The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1872-04-19
THE DRUNKARD's GRAVE.

Tangled weeds grew over it
Rank grass, IN great and little tufts,
fourished luxuriently beside and
around it. No memorial stone,
with name craven thereon, and lit
tie cherub, with outstretched wings,
as If bearing the departed soul aloft
to glory, carved upon it, marked the
spot where the very earthly remains
were deposited. A Scotch thistle,
bristling with prickles and angry
like stood sentry over it, froWning
upon a Bathurst bur that presumed
to occupy the second place of dis
honor near its foot. Modest little
wild flowers grew at some distance,
as if unwilling to come near it.
For it was a drunkard's grave.
No iron railing, or in the absence
of iron, no wooden palings enclosed
it. Nobody living seemed to take
an interest In ii, or have any care for
it. Il stood, or rather lay, neglect
ed and forsaken; a marked and
striking contrast to some Of its
neighbors. For it was q drunkard's s
grave.
No weeping willow dropped its
pendent green boughs mournfully
over it like guardian angel with
folded wings watching the sleeping
dust till the glorious resurrection
morn when ''the trumpet shall
sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptibIe.' No dark cypress
gracefully reared It's slender form
close by it, speaking its own silent
language. Friends, keep his mem
ory green" II was drunkard's s
grave.
No roses with their sweet smiling
faces, looking so happy of being
permitted to occupy such hallowed
ground, grew about it, or dropped
one of natures pearly tears upon it.
No violets peeped out with their lit
tie eyes from quiet resting places
around it, making the air redolent
of their sweet perfume, embalming,
in their own quiet way the dead, as
the gentle loving women of whom
we read in the Scripture, with the
alabaster box of ointment, very pre-
cious, did the living. It was a
drunkard's grave.
The wild, winter winds careered
unmolested over 1t, and rushed on
heedlessly past it. The coming
summers hot winds seathed it and
scorched it and burnt it. They had
no respect for i. It was only a
drunkard's grave.
Since the hard and hardened
grave digger carelessly and roughly
smoothed the cold yellow clay of
which it was made, no other hand
tended it. Since that last duh
thud of the spade sounded heavily
upon it, pressing earth upon earth,
and clay upon clay, and dust to the
dust, as if the body were not to rise
again, but we go down deeper and
deeper, no human foot had stood
beside it, save the passing foot of
the needless stranger, as he slowly
moved regardless along, bearing
the remains Of a friend or neigh or
to the narrow house and the long
home, 'Ewhere the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest. .
No busy bee ever paid u flying visit
to it, rested at it, or returned from
it laden with luscious honey, gather
ed from opening flowers blooming
around it. This they did not, for
no flowers invited them. Roses had
never been planted, SO they never
bloomed. 1t was drunkard's
grave.
Cold bitterly cold, blew the wind
on that cold day. Mercilessly beat
the rain upon that rainy day The
wind blew upon wretched horse,
and still more wet ched driver, upon
shackly dray and uncovered coffin,
it blew upon miserable widows, aid
still more miserable looking or
phans, as they moved on slowly and
drearily, scantily clad, along the
rough bush road towards the drunk
ards grave.
As he would have nothing to DO
with religion when living, religion
would have nothing to do with him
when dead. No solemn words de-
claring I am the resurrection and
the life" He that believeth on me,
though he were dead, yet shall he
live, were spoken hopefully over the
drunkard's grave.
No words or psalm nor voice OF
praise was heard. No earnest pray
er went up from from holy lips
pleading from the widow and the
/ tatherless. The man had lived a
drunkard's life, and died a drunk
ards death, was buried in, and had
thus a drunkard's grave.
No hallowed associations cluster
around it. No holy memories cling
tenaciously to it. The mans life
was a blank, his death was a blot
The only legacy he left behind was
a bad name and a drunkard's s grave
This is it, with tangled weeds
growing over it. With the rank
grass fourishing luxuriantly around
il. That is it with no menOria,
stone over it. Yonder, whero the
Stoteh thistle, angry-hke, frowns al
its head, and the Bathurst bur, fl
emblem of the curse ofstrong drink
! grows at its foot. Yes, that is the
drunkard's grave. Stranger, as yoU
pass look at it in the light OF this
/ passage: ''The drunkard shall not
inherit the kingdom of God," an6
man, as You value your SOUL avoid
the drunkard's grave.
THE BARN IN WHICH BOoTH Wal
| KnLED.-Richard II. Garrett, o
Virginia, the owner of the barn II
which J. Wilkes Booth took refugt
from his pursuers, some time sine
preferred claim to Congress fo
] -. IN LIN lcr IL ---L----L:--