The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-05-19

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pathy.
In this garden of the Lord j find the
Mexican cactus, loveliness within,
thorns without, men with great sharp
ness of behavior and manner, but with
in them the peace of God, the love of
God, the grace of God. They are hard
men to handle, ugly men 70 touch, very
apt to strike back when you strike
them, yet within them all loveliness
and attraction, while outside SO COM
pletely unfortunate. Mexican cactus
all the time.
Said a placid elder to Christian
minister: doctor, you would do well
to control your temper" ''Ah!' said
the minister to the placid elder, II con-
troll more temper in five minutes than
you do in five years" These people,
| gifted men, who have great exaspera-
tion of manner, and seem to be very
different from what they should be,
really have in their souls that which
commends them to the Lord Mexican
cactus all the time. So, man said to
me years ago: ''Do you think / ought
to become a member of the church,
have such violent temper?. Yester-
day was crossing Jersey City ferry.
1t was very early in the
morning and / saw a milkman
putting large quantity of water into
his can and l said: That is enough,
SIR and he got off the cart and insulted
me, and 1 knocked him down. WE'LL"
said he, ''do you think could ever be-
come Christian?" That man had in
his soul the grace of the Lord Jesus,
but outside he was full of thorns, and
full of brambles, and full of exaspera-
tions; but he could not hear the story
of Saviour's mercy told without hav-
ing the tears roll down his cheek.
There was loveliness within, but rough
ness outside. Mexican cactus all the
time.
But remember in boyhood that we
had in our fathers garden what we
called the giant of battle, peculiar
rose, very red and very fiery. Sugges-
tive flower, it was called the giant of
battle. And so in the garden of the
Lord we find that kind of fiower-the
Pauls and Martin Luthers, the Wy
cliffes, the John Knoxes-giants of bat
tie. What in other men is a spark, in
them is a confagration; when they
pray, their prayers take fire. When
they suffer they sweat great drops of
blood; when they preach it is pente
cost; when they fight it is a Thermop-
yle; when they die it is martyrdom-
giants of battle. You say: ''Why have
we not more of them in the church of
Christ at this time?" / answer your
question by asking another: ''Why
have we not more Cromwells and Hum
boldts in the world?' God wants only
few giants of battle; they do their
work, and they do it well.
But / find also in the church of God
plant that 1 shall call the snowdrop.
Very beautiful, but cold; it is very
pure, pure as the snowdrop, beautiful
as the snowdrop, and as cold as the
snowdrop. No special sympathy. That
kind of man never loses his patience;
he never weeps, he never flashes with
anger, he never utters rash word.
Always cold, always precise. always
passive, beautiful snowdrop; but l don't
like him. l would rather have one
giant of battle than five thousand
snowdrops.
Give me man who may make some
mistakes in his ardor for the Lords
service, rlther than that kind of nature
which spends its whole life doing but
one thing, and that is keeping equilib-
rum. There are snowdrops in all the
churches-men without any sympathy.
Very good: they are in the garden of
| the Lord, therefore l know they ought
to be there; but always snowdrops
You have seen in some places, per-
haps, a century plant. | do not sup
pose there is person in this house who
| has seen more than one century plant
in full bloom, and when you see the
century plant your emotions are stirred.
You look at it and say: This flower
has been gathering up its beauty for a
century, and it will not bloom again
for another hundred years" Well, /
have to tell you that in this garden of
the church., spoken of in my text, there
is century plant.
1t has gathered up its bloom from all
the ages of eternity, and nineteen CEN
turies ago it put forth its glory. 1t is
not only century plant, but a passion
fiower-the passion flower of Christ; a
crimson flower, blood at the root, and
blood on the leaves, the passion flower
of Jesus, the century plant of eternity.
Come, oh, winds from the north, and
winds from the south, and winds from
the east, and winds from the west, and
scatter the perfume of this flower
through the nations.
His worth, if all the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love Him, too.
Thou, the Christ of all the ages, hast
garments smelling of myrrh, and aloes,
and casia, out of the ivory palaces.
go further and say the Church of
Christ is appropriately compared to a
garden, because of its thorough irriga-
tion. There can be no luXuriant gar
den without plenty of water. ] saw
garden in the midst of the desert amid
the Rocky mountains. | said: How is
it possible you have SO many flowers,
so much rich fruit in desert for miles
around? l suppose some of yon
have seen those gardens. Well, they
told me they had aqueducts and pipes
reaching up to the hills, and the SHOWS
melted on the Sierra Nevada and the
Rocky mountains, and then poured
down in water to those aque-
ducts, and it kept the fields in great
luxuriance. And thought to myself
how like the garden of Christ All
around it the barrenness of sin and the
barrenness of the world, but our eyes
are unto the hills, from whence cometh
our help. There is-a river, the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of
our God, the fountain of gardens and
streams from Lebanon. Water to slake
Il A. r.