The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1891-06-26

ity than an old almanac of 1922, which
told what would be the change of
weather six months ahead, and i'm what
quarter of the moon it is best to plant
turnips- In a word, the effort is to
stop the evangelization of the world.
1t seems to me very much Iii this:
There has been a railway accident,
and many are wounded and dying.
There are several drug stores nea the
scene of casualty. All the doctors
and druggists are needed, and
needed right away. Bandages, stimu-
lants, anesthetics, medicines of all
sorts. What are the doctors and drug
gists doing? Discussing the contents of
some old bottles on the top shelf, bot
ties of medicine which some doctors
and druggists mixed two or three nun
bred years ago. '.Come doctorsl'
'tCome druggists!" cry the people, and
help these wounded and dying that are
being brought from beneath the tim
bers of the crushed rail train. In a
little while it will be too late. Come
for Gods sake! Come right away!''
mo-" says a doctor, mot until we have
settled whether the medicine on that
top shelf was rightly mixed. I say
there were too many drops of laudanum
in it, and this other man says there were
too many drops of camphor, and emust
get this question settled before we can
attend to the railroad accident" And one
doctor takes another doctor by the coll
lar and pushes him back against the
counter, and one of the druggists says:
'If you will not admit that / am right
about that one bottle, / will smash
every bottle in your apothecsrv store -
and he proceeds to smash. Meanwhile,
on the lower shelf, plainly marked and
within easy reach, are all the medi-
zines needed for the helping of the
sufferers by the accident, and in that
drawer, easily opened, are the bandages
and splints, for the lack of which fifty
people are dying outside the drug store.
Before I apply this thought, everyone
sees its application. Here is this old
world, and it is off track. Sin and sor-
row have collided with it. The groan of
agony is fourteen hundred million
voiced. Tod has opened for relief
and n a great Sanitarium, a
great House of Mercy, and all its
shelves are filed with balsams,
with catholicons, with help. glo-
rious help, tremendous help, help so
easily administered that you need no:
get upon any step-ladder to reach it.
You can reach it on your knees, and
then hand it to all the suffering and the.
SHINING and the dying. Comfort for all
the troubled Pardon for all the guilty.
Peace for all the dyingl But while the
world is needing the relief and perish
ing for lack of it, what of the church?
Why, it is full of fighting doctors. On
the top shelf are some old bottles, which
several hundred years ago Calvin or
Arminius. or the members of the synod
of bort, or the formers of the Nicene
Creed, filled with holy mixtures, and
until we get a revision of these old bot
ties and find out whether we must take
a teaspoonful or tablespoonful, and
whether before or after meals, let the
nations suffer and groan and die. Save
the bottles by all means, if you can not
save anything else.
Now, what part shall you and / take
in this controversy which fills all Chris
tendon with clangor? My advice is:
Take no part In time of riot all
mayors of cities advise good citizens to
stay at home or in their places of bust
ness; and in this time of religious riot /
advise you to go about your regular
work for God. Leave the bottles on
the higher shelves for others to fight
about and take the two bottles on the
shelf within easy reach, the two bottles
which are all this dying world needs;
the one filed with a potion which is
for the cleansing of all sin, the other
filed with n potion which is for the
soothing of all suffering. Two Gospel
bottles! Christ mixed them out of His
own tears and blood. in them is no hui
man admixture. Spend no time on the
mysteriesl You, n man only five or six
feet high, ought not try to wade
an ocean one thousand feet deep. My
own experience has been vivid. / de-
voted the most of my time for years in
trying to understand Gods eternal de-
crees, and i was determined to find out
why the Lord let sin come into the
world, and 1 set out to explore the
doctrine of the Trinity, and with a yard
stick to measure the throne of the In
finite. AS with all my predecessors,
the attempt was a dead failure. For
the last thirty years i LAY not spent
two minute in studying the contro-
verted points of theology, and if | live
thirty years longer l will not spend the
thousandth part of a second in such ex-
ploration. / know two things. and
these / will devote all the years of my
life in proclaiminFs God will through
Jesus Christ pardon sin and He will
comfort trouble
Creeds nave Their uses, but just now
the church Is creeded to death. The
young men entering the ministry are
going to be launched in the thickest
fog that ever settled on the coasts. As
j am TOLD hat in all our services stu
dents of Princeton and Union and Drew
and other theological seminaries are
present, and as these words will come
to thousands of young men who are
soon to enter the ministry, let me say
10 such and through them to their asso-
%ciates, keep out of the bewildering, be-
lifting, destroying and angry c~ontro-
versies abroad The questions our
doctors of divinity are trying to settle
viii not be settled until the day after
the day of Judgment. 1t is
such a poor economy Of time to
spend years and years in trying
to fathom the unfathomable, when in
five minutes in Heaven we win know
all we want to know. Wait till we get
our throne. Wait until the light of eter-
nifty flashes upon our newly -ascended
spirits. 1t is useless for ants on differ
emit sides of a mole-hill to try to discuss
the comparative heights of Mount Blanc