The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-11-03

jumping into the most popular life
boat, made of church-member incon-
sistencies. In times of revival, when
sinners flock into the inquiry room, the
most of them are kept from deciding
Alright because they know so many
Christians who are bad. The inquiry
room becomes worlds fair for ex-
hibition of all the frailties of church
members, so that if you believe
all is there told you, you would
be afraid to enter church
lest you get your pockets picked or
get knocked down. This is the way
they talk: 81 was cheated out of five
hundred dollars by a leader of Bible
class. "a Sunday-school teacher Cos
siped abont me and did her best to de-
stroy my good name" Il had a part
ne rwho swamped our business con-
Germ by his triekery, and then rolled
up his eyes in Friday night prayer
meeting. as though he were looking
for Elijah's chariot to make second
trip and take up another passenger. :"
But what cracked and water
logged and gaping-seamed lifeboat
the inconsistencies of others. Put
me on shinlge mid-Atlantic and leave
me there, rather than in such yawl
of spiritual confidence. God forbid
that Iashould get aboard 1T, and lest
some of you make the mistake of get
ting into it, do as the mariners did
on that Mediterranean ship when the
sailors were about to get int the I'M
safe lifeboat of the text and lose their
lives in that way. "Then the soldiers
cut off the ropes of the boat, and let
her fall off"
But while in my text we stand watch
ing the marines with their cutlasses,
preparing to sever the ropes of the life
boat and let her fall off, notice the poor
equipment. Only one lifeboat. Two
hundred and seventy-six passengers, as
Paul couRted them, and only one life
boat. My text uses the singular and
not the plural. ''Cut off the ropes of
the boat" l do not suppose it would
have held more than thirty people,
though loaded to the waters edge. /
think by marine law all our modern
vessels have enough lifeboats to hold
all the crew and all the passengers in
case of emergency, but the marines of
my text were standing by the only
boat, and that small boat, and
and yet two hundred and seventy-six
passengers. But what thrills me
through and through is the fact that
though we are wrecked by sin and
trouble, and there is only one lifeboat,
that boat is large enough to hold all
who are willing to get into it. The
Gospel hymn expresses it:
S, All may come whoever will,
This Man receives poor sinners still
NY nearer, without asking any ques-
tions, get into the Gospel lifeboat.
Rooml and yet there is room! The
biggest boat on earth is the Gospel
lifeboat' You must remember the pro-
portion of things, and that the ship
wrecked craft is the whole earth, and
the 1ifeboat must be in proportion.
You talk about your Campanias, and
your Lucanias, and your Majestics, and
your City of New Yorks, but all of them
put together are smaller than an In
dams canoe on Schroon lake com
pared with this Gospel lifeboat,
that is large enough to take in all ma
tions. Room for one and room for all.
Get in! GLOW? HOWE" you ask. Well,
know how you feel, for summer be-
fore last, on the sea of Finland, l had
the same experience. The ship in which
we sailed could not venture nearer than
a mile from shore, where stood the Rus
sian palace of Peterhof, and we had to
get into a small boat and be rowed
ashore. The water was rough, and as we
went down the ladder at the side of the
ship we held firmly on to the railing,
but in order to get into the boat we
had at last to let go. How did l know
that the boat was good and that the
oarsmen were sufficient? How did l
know that the Finland sea would not
swallow us with one opening of its
crystal Jaws? We had to trust, and we
did trust, and our trust was well re-
warded. In the same way get into this
Gospel lifeboat. Let go! AS long as
you hold on to any other hope you
are imperiled and you get no advant-
age from the lifeboat Let go! Does
some one here say: 81 guess will hold
on a little to my good works, or to a
pious parentage, or TO something | can
do in the way of achieving my own sal
walton. mo, no, let go! Trust the
Captain, who would not put you into
rickety or uncertain craft.
For the sake of your present and
everlasting welfare, with all the
urgency of an immortal addressing i'm
mortals, cry from the depth of my
soul and at the top of my voice: Let
go! Last summer the life-saving crew
at East Hampton invited me to come
up to the life station and see
the crew practice, for twice week
they are drilled in the important work
assigned them by the United States
and they go through
all the routine of saving the
But that would give lit
tie idea of what they would have to do
if some midnight next winter, the
wind driving backward, a vessel
should get in the grasp of
hurricane. See the lights flare
from the ship in the break
ers, and then responding lights
faring from the beach, and hear the
rockets buzz as they rise, and the life
boat rumbles out, and the gun booms,
and the lifeline rises and falls across
the splintered decks, and the hawser
and the life-boat goes to and
fro. carrying the exhausted mariners,
and the ocean, as if angered by
the snatching of the human prey
from the white teeth of its surf and
the stroke of it's billowing paw, rises
with increased fury to assail the land.
So now am engaged in no light drill,
practicing for what may come over
L