The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1890-09-05

We hear a great deal about the bitter
| tongue, and the sarcastic tongue, and
the quick tongue, and the singing
tongue; but we know very little about
1.-THE soft tongue that breaketh the
bone" We read Hudibras, and Sterne,
and Dean Swift and the other apostles
of acrimony, but give little time to
studying the example of Him who was
reviled, and yet reviled not again. o
that the Lord, by his spirit, would en-
dow US all with "the soft tongue that
breaketh the bone"
pass now to the other thought that l
desire to present, and that is, kindness
as a means of usefulness. In all COM
munities you find skeptical men.
Through early education, or through
the maltreatment of professed Chris
tian people, or through prying curiosity
about the future world, there are a great
many people who become ske ptical in re-
ligious things. How shall you capture
them from God? Sharp argument and sar-
castle retort never won single soul from
skepticism to tho Christian religion.
While powerful books on the "Evi-
dences of Christianity" have their mis-
sion in confirming Christian people in
the faith they have already adopted, 1
have noticed that when skeptical peo-
pie are brought into the kingdom of
Christ, it is through the charm of some
genial soul, and not by argument at all.
Men are not saved through the head;
they are saved through the heart. A
storm comes out of its hiding place.
1t says: "Now we'll just rouse up all
buster; but it does not succeed. Part
of the sea is reused up-perhaps one
half of it, or one-fourth of it. After
awhile the calm moon, placid and beau
tiful, looks down, and the ocean begins
to rise. 1t comes up TO high-water
mark. 1t embraces the great head
lands. II submerges the beaches of all
the continents. 1t is the heart-throb of
one world against the heart-thrOb of an
other world. And L have to tell you
that while all your storms of ridicule
and storms of sarcasm may rouse up the
passion of an immortal nature, nothing
less than the attractive power of Chris
tian kindness can ever raise the death
less spirit to happiness and to God. /
have more faith in tho prayer of a child
lANO cars OANlt III bAlO way VI
an infidcl back to Christ and to Heaven,
than have in all tho kissing thunder
bolts of ecclesiastical controversy.
You can not overcome men with re-
ligious augmentation. If you come at
a skeptical man with an argument on
behalf of the Christian religion, you pm t
the man on his mettle. He says. 81
sec that man has a carbine. I'll use my
carbine. I'll answer his argument with
thy argument" But if you come to
that man, persuading him that you de-
sire his happiness on earth, and his
eternal welfare in the world to come,
he can not answer it.
What i have said is just as true in
the reclamation of the openly vicious
Did you ever know a drunlIard to be
saved through the caricature of a
drunkard? Your mimicry of the stag
gering step, and tho thick tongue, and
the disgusting hiccough, only worse
maddens his brain. But if you come to
him in kindness and sympathy; if you
| show him that you appreciate the awful
grip of depraved appetite; if you per-
suade him of the fact that thousands
who had the graphing hooks of evil in
clination clutched in their souls as
firmly as in his have been delivered,
| then a ray of light will flash across his
vision, and it will seem as is a super
natural hand were steadying his stag
gering gait.
A good many years ago there lay in
the streets man dead drunk, his face
exposed to the blistering MONDAY sun.
A Christian woman passed along, looked
at him, and said: Poor fellow" She
took her handkerchief and spread it over
his face, and passed on. The man
| reused himself up from his debauch,
and began to look at the handkerchief,
and 10! on it was the name of highly
respectable Christian woman of the
city. He went to her, he thanked her
| for her kindness; and that little deed
saved him for this life, and saved him
for the life that is to come. He was
afterward Attorney General of the
| United States; but higher than all, he
became the consecrated disciple of
Jesus Christ
Kind words are so cheap, it is won
| der we do not use them oftener There
arc tens of thousands of people who are
| dying for the lack of one kind word.
/ There is a business man who has fought
/ against trouble until he is perfectly ex-
| hausted. He has heen thinking about
| forgery, about robbery, about suicide.
Go to that business man. Tell him that
| better times arc coming, and tell him
that you yourself were in tight BUSH
ness pass, and the Lord delivered you.
Tell him to put his trust in God.
Tell him that Jesus Christ stands
| beside every business man in his per-
| plexities. Tell him of the sweet prom
Uses of Gods comforting grace. That
man is dying for the lack of just one
| kind word. Go tomorrow and utter
that one saving, omnipotent, kind word.
| Here is n soul that has been swamped
in sin. He wants to find the light of
the Gospel. He feels like a ship
wrecked mariner looking out over the
beach, watching for sail against the
| sky. o, bear down to him. Toll
him that the Lord waits to be
gracious to him, though he has
| been great sinner, there is
great Saviour provided. Tell him that
| though his sins are as scarlet, they
! shall be as snow; though they are red
| like crimson, they shall be as wool
! That man is dying forever for the lack
of one kind word.
! There used to be sung at a great MANY
of the pianos all through the country a
song that mas almost died out. / wish
some one would start it again in our
social circles. There may not have
been very exquisite art in the music,
4 4.