And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.
—Matthew 10:42
5814 Those Little Hurts
Termites destroy more property than do earthquakes. More fires are caused by matches and cigarettes than by volcanoes.
More heartaches and sorrow are caused by little words and deeds of unkindness than by open acts of dislike and enmity.
5815 Only One Bad Or Good
One mischievous boy can break up a school. One false alarm can cause a panic. One match can start a conflagration. One false step can cost a life or ruin a character. One broken wheel can ditch a train. One quarrelsome worker can create a strike of ten thousand men.
One undiplomatic word can provoke a war involving thousands of lives and destruction of millions of dollars in property. One hasty act of legislation can entail untold hardships. One wayward daughter can break a mother’s heart. One lie can destroy a person’s character. One false witness can send an innocent man to jail. One vote can decide an election.
One kind word at the right time may save a person from suicide. One sermon may fire a man’s soul and set the course for his future life. One drink may start a person on the road to alcoholism. One wrong example may lead dozens down the wrong path. One decision for Christ will determine future destiny.
“One sinner destroyeth much good” (Ecclesiastes 9:18).
—Robert G. Lee
5816 The Widow’s Lamp
A story is told of an elderly Christian widow who resided in a lonely cottage high on a cliff overlooking the sea. She was frequently distressed when she saw the debris from wrecked fishing boats that had washed up on the shore. At other times, the piteous cries of perishing crewmen pierced her heart. One stormy night when the howling wind made her more apprehensive than usual, an idea suddenly occurred to her.
Perhaps if she placed a lamp in her front window, it might act as a small beacon to warn unwary seamen of the treacherous coast. She heard later that its light had been seen and had aided some sailors who were lost in the raging tempest. From then on, she kept it burning from dusk to sunrise. Over the years many endangered fishermen had cause to thank her for her helpfulness.
—Our Daily Bread
5817 The Penny-Tract
The story is told of a child in India going to the home of a missionary. The child wanted to do something to help the work of missions, so she gave the missionary a penny. The penny bought a Christian tract which was placed in a box, from which anyone who wanted a tract could take one free. The tract came into the hands of a head-hunter who later became converted. A few years later, a church was built there. Fifteen hundred natives were saved from heathenism. One shiny penny was given to Jesus with a heart of love by a little child, but the results of that penny’s work made it priceless indeed.
5818 Bible Characters
Shamgar had an ox-goad,
David had a sling,
Samson had a jawbone,
Rahab had a string,
Mary had some ointment,
Aaron had a rod,
Dorcas had a needle,
All were used for God.
—Harvester Mission
5819 A Church’s Little Bobby
It had been a dull year in the church where Moffat was converted. The deacons finally said to the old pastor: “We love you, pastor, but don’t you think you had better resign? There hasn’t been a convert this year.” “Yes,” he replied, “it has been a dull year, sadly dull to me. Yet, I remind me that one did come, wee Bobby Moffat. But he is so wee a bairn that I suppose it is not right to count him.”
A few years later Bobby came to the pastor and said, “Pastor, do you think that I could ever learn to preach? I feel within me that I ought to. If I could just lead souls to Christ, that would be happiness to me.” The pastor answered, “Well, Bobby, you might. Who knows? At least you can try!”
He did try, and years later when Robert Moffat came back from his wonder-work in Africa, the King of England rose in his presence, and the British Parliament stood as a mark of respect. The humble old preacher, who had but one convert, and who was so discouraged, is dead and forgotten, and yet that was the greatest year’s work he ever did, and few have equaled it!
—Young People’s Weekly
5820 Little Joey’s Handshake
Billy Sunday’s choir leader, Mr. Rodeheaver, told the following touching story about a boy who sang in his choir. “Joey was not quite bright. He would never leave the tabernacle at night till he could shake my hand. He would stand right next to me until the last man had gone, in order to say good-bye. It was embarrassing at times.
“One evening a man came forward to speak to me. He said, “I want to thank you for being so kind to Joey. He isn’t quite bright, and has never had anything he enjoyed so much as coming here and singing in the choir. He has worked hard during the day in order to be ready in time to come, too, and it is through him that my wife and my five children have been led to the Lord. His grandfather, seventy-five years old and an infidel all his life, and his grandmother have come tonight, and now the whole family is converted.””
—Sunday School Banner
5821 Little-Known Andrews
A little-known monk, John Staupitz, led Martin Luther to Christ. Thomas Bilney, as “little Bilney,” was the instrument of Bishop Latimer’s conversion. Lord Shaftesbury was taught to pray by the simple Christian woman who was his nurse.
Perhaps you never heard of John Egglen—he led C. H. Spurgeon to the Saviour; or Edward Kimball, the Boston shoe merchant who was the means of the conversion of D. L. Moody. Gypsy Smith never knew the name of the old gentleman whose message was blessed to his soul’s salvation.
—Wilbur E. Nelson
5822 From Kimball To Graham
A Sunday School teacher, a Mr. Kimball, in 1858 led a Boston shoe clerk to give his life to Christ. The clerk, Dwight L. Moody, became an evangelist and in England in 1879 awakened evangelistic zeal in the heart of Frederick B. Meyer, pastor of a small church.
F. B. Meyer, preaching on an American college campus, brought to Christ a student named J. Wilbur Chapman. Chapman, engaged in YMCA work, employed a former baseball player Billy Sunday, to do evangelistic work.
Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, North Carolina. A group of local men were so enthusiastic afterward that they planned another campaign, bringing Mordecai Hamm to town to preach.
In the revival, a young man named Billy Graham heard the gospel and yielded his life to Christ.
Billy Graham … (The story goes on and on).
Please see illustration No. 5865.
5823 “So, Still Doing It”
Not long ago a man frankly told me how it came about that he had come to stop believing. When he was twenty-six-years old he went hunting with his brother. When night came they stopped in the forest to sleep. Just before they lay down he had knelt to pray as he had done from infancy. When he arose his brother said, “So you are still doing those things, are you?”
That was all that was said but from that night he stopped praying. Thirty years had passed, and in that thirty years he had never prayed or attended church. Now, it was not the sneer of his brother that had changed him. His religious life had become so hollow and worthless that the pressure of a finger was sufficient to overthrow it.
—Selected
5824 His Cabin Window Had Lamp
At a meeting I heard a missionary home on furlough tell of a simple act of his by which he unconsciously saved another’s life. He was on board a ship and when in his berth, one dark night, he heard that cry—so awful to listen to at sea—”Man overboard.” He arose at once from his bunk and took the swinging lamp from its bracket, and held it at the window in his cabin.
He could see nothing; but, the next morning, he was told that the flash of his lamp through the port showed to those on deck the missing man clinging to a rope. He could hardly have held on another minute. The light of the lamp shone just in time to save the man’s life.
—J. W. Moeran
5825 The One-Note Musician
A series of pictures in a popular magazine portrays the lifestory of a “one-note musician.” We see him following his daily routine of eating and sleeping until it is time for him to prepare for the evening. He carefully inspects his violin, takes his seat in the orchestra with the other musicians, arranges his score and tunes his instrument. On the arrival of the conductor, the music begins with the leader skillfully bringing in first one group of musicians and then another.
After quite a long time, the crucial moment arrives—it is the time when the “one-note” is played. The conductor turns to him and his one note sounds forth. Once more the orchestra plays and the “one-note” man sits quietly throughout the rest of the concert. At the end of the day he knew that he has done his duty well and earned contentment and peace of mind.
—Wilbur Nelson
5826 Aspirin Bottle To Schweitzer
When 13-year-old Bobby Hill, son of a U. S. Army sergeant stationed in Italy, read a book about Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize winner and medical missionary, he decided to do his bit to help the great man’s cause.
Bobby sent a bottle of aspirin to Lieut. Gen. Richard C. Lindsay, Commander of Allied air forces in Southern Europe, asking if “any of your airplanes” could parachute it to Dr. Schweitzer’s jungle hospital in Africa.
Hearing about the letter, an Italian radio station issued an appeal which brought in $400,000 worth of medical supplies and the French and Italian governments each supplied a plane to fly the medicines and the young boy to Dr. Schweitzer.
“I never thought a child could do so much for my hospital,” remarked grateful Dr. Schweitzer.
5827 Discovery By Accidents
In 1786, Luigi Galvani noticed the accidental twitching of a frog’s leg, and thereby discovered the principle of the electric battery.
In 1822, the Danish physicist Oersted, at the end of a lecture, happened to put a wire conducting an electric current near a magnet, which led to Faraday’s invention of the dynamo.
In 1858, a 17-year-old boy named William Henry Perkin, trying to make artificial quinine, cooked up a black-looking mass, which led to his discovery of aniline dyes.
In 1895, Roentgen noticed that cathode rays penetrated black pepper and thereby discovered x-rays, which have been priceless boons to the fields of medicine and industry.
In 1929, Sir Alexander Fleming noticed that a culture of bacteria had been accidentally contaminated by a mold. He said to himself, “My, that’s a funny thing!” He had, through accident, discovered penicillin.
But these accidents would have been meaningless if they had not happened to Galvani, Perkin, Roentgen, and the others, or to such men possessing equal powers of perception and insight. As Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
5828 How Chicago Fire Started
Many years ago, in 1871 in Chicago a woman was milking her cow, and there was a little lamp of oil, a little flickering flame. The cow kicked over the lamp, and the flame kindled a wisp of hay, and another wisp, until all the hay in the stable was on fire, and the next building was on fire, and the next and the next!
The fire spread over the river to the main part of Chicago and swept on until, within a territory one-mile wide and three-miles long, there were only two buildings standing. The little flame from that lamp had laid Chicago in ashes!
5829 The Lost World Series
How does it feel to lose $30,000 in a split-second? The New York Giants baseball team learned it the hard way.
The final game of the 1912 World Series was played at Boston’s Fenway Park. The Giants’ carrying a 2–1 lead into the home half of the final inning, saw seeming victory slip away when center fielder Fred Snodgrass let an easy fly ball filter through his fingers.
The inspired Red Sox rallied for two runs, a 3–2 victory, and the World championship!
The difference between the winning and losing paychecks was $1,500 which meant a net loss of $30,000 for the twenty players of the Giant’s team. A dropped fly ball has gone down in history as “Snodgrass’ $30,000 Muff,” one of baseball’s ignoble plays.
—O. K. Collins
5830 The $40,000 Toothpick
Forty thousand dollars was spent on an ordinary toothpick. In 1907—when a franc was still a franc and worth about 20 cents—a French lawyer named Maitre Auguste Gilbert presented himself at the baggage room of the Gare de Lyon in Paris and holding out an ordinary wooden toothpick asked the astounded attendant to check it for him till called for. The attendant indignantly refused, thinking it was a practical joke.
Thereupon the attorney brought action against the French Ministry of Public Works, seeking a declaratory judgment that the French Republic, in the person of the checkroom attendant, had violated the law. The case was in the courts for twenty years and was adjudicated in all instances. The lawyer won and the costs of the litigation amounting to $40,000 were assessed against the Republic.
5831 Mr. Fix-It
Robert Henderson, held on car theft charges, apparently used a small piece of steel from an old lock and several short lengths of lumber to do six things, namely:
—Break out of a solitary confinement cell,
—Smash through a steel mesh grating,
—Break the panes from a closely-leaded window,
—Squeeze his 170 pounds through a space of five-and-one-half by thirteen inches he had sprung between two one-inch bars,
—Scale a ten-foot steel-and-barbed wire fence,
—Climb over a thirty-one-foot wall.
5832 A Reef Called “Trumbie’s”
The coast of Maine has a thousand harbors but also a thousand dangerous reefs. Near Portland, just off Cape Elizabeth, there lies a rocky reef that is just inside the harbor. It bears the name of Trumbie’s Reef, after an old sea captain who was brought up as a boy on Cape Elizabeth, joined the crew of a ship at an early age, and put out to sea. He sailed around the world and became the captain of a large ship. His skill as a world sailor became famous. He piloted his ship through many a stormy voyage and into many a dangerous harbor.
Rich and famous, he sailed back to his home port in Maine. Here he felt at perfect ease. He was familiar with the outline of the shore and with every rock and reef. Yet as he sailed into the harbor, his ship grounded on this small reef and suffered shipwreck. Ever after it was known as Trumbie’s Reef. He could sail the seven seas safely, but he piled up on rocks inside the harbor close to home.
—Benjamin P. Browne
5833 Jet Pilots Grounded In Car
In 1975 two United States Air Force pilots set transatlantic speed record in the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. So far so good! But later, when Major Jim Sullivan, the pilot, and Major Neil Widdiefield, were on their way from London to the Farnborough Air Show, their car ran out of gas. They had to be rescued by a passing motorist.
5834 Earth-Circling Astronaut Falls In Car
In Panama City, Florida, an American astronaut drove on the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with another, injuring two persons.
The astronaut apparently fell asleep at the wheel. His car ran across the road, then re-entered the highway and collided with the other car.
He had circled the earth three times in a space capsule prior to the earth-bound mishap.
5835 Just A $25 Valve
Air Force Lieut. General Howell M. Estes says: “Over 90 percent of our present systems’ unreliability are due to component-part failures. A failure of a $25 fuel valve in a missile, for example, brought about both loss of the bird and major damage to the launchsite, for a total bill of $22 million.”
5836 Just A Miniscule Adjustment
It is common knowledge that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. What is not so well-known is that long before Bell’s world-changing invention, a German school teacher by the name of Reis almost built a telephone. Mr. Reis’ phone would carry the sounds of whistling or humming, but would not transmit the human voice. Something seemed to be missing.
Many years later, Mr. Bell discovered Reis’ error. A little screw that controlled the electrodes on Mr. Reis’ invention needed an adjustment of one-thousandth of an inch. Mr. Bell discovered this error and turned the screw one-thousandth of an inch and was able to transmit speech loud and clear. Now the telephone is considered a household necessity. This infinitesimal distance of one-thousandth of an inch made a world of difference—the difference between failure and success. Mr. Reis was very near success, and yet he did not achieve it.
—Carl C. Williams
5837 Only A Plug
Houston, Texas—Gemini 7 set a new space endurance record 1974 but they just couldn’t get Gemini 6 off the ground.
Astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell passed the 200-hour mark in the midst of their 14-day (maybe longer) mission, but Gemini 6 crewmen were stifled for the second time in their attempt to get off the launch pad and attempt America’s first rendezvous maneuver in space.
It was a small plug—worth less than a dollar—that forced the estimated $100,000 delay. Space agency officials said they did not know how the plug fell out, indicated it had never done so before, and said it had been checked out about two days earlier.
When the metallic plug—supposed to be pulled free by a lanyard when the rocket lifted about six inches off the pad—plunked out early, it caused an electrical relay to close. This prematurely started the mission programmer, and since no lift was evident, a block house sequencer system automatically turned off the rocket motors, about 1.2 seconds after they started firing.
5838 The Kite-Started Operation
When the suspension bridge across the Niagara was to be erected, the question was, how to get the cable over. With a favoring wind, a kite was elevated, which alighted on the other shore. To its insignificant string, a cord was attached, which was drawn over, then a rope, then a larger rope, then a cable strong enough to sustain the iron cable which supported the bridge, over which heavily-ladden trains pass in safety.
5839 The Worsted Thread
A tall chimney had been completed, and the scaffolding was being removed. One man remained on top to superintend the process. A rope should have been left for him to descend by. His wife was at home washing, when her little boy burst in with “Mother, mother, they’ve forgotten the rope, and he’s going to throw himself down!”
She paused: her lips moved in the agony of prayer, and she rushed forth. A crowd was looking up at the poor man, who was moving round and round the narrow cornice, terrified, bewildered. It seemed as if any moment he might fall or throw himself down, in despair. His wife from below cried out, “Take off thy stockings; unravel the worsted;” and he did so. “Now tie the end to a bit of mortar, and lower gently.”
Down came the thread and a bit of mortar, swinging backward and forward. Lower and lower it descended, eagerly watched by many eyes; it was now within reach, and was gently seized by one of the crowd. They fastened some twine to the thread. “Now, pull up.”
The man got hold of the twine. The rope was now fastened on. “Pull away again.” He at length seized the rope and made it secure. There were a few moments of suspense, then amid the shouts of the people he threw himself into the arms of his wife, sobbing: “Thou’st saved me, Mary!” The worsted thread was not despised; it drew after it the twine, the rope, the rescue!
—Newman Hall
5840 Epigram On Small Things
• A sparrow is small; still, it’s a bird.
—Russian Proverb
• Big shots are small shots who keep on shooting.
• For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail.
—Benjamin Franklin
See also: Faithfulness ; Miniaturization.