THE STORY OF STORIES

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 18, 1881

THE STORY OF STORIES.

REV. DR. CHAMBERLAIN, a missionary in Persia, has recently communicated the following remarkable incident from his own experience: “I wish I could take you to a scene in the kingdom of Hyderabad fourteen years ago. There, in a city, a walled town of 18,800 inhabitants, the people had arisen in a mob to drive us out, because we tried to speak of another God than theirs. We had gone to the market-place, and I had endeavored to preach to them of Christ and his salvation; but they would not hear. They ordered us to leave the city at once; but I had declined to leave until I had delivered to them my message. The throng was filling the streets. They told me if I tried to utter another word I should be killed! There was no rescue; they would have the city gates closed, and there should never any news go forth of what was done. I must leave at once, or never leave that city alive! I had seen them tear up the paving-stones, and fill their arms with them, to be ready; and one was saying to another, ‘You throw the first stone, and I will throw the next.’

“In a way I need not stop now to detail, I succeeded in getting permission to tell them a story before they stoned me, and then they might stone me if they wished. They were standing around me ready to throw the stones, while I told them the story of all stories—the love of the Divine Father that had made us of one blood; who ‘so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ I told them that story of the life in the manger at Bethlehem; of that wonderful childhood; of that marvelous life; of those miraculous deeds; of the gracious words that he spoke. I told them the story of the cross, and pictured, in the graphic words that the Master gave me that day, the story of our Saviour nailed to the cross, for them, for me, for all the world, when he cried in agony, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’

“When I told them that, I saw the men go and throw their stones into the gutter, and come back; and down the cheeks of the very men that had been clamoring the loudest for my blood, I saw the tears running, and dropping upon the pavement they had torn up. And when I told them how he had been laid in the grave, and how after three days he had come forth triumphant, and ascended again to Heaven, and that there he ever lives to make intercession for them, for us, and for all the world; and that through his merit every one of them there might receive remission of sins and eternal life, I told them I had finished my story, and they might stone me now.

“But, no! they did not want to stone me now; they had not known what a wonderful story I had come there to tell them. They came forward and bought Scriptures, and gospels, and tracts, and paid the money for them; for they wanted to know more of the wonderful Saviour.”—Watchword.