THE ONE STRING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 75, 25 May 1945, Page 2

THE ONE STRING

Bv Dr. Herbert Lockycr

Paganini is credited with having stood before great audience when the strings on his violin began to break. The audience smiled when the first string broke laughed when the.second string broke, jeered when the third string broke. But Paganini stood unbaffled, and made such music on that one string as subdued that audience to reverence and finally to -wild cheers and bravos. Out of what he had left, he made music. "One string, and Paganini left." It may be that you are not ver* satile, gifted ) richly blessed as oth~ crs. Brilliance is not yours. Others may be eminent, but life for you is, ordinary and commonplace. You have only one string. Only one string"? rhen. do not des'ptse iX. Why, such a solitary string holds music not of earth it played upon by a Greater than Paganini. Only one string and God, left! How the Lord likes to manipulate single

strings ! 4 D. L. Moody was an ordinary man. Educationally, he was not up to the average. His grammar and spelling were deficient. "Great" was always written "greatc." Moody had only one string but in the hand of the Master-Mu&ieian it produced sublime strains of Gospel--.melody which two continents could not resist.

While thinking about D.. 1.. we must also remember that his mother was a very ordinary woman who had a great .struggle to make ends meet and to provide sufficient food for her family, but she was a very devout woman, and instilled the fear of God in the minds of her children. Later, it was a very ordinary man, a Mr Kimball, who was specially led of God to go to the shop where younj, Moody worked, and ask him the direct question about his soul's salvation, and al this interview Dr L. Moody made the great surrender. Suppose Mrs Moody and Mr Kimball had neglected to use the one string which God had given them. "Who can estimate the great loss the world would have suffered had we been deprived of Moody's preaching? Let God possess the little you have. Serve Him to the limit of your capacity. Give to Him your live loaves and two small fishes, and He will multiply your few paltry sandwiches to feed the vast multitudes. Never forget, if you arc. tempted to despise your ordinary gifts, that, "little is. much if God be in it." —Religious Digest.