p. 99 | A Street-Car Sermon

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 12, 1885

A Street-Car Sermon.

EVERY one who is in the habit of learning from things that are about him knows that the most beautiful sermons are preached and the most beautiful traits illustrated in the casual and accidental intercourse of daily life. The public conveyances, for instance, give a thoughtful man no end of incidents which serve as food for the most profitable meditation. The memories of Christmas are still warm, and those memories include not a few rich and beautiful services in which the meaning of the day was set forth with all the pomp of ritual, music, and speech; but in no cathedral was the heart of Christmas more beautifully illustrated than in a car of the Third Avenue Elevated Railroad on the eve of the anniversary. The car was full of people going home loaded with bundles and packages of every description. On one side sat a father and mother with a little daughter between them; they were well-dressed, comfortable people, with an atmosphere of general prosperity about them. The little girl held a pretty doll in each arm, and was radiant with happiness, looking first at one doll, then at the other, and then up into her parents' faces with a joy and a trust that were evidently mutual among the three, and in which every passenger in the car found something lovely and touching. Directly opposite, on the other side, sat a similar group—father, mother, and little daughter. They were working people, poorly dressed, with the burdens of life evident on their faces. The little girl, facing the picture opposite her, looked sad enough as she gazed into her own empty lap and up into her parents' faces. All three seemed to realize how much they were missing of the gracious and beautiful gifts of life. The contrast was so evident and so striking that not a passenger in the car failed to take it in. While all other eyes were looking, the fortunate little girl seemed to understand it herself. Without saying a word to her parents, and evidently following an impulse which suddenly flashed into her heart, she stepped down from her seat, crossed the car, and, placing one of the dolls in the poor child's lap, said: 'One is enough for me; you take that; I would like you to have it.' It was the gospel of Christ, pure and simple; it divided between two families the joy of the one. It reached the heart of every person in the car, and it is no exaggeration to say that, among the strong men who were hiding their faces from each other under the sudden sweep of emotion, there was not one without a deeper and more loving thought about Christmas than he had had before.—Christian Union.