The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1889-04-26
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Gradual Rounding-Up Of the
Nineteenth Century.
he Golden Opportunities of the Present
axe Oursi the Future We May Mott
Count Upon Unless We Make
Preparation for It.

or the Century," taking for his text:
Amen; NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. xix, l.
The nineteenth century is departing.
After it has taken a few more steps, if
each year be step, it will be gone into
the eternities. In short time we shall
be in the last decade OF this century,
which fact makes the sOlmnest book out
side the Bible the almanac, and the most
suggestive and the most tremendous
piece Of machinery in all the earth
the clock. The last decade of this
century, upon which we shall soon
enter, will be the grandest mighti-
est and most decisive decade in all
tie shronologles. 1 am glad it is not to
come Immediately, for we need by a new
baptism of the Holy Ghost to prepare for
it. That last ten years OF the nineteenth
ccntury-may we all live to see them!
Does any one say that this di-
vision of time is arbitrary Oh,
no; in other ages the divisions
of time may have been arbitrary, but our
years date from Christ. Does any one
say that the groupings Of ten together is
an arrangement arbitrary? Oh, no; next
to the figure seven, ten is with God ia
vorite number. Abraham dwelt ten years
in Canaan. Ten righteous men would
have saved SodOm. In the ancient taber-
naclc there were ten curtains, their pill
lNIb ten anu tue4E SOCAGlS ten III the
ancient temple were ten LAYERS and ten
cnndle-sticlls and ten tables and a molten
sea Of ten cubits. And the command
nIents written on the granite of Mount
Sinai were ten, and the Kingdom of God
was likened to ten virgins, and ten men
should lay hold Of him that was Jew,
and the reward of the greatly faithful is
that they should reign over ten cities, and
in the effort to take the census of the New
low Hz IND 4
the thousands, crying: "ten thousand
times ten thousand" So 1 come to look
toward the closing ten years of the nine
teenth century with an intensity Of inter-
est 1 can hardly describe.
have also noticed that the favorite
time in many OF the centuries for great
events was the closing fragment Of the
century. Is America to be discovered, it
must be in the last decade of the fifteenth
century, namely, 1892. Was free consti-
tutiOnal government to be we'll estab
lished in America, the last years of the
eighteenth century must achieve it. Were
three cities to be submerged by one pitch
of scori@. Herculaneum and StrabiB and
Pompeii in the latter part Of the first cent
ury must go under. The fourth century
closed with the most agitating ecclesias
teal war of history. Urban the Sixth
against Clemenj the Seventh. Alfred the
ward IrOnsides the eleventh century with
their resounding deeds. The six
.eenth century closed with the es-
adjustment Of religious indie
pendence in the United Netherlands.
Aye, almost every century has had its
peroration of overtowering achieve
ments. As the closing years Of the cent?
aries seem a favOrite tims for great
scenes of emancipation or disaster, and
he d Fsarn mn
Der in the Scriptures, written by Divine
direction, and as We are soon to enter
upon tho last ten Years Of the nineteenth
century, what does the world propose?
What does the Church of God propose?
What do reformers propose? / know
not; but now in the presence Of this con-
secrated assembly, l propose that we
make ready, get all our batteries planted
and all our plans well laid in what re-
mains of this decade, and then in the last
decade of the nineteenth century march
u1p and take this rough W orld for God.
When / say we, I mean the five hundred
million Christians now alive. But as
many OF them will not have enough heart
Tor the work, let us copy Gideon, and as
/ ne had thirty-two thousand men in his
army to fight the Midianites, but many of
/ them were not made of the right stuff,
I and he promulgated a military order,
afraid let him return and depart early
from Gileod," and twenty-five thousand
we're afraid of getting hurt and went
home, and only ten thousand were left,
and God told them that even this reduced
number was too large a number, for they
might think they had triumphed indie
pendent OF Divine help, and so the num-
Der must be stil further reduced, and
only those should be kept in the ranks
s-T,s 1r,e~
haste for victory over their enemies that,
though very thirsty, they would without
stopping "A second just scoop up the water
in the palm of their right hand and scoop
up the water in the palm of their left
hand and only three hundred men did that.
and those three hundred men, with
the battle shout 1.-THE sword OF
the Lord and of Gideon" scattered
the Mechanics like leaves in an
equinox, so out of five hundred million
nominal Christians of to-day let all I'M
believers and towards go home and get
out of the way. And suppose we have
sour hundred million left, suppose only
two hundred million left, suppose one hun
bred million left, yea, suppose we have
only fifty million left, with them we will
undertake tho Divine crusade, and each
one just scooping up palm full Of the
river Of Gods mercy in one hand and a
let us with the cry, The sword of the
Lord and Of Gideon" the sword of the
Lord and of John Knox, the sword of the
Lord and of Matthew Simpson, the sword
Of the Lord and of Bishop McIlvaine, the
sword Of the Lord and of Adoniram judi
son, the sword of the Lord and of Martin
Luther, go into the last crusade of the
+ nine teenth century.
Is il audacious for me e. propose it?
D. =, II. HI
of Naaman told the COMMUNICATIVE chief
where he could get rid of the blOtches of
his awful leprOsy, and his complexion be-
came as fair as a babes. And didn't
Christ, in order to take the ophthalmia
ont OF the eyes Of the blind man, use a
mixture of spittle and dust? And who
showed Butcher a short cut for his army,
so that, instead of taking the regular
road, by which he would have come W
too late, he came mp in time save Water
loo and Europcy Was it not an unknown
lad who perhaps could not write his OWL
nameg And SO /, ''who am less than the
least of all saints" propose a short cut tC
victory, and am willing to be the expecto.
ration on some blind eye and tell some
of the Brigadier- Generals of the
Lord OF Hosts how this leprosied world
may, in the final decade OF the nineteenth
century, have its flesh come again as the
AAN'AA Va ca -ANNA NtAA-NA- - NAANAN sh+A1 tAA1A
in prophesy 70 hinder this speedy con-
summations No. Some one begins &
quote from Daniel about ''time, times ana
q half time, 4" and takes from Revelation
the seven trumpets, blowing them all a
once in my ear. But with utmost rever'
ence I take up all the prophecies and hole
them toward Heaven, and say God never
has and never viii stop consecrated effOr
and holy determination and magnifcen
resolve, aud that If the Church Of Coo
viii rise up to its full work it can make
Daniels time twenty years and his hal
time ten years. Neither Isaiah, mol