF-ESTIMATE.

PRAYER

Many prayers that fail would be answered if means were used by the petitioner like those employed by Paul Kruger, the former president of the South African Republic.

At one time, when game was very scarce, he went with a party to
hunt the hartbeest. They scoured the veld for days without a
sign for their prey. Paul Kruger announced then his purpose of
going into the hills to pray for food, like a patriarch of old.

He was gone for a number of hours. When he returned he announced
that in three days a large herd would pass that way. The party
camped. In less than the appointed time the prophecy was
fulfilled, and much game was secured. The Boer hunters were much
struck with wonder, and dubbed Kruger “the man of prayer.”

Some time after, the Kafir who accompanied Kruger on his
expedition of petition told the truth of the affair. Kruger,
when he left the hunting party, had struck out for a neighboring
Kafir kraal, and informed the natives that his men were
starving. If they, the natives, did not discover game in three
days, he said, he would bring his whole party over the hill and
kill every Kafir. The natives, being sore afraid of the Boer
methods, all turned out, scoured the region, and drove the game
to the Boer camp. Thus Kruger’s “prayer” was answered.

(2437)

* * * * *

Stonewall Jackson never failed to invoke the Prince of Peace to
preside over his battles. Old Jim, his faithful servant, said:

“De gen’al is de greates’ man fo’ prayin’ night an’ mornin’ an’
all times. But when I sees him git up sev’al times in de night,
besides, an’ start in prayin’, I knows dar’s gwine ter be semp’n
up, an’ I go straight an’ pack his haversack, ca’se I know he’ll
be callin’ for it ’fo’ daylight.”--_The Sunday Magazine._

(2438)

* * * * *

The tenor of Scripture is that if we are in tune with the divine mind, and so are receptive of the secret whispers and suggestions of the Spirit of God, then that Spirit will first inspire in us the prayers which our Heavenly Father can consistently answer.

Every prayer is a transaction with order. You go home with a
packet of seeds for your little girl, and you take her out, and
say: “This little plot shall be yours. Whatever comes of this
packet of seeds shall be yours.” Now, what can come of a penny
packet of seeds in all this infinite universe, with stars and
systems whirling round? Beauty can come of it! Life can come of
it! Why? Because your little gardener is transacting with order.
She is dealing with law, and law will deal with her, and out of
the seed she sows there shall come beauty to gladden her. When
she kneels an hour or two later, and breathes forth from a pure
heart a prayer to the eternal God for blessing upon herself and
you, will you say, “What good can come of it?” Good can come of
it! Good must come of it! She comes to where law rules, where
right is triumphant. Prayer is not a dip into a lucky bag. It is
dealing with eternal law. (Text.)

(2439)

See EARTH, CRY OF; FAITH AND PRAYER; PREJUDICE DISARMED.

=Prayer, A Child’s=--See CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS IDEAS.

PRAYER AND DEED

A farmer whose barns were full of corn, was accustomed to pray
that the wants of the needy might be supplied; but when any one
in needy circumstances asked for a little of his corn, he said
he had none to spare. One day, after hearing his father pray
for the poor and needy, his little son said to him, “Father,
I wish I had your corn.” “Why, my son, what would you do with
it?” asked the father. The child replied, “I would answer your
prayers.”

(2440)

PRAYER AND EFFORT

A pastor tells of a man who had been caught on the river in
a sudden break-up of the ice, and who himself expected to be
drowned, and whose neighbors had given him up as lost. The man
had thrown himself on his knees on one of the pieces of ice, and
was engaged in what he supposed was his last prayer on earth,
when his friends on shore noticed that the pieces of ice had
readjusted themselves so as to make a safe way from where he was
kneeling to the land. They lifted their voices and shouted to
the poor man to stop praying and run to the shore. He opened
his eyes, saw his opportunity and was saved. Prayer and deeds
must go hand in hand.

(2441)

* * * * *

Governor William E. Russell, of Massachusetts, who died at the
age of thirty-nine, but had in that short life been mayor of his
city and governor of his State, and had gained national fame,
early began to think and act right. As a schoolboy, when boating
with five companions, his craft was overturned and he swam a
mile to shore. Asked by his mother about his struggle to reach
land, he said, “I thought of you, prayed to God, and kept my
arms and legs in stroke.” (Text.)

(2442)

=Prayer and Guides=--See BLESSING THE ROPES.

PRAYER AND THE BODY

In the shadow, unseen, keeping watch above his own, is the
genius of the inventor. The earth gives iron, the sheep give
their wool, the soil gives the dyes, the steel gives the
shuttles, the spinner gives his fingers, but Arkwright and
Jenner explain the warm cloth against the snow and chill of
winter. Nature is a loom, the days and the nights are shuttles,
the sunbeams tint the texture, forests and mines, herds and
flocks furnish the threads, and the cloth of purple and gold
is brilliant with towns and cities--but God is the weaver of
the web. And if man with higher laws can set aside lower ones,
if man with an X-ray can make the body transparent, think you
that the great God by His influence upon man’s intellect and
imagination can not start influences spiritual that will soon
manifest themselves through man’s body upon forces that are
physical? If man were spirit, and spirit alone, prayer could not
be answered in a physical realm, because there would be no point
of connection between a spiritual being and a physical universe.
But man’s body is the medium of communication, and the God of
spirit moving upon the spirit of man acts through the body of
inventor, scientist, surgeon, sower, reaper, nurse, teacher,
statesman, and plays upon these delicate strings called the
forces of nature and so answers prayer.--N. D. HILLIS.

(2443)

PRAYER ANSWERED

A penitentiary convict had been converted, and was released
from prison in Chicago. He found it impossible to get work. He
woke in the night, and arose and prayed for help. He prayed
till daylight, crying in agony, “Oh, God, give a poor fellow
a chance!” Then he drest and went out again to hunt work.
Presently he heard a cry and saw a runaway horse coming down
toward him. He snatched up a cracker-box and smashed it on the
horse’s face. Then he seized the bridle and stopt him, tho he
was dragged some distance; and in the crowd gathering about him
was the father of the children in the carriage, and he was the
man God sent to “give the poor fellow a chance.”--FRANKLIN
NOBLE, “Sermons in Illustration.”

(2444)

* * * * *

Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. How many
of us really expect an answer to our prayers? How many of us
wait for God as they who wait on the morning? Yet it is this
expectant attitude of the soul resting upon the divine promise
that triumphs over hindrances. There is an example of this in
the life of Charles Kingsley. When a young man, he had become
engaged to a beautiful girl to whom he had given his whole love.
But her parents deemed him an unsuitable match, and they forbade
absolutely all communication between the two young people for
two years, which were to Kingsley the darkest and most terrible
in his life. But in his diary he tells us that during that
period he lived on one verse, Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say unto
you what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that
ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Before the two years
were over, Kingsley’s prayer was answered, and the girl became
his wife.--DONALD SAGE MACKAY, “The Religion of the
Threshold,” page 296.

(2445)

PRAYER, AVAILING

In the first parish where I labored lived a man who was not
only agnostic in his attitude toward things religious, but even
derided them, and was wont to chaff his wife on her devotion to
her Church. The wife, however, went on her quiet but earnest
way, living out her religion in the home. One morning very
early the husband awoke and discovered his wife beside his bed
absorbed in whispered prayer. Her pale, upturned face was fixt
with intensity upon the Invisible, and her warm hand was resting
upon his own, she supposing him to be asleep. As the husband’s
eyes opened on the unexpected scene, the suggestion came like a
flash to his soul, “My wife’s God is more real to her than her
husband is. If she is so earnest for my welfare as to rise at
such an hour and pray alone for me, it is time I had some care
for my own soul”; and he instantly arose from his bed, knelt
beside her and added his own prayer to hers. He gave his heart
to God on the spot, and that very morning came to the early
meeting at the church and announced his change of heart; the
next Sabbath he united with the Church.--H. C. MABIE,
“Methods in Evangelism.”

(2446)

PRAYER BY GREAT LEADERS

The following is from _The Saturday Evening Post_:

At the critical hours of American history when the noonday sky
was midnight and the atmosphere saturated with murk--where do
we find our great American leaders unable by human eyes to see
before them? We find them, do we not? on their knees beseeching
divine guidance and groping for a clasp of the Unseen Hand which
would lead them and this people into the light again. The whole
winter of the American troops at Valley Forge is an historical
panorama of heroism, self-denial, and sacrifice. Yet every
noble incident of that season of doom and dread furnishes but
details of the background for the great central picture which
the American mind loves to dwell upon--Washington on his knees
at Valley Forge. It was Lincoln who in 1864 declared: “God bless
the churches, and blest be God who in this hour giveth us the
churches.” And Washington, in 1789, immediately after he was
made the first President of the republic, wrote to the bishops
of the Methodist Church:

“I trust the people of every denomination will have occasion to
be convinced that I shall always strive to prove a faithful and
impartial patron of genuine, vital religion.... I take in the
kindest part the promise you make of presenting your prayers
at the throne of grace for me, and that I likewise implore the
divine benediction on yourself and your religious community.”

(2447)

PRAYER, CONVINCING

George W. Coleman, in his book “Searchlights,” says:

One of my ministerial friends, who has resigned his pulpit
because of his out-and-out socialistic views, naturally stirred
up a good deal of angry opposition in some quarters, altho he
has one of the sweetest characters I have ever known. Hateful
and contemptuous things were said. There was much damning with
faint praise, especially among former friends.

A level-headed friend of mine, a woman of sixty years or
thereabouts, heard something of the commotion, and, to satisfy
her curiosity, dropt into the church one Sunday to hear for
herself what the minister really had to say for his peculiar and
unpopular views. When I met her soon afterward, her only comment
was, “Well, I have only to say that a man who can pray like that
can’t go very far wrong, whether its socialism or anything else.”

(2448)

PRAYER FOR COMMON NEEDS

Mrs. Scranton, a missionary in Korea, writes in the Bible Society’s _Reporter_ of a Korean Christian woman whose reply to a neighbor was a beautiful testimony to her faithfulness in prayer:

The neighbor said she could not pray--she had no time, and
furthermore she had no skill with her lips. The Christian
replied, “Am I not a busy woman, and yet I pray. When I get up
in the morning I say, ‘My Heavenly Father, You have given me
these garments with which I clothe my naked body. Without them I
should be ashamed. Now please clothe my soul that it may never
be ashamed or afraid.’ When I wash my face and hands I pray that
I may be made clean inside as well as outside. I make the fire;
and if I put on much wood it burns brightly, and I ask that the
Holy Spirit may kindle just such a fire in my heart. Then I
sweep the room and I say, ‘Please sweep away all the bad there
is in and around me.’ When I cook the rice I pray that heavenly
food may be given to my soul to keep it from starving to death.”
Has not this woman learned the secret of prayer?

(2449)

PRAYER FOR OTHERS

James Whitcomb Riley writes this altruistic prayer:

Dear Lord, kind Lord,
Gracious Lord, I pray
Thou wilt look on all I love,
Tenderly to-day!
Weed their hearts of weariness
Scatter every care
Down a wake of angel-wings
Winnowing the air.

Bring unto the sorrowing
All release from pain;
Let the lips of laughter
Overflow again;
And with all the needy
O divide, I pray,
This vast treasure of content
That is mine to-day! (Text.)

--_The Reader Magazine._

(2450)

=Prayer for the Devil=--See READINESS IN RETORT.

PRAYER IN SECRET

After I became interested in religion, in seeking a place
for retirement for my secret devotions, I thought of a large
closet out of the spare chamber. That closet was a place where
my mother kept her blankets, comforters and various kinds
of bed-clothes. It was large and without a window. When the
door was shut it was total darkness; no eye but that of Him
who “seeth in secret” could behold any one who there sought
retirement from the world.

In that closet I erected my altar for secret prayer. It was my
Bethel; and none but God can ever know the Bethel seasons I
there enjoyed in communing with the Savior in that time of my
first love, and until I left my home to prepare for the work of
the gospel ministry. (Text.)--ASA BULLARD, “Incidents
in a Busy Life.”

(2451)

See SERVICE, UNSEEN.

PRAYER MEDIA

The ether is the medium not only of light, electric and other
force-vibrations, but of thought-vibrations also. The two
souls at the ends of the two thousand miles of distance are
something like two wireless telegraphic stations. One sends
up its cry for help, its prayer-vibration, into the ether;
the whole celestial hemisphere quivers with that cry, that
soul-vibration. The soul of the friend at this end of the line,
being sympathetic, or keyed in unison, picks out of the ether
its own; it hears and reads the cry of the beloved soul yonder,
and sends back, through the ether, its answer of comforting
thought and suggestion. Now, grant that that sort of thing is
a fact in human experience, and we have what is very nearly a
demonstration of the possibility and nature of prayer. If two
human souls can hear and answer each other irrespective of
space and time, then the human soul and the divine soul can do
likewise. We have only to think God immanent in the universal
ether, filling it as a soul fills the body, and our case is
complete.--JAMES H. ECOB.

(2452)

=Prayer-meeting Maintained=--See IMMIGRATION.

=Prayer Only in Name=--See DIPLOMACY, COWARDLY.

=Prayer, Power of=--See PERSECUTION AND PRAYER.

PRAYER, TAKING TIME FOR

“One might as well rush into the street unclothed,” said Mr.
Spurgeon, “because he had no time to dress, or into battle
unarmed because he had no time to secure his weapons, as to go
forth to the experiences of any day without taking time to pray.”

(2453)

PRAYER, THE CALL TO