The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-04-22

they are ready to lift them. Peo-
pie who say yes, yes" when they
are asked for assistance by word
or deed, instead of mo, no. Most of
the mysteries that bother others do not
bother me, because ] adjourn them; but
the mystery that really bothers me is,
why God made SO many people who
amount TO nothing SO far as the worlds
betterment is concerned. They stand,
in the way. They object. They dis
cuss hinderances. They suggest posta-
bilities of failure. Over the road of life.
instead of pulling in the traces, they
are lying back in the breechings They
are the everlasting No. They are bram-
bic trees, they are willows, always
mourning, or wild cherry trees, yield
| ing only the bitter, or crab apple trees,
| producing only the sour, while God
would have us all flourish like the palm
tree. Planted in the Bible, that tree
| always means usefulness. But, how
| little any of us or all of us accomplish
in that direction. We take twenty or
thirty years to get fully ready for
Christian work, and in the afterpart of
life we take ten or twenty years for the
| gradual closing of active work, and
that leaves only. so little time between
opening and stopping work that all we
| accomplish is so little an angel of God
needs to exert himself to see it at all.
Nearly everything see around, be-
meath, and above, in the natural world,
suggests useful service. If there is
nothing in the Bible that inspires you
to usefulness, go out and study the
world around you this springtime and
learn the great lesson of useful
ness. What art thou doing up there,
little star? Why not shut thine eye
and sleep, for who care for thy shin
| ipg?" NO" saith the star, Il will not
sleep. / guide the sailor on the sea. /
cheer the traveller among the noun
tains. help tip the dew with light.
Through the windows of the poor
mans cabin 1 cast beam of hope, and
the child on her mothers lap asks in
glee whittier / come and what do and
whence go. To CLEAN and glitter God
set me here. Away. / have no time to
sleep" The snowflake comes struggling
down. ''Frail, tickle wanderer, why
/ contest thou here?" Il am no idle wan
derer," responds the snowflake. High
up in the air / was born, the child
of the rain and the cold, and
at the Divine behest, / come, and
III am no straggler, for God
tells me where to put my crystal heel.
To help cover the roots of the grain and
grass, to cleanse the air, to make sports
men more happy and the ingle fire more
bright, / come. Though SO light / am
that you toss me from your muller and
crush me under your foot, / am doing
my best to fulfil what / was made for
Clothed in white come on a heavenly
mission, and when my work is done and
God shall call, in morning vapor / shall
go back, drawn by the fiery course of
the sun" what doest thou, insignifi-
cant grass-blade under my feet?" 81
am doing a work, says the grass blade,
''as best can. / help to make up the
soft beauty of field and lawn. / am
satisfied if, with millions of others no
bigger than /, we can give pasture to
the foclxs and herds. 1 am wonder
fully made. He who feeds the ravens
gives me sustance from the soil and
breath from the air, and He who clothes
the lilies of the field rewards me with
this coat of green" ''For what, lonely
cloud, goes6 thou across the heayens?"
Through bright air a voice drops
from affair, saying: up and down this
sapphire floor / pace, to teach men that,
like me, they are passing away. /
gather up the waters from lake
and sea, and then, when the
earth. making the dry ground to
laugh with harvests of wheat and fields
of corn i catch the frown of the storm
and the hues of the rainbow. At even
ing tide on thy western slopes | will
pitch my tent, and over me shall dash
the saffron and the purple and the fire
of the sunset. A pillar of cloud like me
led the chosen across the desert, and
surrounded by such as / the Judge of
Heaven and earth will at last descend,
for Behold He cometh with cloudsr :"
Oh, my friends, if everything in the in
animate world be useful, let us immor-
tai men and women be useful, and, in
that respect, be like the palm tree. But
must not be tempted by what David
, says of that green shaft of Palestine,
, that living and glorious pillar in the
eastern gardens, as seen in olden times
the palm tree; / must not be tempted
!, by what the Old Testament says of it.,
to lessen my emphasis of what John,
the evangelist, says of it in my text.
Notice that it was a beautiful and
lawful robbery of the palm three that
helped make up Christ's triumph on the
road to Jerusalem that Palm Sunday.
The long, broad, green leaves that were
strewn under the feet of the colt and in
the way of Christ. were torn off from
the trees. What pity, some one might
say, that those stately and graceful
trees should be despoiled. The sap
oozed out at the places where the
branches broke. The glory of the
palm tree was appropriately sacrificed
for the Saviour's triumphal procession.
So it always was, so it always will be
in this world-no worthy triumph of
any sort without the tearing down of
something else. Brooklyn bridge, the
glory of our continent, must have two
architects Frustrated, the one slain by
|, his tolls and the other for a life time
invalided. The greatest pictures of the
world had in their richest coloringnthe
blood of the artists who made them.
The mightiest oratorios that ever rolled
through the churches had, in their
pathos, the signs and groans OF the
composers, who wore their lives out in
, writing the harmony. American indie
pendence was triumphant, but if moved
on over the lifeless forms of tens of
thousand of men who fell at Bunker
Hill and Yorktown and the battles be-
tween. which were the hemorrhages of