9 Sermon Illustrations on Faithfulness in Duty

At the battle of Antietam, as one of the regiments was for the second time going into the conflict, a soldier staggered. It was of no wound; but, in the group of dying and dead through which they were passing, he saw his father, of another regiment, lying dead. There, too, was a wounded man who knew them both, who pointed to his father's corpse, and then upward, saying only, "It is all right with him." Onward went the son by his father's corpse, to do his duty in the line, which, with bayonets fixed, advanced upon the enemy. When the battle was over, he came back, and, with other help, buried his father.

A captain of the name of Douglass, who commanded "The Royal Oak," when the Dutch sailed up the Medway, had received orders to defend his ship to the last extremity, but not to retire; and therefore, when his ship was set on fire, he chose rather to perish in her than quit his station, exclaiming, "A Douglass was never known to quit his post without orders!"

The following declaration of Sir Matthew Hale is an illustration of this truth:

"Though my hands and my mind have been as full of secular business, both before and after I was judge, as, it may be, any man's in England, yet I never wanted time in six days to ripen and fit myself for the business and employments I had to do, though I borrowed not one minute from the Lord's day to prepare for it, by study or otherwise. But, on the other hand, if I had, at any time, borrowed from this day any time for my secular employment, I found it did further me less than if I had let it alone; and therefore, when some years' experience, upon a most attentive and vigilant observation, had given me this instruction, I grew peremptorily resolved never in this kind to make a breach upon the Lord's day, which I have now strictly observed for more than thirty years."

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Upon his return to Washington, Grant made preparations to leave immediately for the West, but at the close of a consultation with the President and the Secretary of War, he was informed that Mrs. Lincoln expected his presence the same evening at a military dinner to be given in his honor, at which twelve distinguished officers, then in the city, were to be present. Frank B. Carpenter, who was then at the White House, working on his celebrated painting, “Lincoln and His Cabinet,” says Grant turned to the President and said that it would be impossible for him to remain over as he must be in Tennessee at a given time. The President insisted that he could not be excused, and here we have another manifestation of Grant’s independence and willpower. He said to Lincoln: “But the time is very precious just now, and really, Mr. President, I believe I have had enough of this show business.”

So, while the man of deeds--indifferent to blandishments and caring nothing for receptions--was speeding on his way to Nashville to meet Sherman and talk over the momentous business of trying to end the war, the twelve “distinguished” officers were banqueted without a guest of honor. But perhaps in the feasting and the merrymaking of the night, they could not but ponder over the strange things which had come to pass that day--a general so devoted to his duties in the field as to have no time or desire to be received by Congress or banqueted by the wife of a President; a man who had been out of the position of a common store-clerk hardly three years, given command of all the Union forces on land and sea; a great load lifted from the long-burdened heart of Lincoln; the bells of time ringing in a better day for the cause of the Union.--Col. NICHOLAS SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

V

VALUE IN RUBBISH

The rubbish of New York City is worth about $200,000 a year. The city gathers and carries its rubbish to the scows at the river-front. Then a contractor trims the scows and disposes of the litter. This operation costs him about $3,000 a week, or $500 each working day. For the privilege of handling the stuff, and winnowing it for goodly finds, the contractor, Celesto Di Maico, pays $1,750 a week, or $90,000 a year, to the city. This is $25,000 more than the previous contracts.--_Collier’s Weekly._