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


travel TO Jerusalem to carry a cross,
can we not afford a few leaves from
our branches to make emerald His way?
The process Is gong on every moment
In all directions. What makes that
father have such hard work to find the
hymn to-day? He puts on his spectacles
and holds the book close up, and then
holds it far off, and is not quite sure
whether the number is $50 or 100, and
the fingers with which he turns the
leaves are very clumsy. He stoops
good deal, although once he was straight
as an arrow and his eyes were as keen
as a hawks, and the hand he offered to
his bride on the marriage day was of
goodly shape and as God made it. will
tell you what is the matter. Forty years
ago he resolved his family should have
no need. and his children should be well
educated and suffer none of the disad-
vantages of lack of schooling from which
he had suffered for lifetime, and that
the wolf of hunger should never put its
paw on his dcor-sill, and for forty or
fifty years he had been tearing off from
the palm tree of his physical strength
and manly form branches to throw
in the pathway of his household. It
has cost him muscle, and brain, and
health, and eyesight, and there have
been twisted off more years from his
life than any man in the crowd on the
famous Palm Sunday twisted of
branches from the palm trees on the
road from Bethpage to Jerusalem.
What makes the mother look older than
she really is? You say she ought not
yet to have one gray line in her hair.
The truth is, the family was not al
ways as well off as now. The married
pair had hard struggle at the start.
Examine the tips of the forefinger and
thumb of her right hand, they will tell
you the story of the needle that was
piled day in and day out. Yea, look at
both her hands, and they will tell the
story of the time when she did
her own work, her own mend
ing and scrubbing and washing.
Yea, look into the face and read
the story of scarlet fevers, and groups,
and midnight watchings, when none but
God and herself in that house were
awake, and then the burials and the
loneliness aftcrward, which was more
exhausting than the preceding watch
ing had been. and no one now to put to
bed. How fair she once was, and as
graceful as the palm tree, but all the
branches of her strength and beauty
were long ago torn off and thrown into
the pathway of her household. Alas!
that sons and daughters, themselves SO
straight and graceful and educated,
should ever forget that they are walk
ing to-day over the fallen strength of
an Industrious and honored parent
age. A little ashamed, are you,
at their ungrammatical utterance?
1t was through their sacrifices that you
learned accuracy of speech. Do you lose
patience with them because they are
little querulous and complaining? /
guess you forget how querulous and
complaining you were when you were
getting over that whooping cough or
that intermittent fever. A little an
noyed, are you, because her hearing is
poor and you have to tell her something
twice? She was not always hard of
hearing. When you were two years old
your first call for a drink at midnight
woke her from sound sleep as quickly
as anyone will walSen at the trumphet
call of the resurrection.
Oh, my young lady, what is that un-
der the sole of your fine shoe? 1t is a
palm leaf which was torn off the tree
of the maternal fidelity. Young mer-
chant, young lawyer, young journalist,
young mechanic, with good salary and
fine clothes and refined surroundings
have you forgotten what time your
father had that winter, after the sum-
mer's crops had failed through the
droughts or floods or locusts, and how
he wore his old gray coat too long and
made his old hat do that he might keep
you at school or college? What is that,
my young man, under your fine boot to-
day, the boot that so well fits your foot,
such boot as your father could never
afford TO wear? 1t must be
leaf from the palm tree of your fathers
self-sacrifice. Do not be ashamed of him
when he comes to town, and, because
his manners are a little old-fashioned
try to smuggle him in and smuggle him
out, but call in your best friend and
take him to the house of God, and in
troduce him to your pastor and say:
This is my father" If he had kept
for himself the advantages which he
gave you he would be as well educated
and as well gotten up as you. When in
the English parliament member was
making great speech that was unan-
swerable a lord derisively cried out:
Il remember you when you blackened
my fathers bootsr" EYES," replied the
man. land did not do it well?"
My hearers, the time will come when
upon the whole church of God will de-
scend such an avalanche of blessing,
and then the bringing of the world to
God will be matter of few years,
perhaps few days or a few hours
Ride on, o Christi for the evangelization
of all nations. Thou Christ who
didst ride on the unbroken colt
down the sides of Olivet, on the
white horse of eternal victory tide
through all nations, and may we, by
our prayers and our self-sacrifce
and our contributions and our consecra-
ton, throw palm branches in the way.
clap my hands at the coming victory.
feel this morning as did the Israelites
when on their march to Canaan, they
came not under the shadow of one palm
tree, but of seventy palm trees, stand
ing in an oasis among dozen gush-
ing fountains, or, as the Book
puts it: Twelve wells of water
and three score and ten palm
trees Surely there are more than
seventy such great glorious souls pres
emit to-day. Indeed it is mighty
grove of palm trees, and l feel some
thing of the raptures which | shall feel
when our last battle fought and our