Sermon Illustration

It always pays to live up to the law of kindness. One cannot always tell what great results will come in the train of seemingly small deeds that are performed with a desire to be helpful. An engineer of a passenger-train on a Mississippi railroad was driving through a snowstorm, eagerly scanning the track as far as he could see, when, halfway through a deep cut, something appeared lying on the rails. It was a sheep with her two little lambs. His first thought was that he could rush on without any damage to his train; but the sight of the innocent family cowering in the storm touched him, and he pulled the air-brake and sent his fireman ahead. In a few minutes the fireman came back with a terrified face. There had been a landslide, and just beyond the cut the track was covered with rocks. It seemed certain that if the train had gone on at full speed, in the blinding snow, it would have been impossible to stop in time to escape disaster. In the absolute sense the incident was provident...

Two mechanics, going home one cold night, passed a lame man who had been on the street all day trying, with little success, to sell his poor wares. “Dear me!” said one of them, “how miserable that poor fellow looks. If I had plenty of money, I should like nothing better than to relieve such cases. The first thing I would do would be to get him a good pair of shoes and a comfortable crutch that would make walking less painful for him.” In the meantime, his friend had stopped and was talking to the lame man. “Pretty bad walking, neighbor,” he said cheerily. “Take my arm and maybe you can get along better. I am going your way; that is, if you will tell me where you live.” He did not stop until he had seen the man safe in the little room and had succeeded in kindling a fire. He filled the cracks around the window with paper, and left the poor man by his steaming kettle, cheered and comforted. He did not say anything about his benevolent desires. He had no money, but he had given freely o...

More lost men and women have been rescued by the thought that somebody believed in them, than by any other human agency. There is nothing that will go so far toward making your class the most giddy or the most unruly class in the school, as to once let them know that they bear such a reputation. I recall just now a striking instance of this sort. In a certain village the grade of conduct in the public school had fallen so low that the teachers universally agreed that it was beyond them. One after another came with stern visage and artfully laid plans, determined to conquer the belligerents. But all in vain. Finally, there came a teacher, a lover of young people, and a man of such guileless mind that he seemed to have no other thought than that his gentleness would be returned in kind. To their own astonishment, the scholars found that there was something about him that put them on their good behavior when they were in his presence. Still, there were threats as to the daring pieces of...

A good lady, living in a large city, was passing a saloon just as the keeper was thrusting a young man into the street. He was very pale, and his haggard face and wild eyes told that he was very far gone on the road to ruin, as with profane speech he brandished his clenched fists, threatening to be revenged upon the man that had ill-used him. He was so excited and blinded with passion that he did not see the lady who stood very near to him, until she laid her hand upon his arm, and asked, in a gentle, loving voice, what was the matter. At the first kind word the young man started as though a heavy blow had struck him, and turned quickly around, more pale than before, and trembling from head to foot. He surveyed the lady from head to foot, and then, with a sigh of relief, he said: “I thought it was my mother’s voice; it sounded strangely like it. But her voice has been hushed in death for many years.” “You had a mother, then,” said the lady, “and she loved you?” The young man burst in...

A New York Sunday-school superintendent urged his teachers to bring new children with them the next Sunday, and as he walked down Sixth Avenue attempted himself to win a street boy. “Will you go to Sunday School?” he said, and in the vernacular of the street the boy said, “Nope.” The superintendent said: “We have picture papers for every boy,” and he would not come. “We have music, we have everything to make you have a good time,” and the boy steadily refused. Disappointed, the superintendent turned away and, when he had gone a short distance, he heard the patter of little feet behind him and, turning back he saw the boy. He said with an earnest, eager look: “Mister, are you there?” and the superintendent said, “Yes, I am there.” “Well,” he said, “next Sunday I’ll be there.” And he was. Sunday School papers, music, and other attractions of school were simply the first mile, the spirit of the superintendent was the second mile, and was an influence the boy could not shake off. —J. Wil...

We are so related to each other that we are continually leaving impressions on those we touch. It is easier to do harm than good to other lives. There is a quality in the human soul which makes it take more readily and retain more permanently touches of sin than touches of holiness. Among the ruins of some old temple there was found a slab which bore very faintly and dimly the image of the king, and in deep and clear indentations the print of a dog’s foot. The king’s beauty was less clear than the marks of the animal’s tread. So human lives are apt to take less readily and deeply, to retain less indelibly, the touches of spiritual beauty, and more clearly and permanently the marks and impressions of evil. It needs, therefore, in us infinite carefulness and watchfulness, as we walk ever amid other lives, lest by some word, or look, or act, or influence of ours we hurt them irreparably. —J. R. Miller

A small boy was visiting his grandparents on their farm. In the orchard he noticed a locust coming out of his shell. So he thought he would assist the locust. When telling how he helped the locust, his grandparents said he hurt the locust and did more harm than good, since it is God’s plan the locust works out of the shell himself. Sometimes we can do more help by leaving people alone, and letting them work out their own problems.

Mr. Jacob A. Riis, whom President Roosevelt once declared to be the most useful citizen in New York City, tells an interesting story concerning his work among the poor in New York. A while ago he went to visit a friend in a suburban town. On the evening of his arrival, as they sat at his table, the host looked around at his flock of five healthy children and said: “I wish you could find for me in the city some poor family—if possible, a widow with children about the age of these—who would be ours to work and advise with and to help over the rough places when they came along. Then each of mine could have his own friend, and he could get more out of it than he would give, I know. Here they are shut off, as you see, from that. All the neighbors are well-to-do.” Mr. Riis promised to try, for he knew the man was right. They were sadly handicapped. The best in them was being starved by the ultra-respectability of their surroundings. So one day he found in a tenement-house on the East Side a ...

Carl was a quiet man. He didn't talk much. He would always greet you with a big smile and a firm handshake. Even after living in our neighborhood for over 50 years, no one could really say they knew him very well. Before his retirement, he took the bus to work each morning. The lone sight of him walking down the street often worried us. He had a slight limp from a bullet wound received in World War II. Watching him, we worried that although he had survived the war, he may not make it through our changing uptown neighborhood with its ever-increasing random violence, gangs, and drug activity. When he saw the flier at our local church asking for volunteers for caring for the gardens behind the minister's residence, he responded in his characteristically unassuming manner. Without fanfare, he just signed up. He was well into his 87th year when the very thing we had always feared finally happened. He was just finishing his watering for the day when three gang members approache...