The west Tennessee star. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1888, 1888-08-03


falling back from the Brussels market
place, yet all the time triumphing. Not
withstaadiug all the shocking reyerses
which the Church OF Christ suffers, what
do we see to-day? Three thousand mis-
siOnaries of the GROSS on heather ground:
sixty thousand ministers OF Jesus Christ
in this land; at least two hundred million
of Christians on the earth. All nations
to-day kindIing in a blaze OF revival.
Falling back, yet advancing until the old
Wesleyan hymn viii prove true:
The lion OF Judah shall break the chain,
And give the victory again and again.
But there is a more marked illustration
of victorious retreat in the life of our
Joshua, the Jesus of the ages. First fall
ing back from an appalling height to an
appalling depth, falling from celestial
hills to Terrestrial valleys, from throne to
manager yet that did not seem to suffice
Him as a retreat. Falling back still
further from Bethlehem to Nazareth, from
Nazareth to Jeru salem, back from Jeru-
salem to GOlgotha, back from Golgotha
to the mausoleum in the rock, back down
over the precjpices of perdition until He
walked amid the caverns of the eternal
captives, and drank of the wine OF the
wrath of Almighty God amid the Arabs
and the Jezebels and the Belshazzars. o
men of the pulpit and men of the pew,
Christ's descent from Heaven to earth
does not measure half the distance. 1t
was from glory to perdition. He de-
scended into hell. All the records of
earthly retreat are as nothing compared
with this falling hack. Santa Ana, with
the fragments of the army, flying over
the plateaux of Mexico, and Napoleon and
his army retreating from No scow into the
awful SHOWS OF Russia, are not worthy to
be mentioned with this retreat whom all
the powers S of darkness seem TO be pur-
suing Christ as He fell back, until the
body of Him who came to do such won
derful things lay pulseless and stripped.
Methinks that no City of Al was was not
so emptied of its inhabitants when they
went to pursue Joshua as perdition
emptied of devils when they started for
theIpursuit of Christ and He fell back and
back, down lower, down lower chasm be-
low chasm, pit below pit, until he seemed
to strike the bottom of objurgatio1 and
scorn and torture Oh, the long, loud,
jubilant shout of hell at the defeat of the
Lord God Almighty!
Lesson the second: The triumph of the
wicked is short. Did you ever see an army
in panic? There Is nothing so uncon-
troIable. If you had stood at Long
Bridge, Washington, during the opening
Of our civil war, you would know what it
is to see an army run. And when those men
OF All looked out and saw those men of
Joshua in q stampede, they expected easy
work. They would scatter hem as the
equinox the leaves. o, the gleeful and
jubilant descent of the men of All upon the
men of Joshua! But their exhilaration was
brief, for the tide of battle turned and
these quondr am conquerOrs left their
miserable carcasses in the wilderness of
Bethaven. So it always Is. The triumph
of the wicked is short. You make twenty
thousand dollars at the gaming table. Do
you expect to keep it2 You will die in
| the poor house. You make a fOrtuus
by iniquitous traffic. Do you expect
| to keep iti Your money will
scatter, or it will stav long enough TO
/ curse your children after you are dead.
| Call over the roll of bad men who pros
pered and see how short was their pros
| perity. For awhile, like the men Of Al,
] they went from conquest to conquest, but
after Nhile disaster rolled back upon
| them and they we're divided into three
/ parts: Misfortune took their property,
! the grave took their body and the lost
| world took their soul. I am always in
terested in the building Of theaters and
| the building of dissipating saloons. /
| like to have them built of the best granite
| and have the rooms made large and to
| have tho pillars made very firm. God is
| going to conquer them, aud they will be
/ turned into asylums and art galleries and
/ churches. The stores in which fraud
| ulent men do business. the splendid
! banking institutions whore the president
| and cashier put all their property in their
wives hands and then fail for $500, 900
| all these institutions are to become the
! places where honest Christian men do
| business.
How long will it take your boys to get
| through your ILL gotten gains? The wicked
do not live ont half their days. For
awhile they swaggor aad strut and make
( a great splash in the newspapers, but
after awhile it all dwindles down into a
| brief paragraph:
Died suddenly, July p. 1884, at thirty-five
| years OF age. Relatives and friends OF the fam
/ lily are invited to attend the funeral on Wednes-
| day at two O'clock, from his late residence on
| Madison Square. Interment at Greenwood.
Some of them jumped off the docks.
! Some of them took prussic acid. Some of
them fell under the snap OF Derringer
| pistol. Some of them spent their last
| days in a lunatic asylum. Where are
| William Tweed and his associates?
Where are Ketcham and Swartwouf, alb
| sconding swindlers? Where is James
/ Fisk, the libertineY Where is John
! Wilkes Booth, the assassin, and all the
other misdemeanants! The wicked do
not live out half their days. Disembogue,
| o world of darkness! Come up Hide
/ brand, and Henry II and Robert Robes
! pierre, and with blistering and BIAS
/ pheming and ashen lips hiss out: THE
/ triumph OF the wicked is short" Alas
| for the men Of All when Joshua stretches
out his spear Oward the cityl
| Lesson the third: How much may be
accomplished by lying in ambush for op-
portunities. Are you hypercritical Of
Joshua's maneuver. Do you say that il
! was cheating for him to take that city by
ambuscadef Was it wrong for Washing
ton to hndIe camp-ires on the New Jer-
sey heights, giving the impression to the
| opposing force that a great army was en-
! camped there when there was none at all:
I answer, If the war WAS right then Joshua
| was right in his stratagem. He violated
no flag Of truce. He broke no treaty, but
by lawful ambuscade captured the city
of Al. Oh, that we all knew how to lie in
| ambush for opportunities TO serve God.
| The best of our opportunities do not lie
on the surface, but are secreted; by tact,
/ by stratagem, by Christian ambuscade
you can take almost any castle Of sin fOl
| Christ. Come up toward men with Q
regular besiegement Of argument and yoJ
will be defeated; but just wait until the
door OF their hearts is set ajar, or they
are of their guard, or their severe eau.
ton is away from home, and then drop in
on them from a Christian ambuscade
There has been many a man up 10 hi
chin in scientific portfolios which proved
there was no Christ and no Divine revela
ton, his pen scimetar flung into th'
heart Of theological opponents, who
nevertheless, has been discounted anC
captured for God by some little three.
year-old child who has got up and pu
her snowy arms around his sinewy neck
and asked some simple question abou
God and Heaven
Oh, make a flank movement; steal I
march on the devil; cheat that man int
Heaven. A five-dollar treatise that vii
stand ali the laws OF hOmileties may fai
TO do that which a penny tract o
Christian entreatY may accomplish Oh
. / for mara (shFf affaus in am buseade. no