113 Sermon Illustrations on Divine Providence

The island of Barbados, in the West Indies, is remarkably free from malaria, and this immunity from a disease which is so common in the tropics has been attributed to a species of fish that inhabits the waters of that island, and whose chief food is the larvæ of the mosquito. These fish are tiny minnows, never exceeding an inch and a half in length, and are generally known as “millions,” altho they bear a most impressive scientific name. They belong to the family of “top minnows,” feeding on the surface of the water, and their diminutive size enables them to swim over lily-pads and similar vegetation, which is covered only by a thin film of water, and there feast upon mosquito larvæ and other insects.

These fish thrive in stagnant or running water, and whether it is fresh or brackish appears to have no effect upon them. The minnows will swim up stream against a strong current and then enter the smaller rivulets, thus distributing themselves over an entire water system. The young of these fish are not hatched from eggs, but are born alive.

The Panama Canal Commission has decided to employ these minnows in the fight to rid the Isthmus of the malarial mosquito, and has imported a great quantity of the little fish. There are mosquito-eating fish in the Panama waters, but they are not sufficiently numerous to be of much value. However, a systematic stocking of the lakes and streams in the Canal Zone with the “millions” from Barbados should act as a severe check on the mosquito population of Panama, and indirectly aid in stamping out malaria.--_Harper’s Weekly._

Long have I waited their coming, the men of the far-lying mist-hills Gathered about their fires and under the kindly rains. Not to the blazing sweep of Thy desert, O Lord, have they turned them; Evermore back to the mist-hills, back to the rain-kissed plains.

Long through the ages I waited the children of men, but they came not; Only God’s silent centuries holding their watch sublime. Gaunt and wrinkled and gray was the withering face of Thy desert: All in Thine own good time; O Lord, in Thine own good time.

Lo! Thou hast spoken the word, and Thy children come bringing the waters Loosed from their mountain keep in the thrall of each sentinel hill. Lord, Thou hast made me young and fair at Thine own waters’ healing, Pleasing and fair to mankind in the flood of Thy bountiful will.

Wherefore in joy now Thy children come, flying exultant and eager; Now is thine ancient earth remade by Thy powerful word. Lord, unto Thee be the glory! Thine is the bloom of the desert. Hasten, O men of the mist-hills! Welcome, ye sons of the Lord! (Text.)

--MCCREADY SYKES, _The Atlantic Monthly_.

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God uses many unseen agencies to offset the moral poisons of the universe:

“A device has been perfected by the chemist of the mechanical department of the Erie Railroad,” says _The Railway and Engineering Review_ (Chicago), “by which all the cars on the Chicago limited train are thoroughly sterilized at Jersey City after each round trip between Jersey City and Chicago, a run of about 2,000 miles. Experiments looking to this method of cleaning cars so as to kill all disease germs and destroy all bad odors have been in progress for some time. A deodorizing apparatus has also been devised which is placed under the seats in the cars, out of sight of passengers, and gives off an odorless gas, which combines with the stale tobacco-smoke or other offensive odors which may accumulate in the cars, and serves to completely nullify them. This treatment has been so effective that it is expected it will be extended to all the passenger cars in the Erie service.”

To-day the shells and fragments used in the war between Russia and Japan are to be found only in the junk-shops of Port Arthur, and crops of vegetables and millet mantle with living green some of the fort-hills where desolation and death reigned during the five months of the siege.

The bloodstains and the gruesome dis-coloring of the soil around the edges of some of the shallow, overcrowded graves have disappeared. There was no trace left of the largest blood blotch, a dreadful black smut twenty feet by four or five feet on the side of 203-Meter Hill, which was in evidence for many months after the last fighting. God’s healing rains have washed the hill clean and are filling in and covering with the green of His love the trenches and other scars left by man’s lust and hate. (Text.)

In a poem, “The World Runs On,” Edmund Vance Cook, in _The Independent_, thus expresses the calm steadiness of God’s providences:

So many good people find fault with God, Tho admitting He’s doing the best He can, But still they consider it somewhat odd That He doesn’t consult them concerning His plan. But the sun sinks down and the sun climbs back, And the world runs round and round its track.

Or they say God doesn’t precisely steer This world in the way they think it best, And if He would listen to them, He’d veer A hair to the sou’ sou’west by west. But the world sails on and it never turns back And the Mariner makes never a tack.

So many good people are quite inclined To favor God with their best advices, And consider they’re something more than kind In helping Him out of critical crises. But the world runs on, as it ran before, And eternally shall run evermore.

So many good people, like you and me, Are deeply concerned for the sins of others, And conceive it their duty that God should be Apprised of the lack in erring brothers. And the myriad sun-stars seed the skies And look at us out of their calm, clear eyes. (Text.)

Mr. Vernon L. Kellogg gives the imaginary feelings of a minute scale that infests oranges during their growth, on finding out that he and his kind were the common prey of the orange beetle:

He soon learned that of all the orange-dwellers who are born, only a very, very few escape the beetles and other devouring beasts who pursue them. And he was highly indignant when one shrewd orange-dweller told him that it really was a good thing for the race of orange-dwellers that so many of them were killed. “For,” the shrewd orange-dweller said, “if all of us who are born should live and have families, and not die until old age came on, there would soon be so many of us that we should eat all the orange-trees in the world, and then we should all starve to death.” And this is quite true.--“Insect Stories.”

Known as “Touchdown Jesus” for its upstretched arms, and sometimes “Big Butter Jesus” for its creamy color, the statue in front of the Solid Rock Church in Monroe, Ohio, was a landmark, especially considering it was right next to Interstate 75. The $250,000, 62-foot-tall (even though it only depicted Jesus from the chest up) monument was built in 2004, but when it was hit by lightning, it was destroyed in minutes -- it was made from fiberglass and flammable foam.

Good riddance, locals say: “If it was supposed to be here, it would still be here,” said one. Rev. Darlene Bishop disagrees. “I knew that there would be a lot of critics that would say, ‘Oh, Jesus didn’t like it and that’s why he done this’,” Bishop said, adding the church will rebuild the statue -- perhaps making it even larger -- and this time, fireproof.

Donations are streaming in. “We’re not encouraging people to do it, but we’re not rejecting [donations],” she said. Replacement is expected to cost $750,000. “We don’t have no problems,” she says. “Jesus knows how to get it for us and get it for us free.”

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Springfield News-Sun