The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1889-06-07

hcits? What are our perils? What our
hopes? Let each one say to himself:
''Where will be? Shall range in sum-
merry fields, OF grind in the mills of a
great night? Where? WHEREOF
Some winter morning you go out and
see a snow bank in graceful drifts, as
though by some heavenly compass it had
been curved; and as the sun glints it the
luster is almost insuffeFable, and it seems
as if God had wrapped the earth in a
shrOud with white plaits woven in looms
celestial. And you say: s1Was there
ever any thing so pure as the snow, so
beautiful as the snow?'' But you brought
pail Of that snow and put it upon the
stove and melted it; and you found that
there was a sediment at the bottom; and
every drop of that snow water was riled;
and you found that the snow bank had
gathered up the impurity of the field, and
that after all it was not fit to wash in.
And so l say it will be if you try to gather
up these contrasts and comparisons with
others, and with these apologies attempt
to wash out the sins of your heart and
life. 1t will be unsuccessful ablution.
Such snow water will never wash away
single stain Of an immortal soul.
But hear some one say: 81 will try
something better than that. l will try
the force Of a good resolution. That will
be more pungent, more caustic, more ex-
tirpating, more cleansing. The snow
water has failed, and now 1 will try the
alkah of the good, strong resolution"
Ny dear brother, have you any idea that
a resolution about the future will hqui-
date the past? Suppose 1 owed you five
thousand dollars and I should come to
you tomorrow and say: ''Sir, will never
run in debt to you ag ain; if I should live
thirty years 1 will never run in debt to
you again. viii you turn to me and say:
''If you will not run in debt in the future
1 viii forgive you the Ave thousand dol
lars" VIII you do that? No! Nor will
God. We have been running up a long
score of indebtedness with God. If for
the future we should abstain from sin,
that would be no defrayment of past in
debtedness. Though you should live
from this time forth pure as an arch
angel before the throne, that would not
redeem the past. God in tho Bible de-
clares that He twill require that which is
past"-past opportunities, past neglects,
past wicked words, past impure magma
tons, past every thing. The past is
great cemetery, aud every day is buried
in it. And here is Il long row of three
hundred and sixty-f five graves. They are
the dead days of 1888. Here is n long row
of three hundred aud sixty-fve more
graves, and they are the dead days of
| 1887. And there is a long row of three
hundred and sixty Ave more graves, and
they are the dead days of 1886 1t Is a
vast cemetery of the past But God viii
rouse them all up with resurrectiouary
blast and as the prisoner stands face to
face with juror and judge, SO you and I
will have to come up and look upon those
| departed days face to face, exulting in
| their smile or covering in their frown.
Murder will out" is a proverb that
| stops too shot. Every sin, however small,
as we'll as great, will out. In hard times
in England, years ago, it is automatically
stated that manufacturer was on the
way, with bag of money, to pay of his
hands. A man Infatuated with hunger
met him on the road and took rail with
nail in it from the paling fence and
struck him down, and the nail entering
| the skull, instantly slew him. Thirty
| years after that the murderer went back
/ to that place. He passed into the grave
/ yard, where the sexton was digging a
| grave, and while he stood there the spade
\ of the sexton turned up a skull; and, 10!
| the murderer saw a nail protruding from
the back part of the sknu; and, as the
/ sexton turned the skull, it seemed with
hollow eyes to glare on the MUIR
derer, and he, first petrifed with
horror, stood in silence, but soon Dried
/ out; "Guilty guilty. o, God :" The
mystery of the crime was over. The
man. was tried and executed. Ny friends,
| all the unpardoned sins of our lives,
though we may think they are buried out
] of sight and gone into a mere skeleton Of
memory, will turn up in the cemetery of
the past, and glover upon us with their
misdOings. l say all our unpardoned
sins. Oh, have you done the prepOster-
| GUS thing of suppOsing that good resolu-
tons for the future will wipe out the
| past? Good resolutions, though they
may be pungent and caustic as alkai,
| have no power to neutralize a sin, have
| no power to wash away transgressiOn.
| 1t wants something more than earthly
chemistry to do this. Yea, yeah though 81
| wash myself with snow water, and should
1 cleanse my hands in alkaIi, yet shalt
Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine
| own clothes shall abhOr me-"
You see from the last part Of this text
that Jobs idea of sin was very different
from that of Eugene Sue, or George Sand,
or NJ. J. Michelet, or any of the hundreds
of writer's who have done up iniquity in
mezzO-tint and garlanded the wine cup
with eglantine and rosemary and made
the path of the libertine end in bowers of
ease instead of on the hot tagging Of
eternal torture. You see that Job thinks
that sin is not fowery parterre; that i
is not tableland of fine prospects; that
it is not music, duIcimer, violonceIIO,
castanet and Pandean pipes, all making
music together. No. He says it is a
ditch, long, deep, loathsOme, stenchful,
and we are all plunged into it, and there
we walIow and sink and struggle, not
| able to get out, Our robes of prOpriety
and robes of worldly profession are
saturated in the slime and abOmiuation,
aud our soul, covered over with trans
gression, hates its covering and the COW
ering hates the soul until we are plunged
into the ditch, and our own clothes abhor
us.
know that some modern religionist:
| caricature sorrow fOr.sin, and they make
out an easier path than the pilgrim s
| progress" that John Bunyan dreamed Of
The road they travel does not stop where
Johns did, at the city of Destruction, but
at the gate of the university, and am
very certain that it will not come ou
where Johns did, under the shining ram
parts of the Celestial City. No repent
ance, no pardon. II you do not, my
brother, feel that you are down in the
ditch, what do you want Os Christ to lift
you out? If you have no appreciation Of
, the fact that you are astray, what do yOJ
want of Him who came to seek aud save
that which was lost? Yonder is the City
of Paris, the swiftest of the Iumans, com
ing across the Atlantic. The wind i
7 abaft, so that she has not only her en-
gines at work, but all sails up. l am OF
board the Umbria, of the Cunard Line
The boat-davits are swung around. TIL
, boat is lowered get into it with re-
flag, and cross over to where the City o
, Paris is coming, and wave the flag.
The captain looks of from the bridg
/ and says: ''What do you wants" I re
} ply: 81 come to take some of your pas
sengers across to the other vessel;
{ think they will be safer and happie
2 there" The captain would look dow
. with indignation and say: Get out G
I the way or will run you down" An