489
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
August 1928
Speaking of effective preaching, an old writer says: “ It is not mere word's which turn men. It is the heart, mounting un called, into the expression o f the features. It is the eye, illumined by reason; the look, beaming with goodness. It is the tone o f the voice, that instrument of the soul, which changes quality with such amazing facility, and gives out in soft, the tender, the tremulous, the firm, every shade o f emotion and character. So much is there in this, that the moral stature and character o f the man that speaks are likely to be well represented in his man ner.”
Look your audience in the face. Some form a habit o f looking at the ceiling or floor. A steady, direct look makes speech doubly effective. Look at all, not just a few in the center or at one side. Let your personality meet thè personality of every one present. '—o— Many pastors are bold and fearless when facing a congregation, but fearful and timid when facing the-, individual. The late; Dr. Jowett relates- his own ex perience as follows : “I . could preaehSij Sermon and never meet a devil, Ktft as soon as I began to take my sermon, to the individual, the streets were thick with devils.”
Dr. Maitland Alexander wisely says: “Warmed-over scraps from the sermonic table will not do for your prayer-meet ings. It will kill them quicker than any thing else. .A good prayer-meeting is one of the hardest things in the world to maintain. Every service. and every part of it must be planned with care by the minister.” — o — Avoid too much shouting. You will give a better impression by showing that you have power in reserve. Be sure everyone can hear at all times. Speak no louder than,is necessary. Do not drop to a whisper which some hearers cannot get. Let the weight of your voice fall on your main thoughts.
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Rapidity of Transport in the Latter Days
D . M. PANTON , in his recent book, gives an illuminat ing comment on Dan. 12:4 : So the forecast'of Daniel is transport of incredible rapidity in the latter days. “ Many shall run to and fro” is explained by Gesenius thus: “ to run up and down, to go to and fro, hither and thither in haste; to go over the earth or land in travel.” Not until a century ago was fire, the agent of all revolution in transport, brought by engineers to the aid of locomotion: until then the camel and the horse were the swiftest means of human transport. Our Lord, on earth, walked; oncC—so far as we know— he rode; and never traveled in a chariot, which was re served for royalty and the great: nor was it otherwise for five and a half millenniums. Carriages first appeared in England, but only for the rich and invalicf^in A . D. 1380, private coaches in 1510, and public coaches in 1662; and it was said at the time:;—“ Incredible as it may appear, the coach will arrive in London from Manchester in four ¿ays and a half,” or the time now taken by a swift Cunarder to span the Atlantic. Today the rail car. covers the distance in three to four hours. The motor record is (I believe) 136 miles an hour; the aeroplane, 266 miles an hour; and even the submarine, driven against dense underwaters— the slowest o f all possible progression-^ travels faster than the earliest railway trains. Man has thus outstripped all beasts and birds. The cheetah, or hunting leopard of India, the fastest thing on foot, can cover sixty miles an hour over a short distance; and -the spine-tailed siwift, which breeds in the mountains of Northeastern Asia— the fastest bird in the world-S-is cap able o f two hundred miles per hour. But the supreme modern land-transport, altogether outclassing even rail travel, appears foretold with an explicitness o f detail not less than astounding. Be it re-, membered, that, so far as we know, chariots, always made o f wood, were never propelled by fire, nor even carried lamps or “ hooters.” Now Nahum ( 2 :3) ( p.ys,:,i,“ The chariots:..flash with.-,steel in the day o f his^ preparation/’ for the swiftness of modern transport is a shadow o f the Advent both of Christ and antichrist: the Hebrew is— “ with fire of steel”— that is, fire encased in steel; the word is unique in the Bible. “ And the fir-trees are shaken terribly”—by the thud and thunder of the armored cars;
as city streets will be shaken by a motor-van, or the coun tryside tremble under the passing of a tank. “ The char iots rage in the streets”— go at mad speed; the word is used o f Jehu’s furious driving; they tear along as if mad — “ they, jostle one against another in the broadways”— the esplanades, and avenues; “ the appearance o f them is like torches”— the glare o f the headlights— “ they run like the lightnings.” Mark the description: the end-time chariot is of steel; it is propelled by fire— no horses are named; it is a ponderous car, jostling; it “ rages”— one scholar gives the word as “ toot,” a call&or Varning; it carries, torches,tor headlights; and its speed is so great that it is said to-flagh like lightning. They are in all the “ broad- w a y s l^ a s , New York’s greatest thoroughfare is called. (A distinguished architect said recently, in Paris that if automobiles continue to increase as in the' last three years, by 1940, motor transport will .be -impossible except in the widest; streets||and that New York, Chicago, Paris and London will have to bes’rebuilt.). In the United States alone 1 four million cars were sold last year (19 23 ); the streets of all great cities throughout the world today are dangerous with jostling, raging, lightning-chariots. “ Their ‘appearance,’ ” as Calvin said long ago, “ will dazzle the eyes of beholders- with their brightness.” W ireless T ransmissions ; When Stanley found Livingstone at U jiji, the letters he carried were two years o ld ; a telegram now covers the space in one-twentieth of a second. At a railway Exhibi tion in Washington recently, Mr. Morton, the Secretary of the Navy, opened a telegraph switch at midnight, starting a time signal round the world, while a map 21 feet by 42 feet showed its progress by electric bulbs. The signal cir cled the globe in seven seconds. Most wonderful o f all, during the presidential address at the meeting of the Brit ish Association in Liverpool, Sir Ernest Rutherford’s voice, which took one-fifth of a second to reach the back o f the hall, took onljLone-fiftieth of a second to reach the North o f Scotland; so that the address was heard in Aberdeen ten times more quickly than on the back benches of the hall in Liverpool. So the Book o f Daniel was to remain, in parts, sealed, until illuminated by facts then inconceivable; today we stand in the dawn of its revelation.
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