The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-07-02

on a cold morning with expert huntsmen
to hunt for pigeons; have gone out on
the meadows to hunt for quail; I have
gone out on the marsh to hunt for reed
birds; but this morning am out for
ravens.
Notice in the first place in the story of
my text, that these winged caterers came
to Elijah directly from God. 81 have
commanded the ravens that they feed
thee" we find God saying in an adjoining
passage. They did not come out Of some
other cave. They did not just happen to
alight there. God freighted them, God
launched them, and God told them by
what cave to swoop. This is the same God
that is going to supply you. He is your
father. You would have to make an ella
borate calculation before you could tell me
how many pounds of food and how many
yards of clothing would be necessary for
you and your family; but God knows with
out calculation. You have plate at his
table and you are going to be waited on,
unless you act like a naughty child and
kick and scramble and pound saucily the
plate and try to upset things. God has a
vast family, and everything is methodized,
and you are going to be served if you will
only wait your turn. God hes already orr
dered all the suits of clothes you viii ever
need, down to the last suit in which you
shall be laid out. God has already ordered
all the food you will ever eat, down to the
last crumb that viii be put in your mouth
in the dying sacrament. 1t may not be
just the kind of food or apparel we would
prefer. The sensible parent depends on
his own jud gment as to what ought to be
the apparel and the food Of the minor in
the family. The child would say:
"Give me sugars and confections."
''Oh, no." says the parent, ''you must
have something palmer first.''
The child would say: "Oh, give me
these great blotches of color in the gar
ment."
mo" says the parents shat wouldn't be
suitable"
Now, God is our father and we are
minors, and he is going to clothe us and
feed US, although he may not always yield
to our infantile wish for sweets and gilt
ter. These ravens of the text did not
bring pomegranates from the glittering
platter of King Ahab. They brought
bread and meat. God had all the Heavens
and the earth before him and under him,
and yet he sends this plain food, because
it was best for Elijah to have it. Oh, be
strong, my hearer, in the fact that the
same God is going to supply you! Tt is
never "hard times" with him. His ships
never break on the rocks. His banks
never fail. He has the supply for you and
He has the means for sending it. He has
not only cargo but the ship. II it were
necessary He would swing out from the
Heavens q flock of ravens reaching from
his gate TO yours, until the food would be
flung down from the sky from beak to
beak and from talon to talon.
Notice again in this story of the text,
that the ravens did not allow Elijah to
hoard up a surplus. They did not bring
enough on Monday to last all the week.
They did not bring enough one m orning
to last until the next morning. They
came twice day and brought just enough
for one time. You know as well as I that
the great fret of the world is that we want
a surplus-we want the ravens to bring
enough to last for fifty years. You have
more confidence in the Fulton Bank or the
Nassau Bank or Bank of England than
you have in the bank of hea ven. You
say:
GAN that is very poetic, but you may
have the black ravens; give me the gold
eagles"
We had better be contented with just
enough. If in the morning your family
eat up all the food there is in the house,
do not sit down and cry and say:
81 don't know where the next meal is to
come from"
About five or six or seven O'Clock in the
morning, just look up and you viii see
two black spots on the sky, and you will
hear the Tapping of wings, and instead of
Edgar A. Poe's insane raven aligbting on
the chamber door, "only this and nothing
more" you viii find Elijah's two ravens,
or the two ravens OF the Lord, the one
bringing bread and the other bringing
meat-plumed butcher and baker.
God is infinite in resource. When the
city of Rochelle was besieged and the in
habitants were dying of the famine, the
tides washed up on the beach as never be-
fore, and as never since, enough shelI-fsh
to feed the whole city. God is good.
There is no mistake about that. History
tells US that in 1865 in England there was
a great drouth. The crops failed, but in
Essex, on the rocks, in place where they
had neither sovn nor cultured, a great
crop of peas grew until they filed hun
dred measures; and there were blossom
ing vines enough promising as much
more.
But why go so far? I can give you a
family incident. Some generations back
there was a great droueh hit in Connecticut,
New England. The water disappeared
from the hills, and the farmers living on
the hills drove their cattle down toward
the valleys and had them supplied at the
wells and fountains of the neighbors. But
these after awhile began to fail, and the
neighbors said to Mr.. Birdseye of whom
shall speak:
"You must not send your focks and
herds down here any more, our wells are
giving out"
Mr. Birdseye the old Christian man
gathered his family at the altar, and with
his family he gathered the slaves of the
household-for bondage was then in
vogue in Connecticut-and on their knees
before God they cried for water; and the
family story is that there was weeping and
great sobbing at that altar that the family
might not perish for lack of water, and
that the herds and focks might not perish.
The family rose from the altar. Mr.. Birds
eye the old man, took his staff and walked
out over the hills, and in a place where he
had been scores of times without noticing
any thing particular, he saw the ground
was very dark, and he took his staff and
turned up the ground, and water started;
and be beckoned to his servants, and they
came and they brought pals and buckets
until all the family and all the iocks and
the herds were cared for, and then they
made troughs reaching from that place
down to the house and barn, and the wa
ter flowed and it is a living fountain to-
day.
Now, 1 call that old grandfather Elijah,
and I call that brook that began to roll
then, and is rolling still, the brook Cher
it'll; and the lesson to me and all who hear
it is, when you are in great stress Of cir
Gums tances pray and dig, dig and pray,
and pray and dig. How does that passage
go: