BIBLIOMANCY
Whitefield had to sail for Georgia, and he summoned Wesley to leave London and come to Bristol to take up the strange work begun there. In the little society in Fetter Lane that call was heard with dread. Some dim sense of great issues hanging upon the answer to it disquieted the minds of the little company. The Bible was consulted by lot, and repeatedly, in search of a text which might be accepted as a decision. But only the most alarming passages emerged. “Get thee up into this mountain and die on the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered to thy people,” ran one. When one chance-selected text proved disquieting in this fashion the lot was cast again and yet again, but always with the same result. There was a quaint mixture of superstition and simplicity in the Bibliomancy of the early Methodists. If the text which presented itself did not please, it was rejected, and the sacred pages were interrogated by chance afresh, in the hope of more welcome results.—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”
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BIGNESS
The size of a gathering is not the important thing, it is the spirit and purpose of it.
Some years ago at a meeting of Congregationalist ministers in Windham County, Conn., one of their number arose and proposed that arrangements be made for a great convocation of all the ministers and churches in all that county and vicinity. He expatiated largely upon the importance of such an assembly, tho without giving any very definite evidence as to the value of the results that might be attained; and closed by recommending the project to the favorable consideration of the brotherhood.
An old and well-known and somewhat eccentric preacher, Thomas Williams, arose in his place and spoke in substance as follows:
“A man once said: ‘If all the iron in the world were made into one ax, what a great ax that would be! And if all the water in the world were poured into one pond, what a great pond that would be! And if all the wood in the world were made into one tree, what a great tree that would be! And if all the men in the world were made into one man, what a great man that would be!’ And then,” drawled out the speaker, “if that great man should take that great ax, and fell that great tree into that great pond, what a great splosh there would be!”
The old man sat down, and nothing more was heard of the “great splosh” or the great meeting.
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