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

Thank God for the wealth of mol
lusks all up and down the earth.
whether feeding the Israelites on their
way to the land flowing with milk and
honey. or, as we are better acquainted
with The fnollusks. when flung to the
beach of lake or sea. There are three
great families of them. If / should
ask you to name three of the great
royal families of the earth, perhaps you
would respond, the House of Stuant,
the House of Hapsburg, the House of
Bourbon, but the three royal families
of mollusks are the univalve or shell
of one part, the bivalve, or she'll of
two parts. and the multivalve, or shell
in many parts, and see God In their
every hinge, in their every tooth,
in their every cartilage, in their
every ligament, in their every spiral
ridge, and in their every color, prism
on prism, and their adaptation of thin
shell for still ponds and thick coatiAgs
for boisterous seas. They all dash
upon me the thought that providential
care of God. What is the use of all
this architecture of the shell, and why
is it pictured from the outside lip clear
down into its labyrinths of construc-
ton? Why the infinity of skill and
radiance in shell? What is the use
of the color and exquisite curve of
thing so significant as a shell-fsh?
Why, when the conchologist, by dredge
or rake fetches the crustaceous speci-
mems to the shore, does he find at his
feet whole Alhambras and Colloseums
and Parthenons and crystal palaces of
beauty in miniature and these bring to
light only an infnitesimal part of the
opulence in the great subaqueous
world. Linn@us counted two thousand
five hundred species of shells, but con-
chology had then only begun it's achieve
ments- While exploring the bed of the
Atlantic ocean in preparation for lay
ing the cable, shelled animals were
brought up from depths of one thou
sand nine hundred fathoms. When
lifting the telegraph wire from the
Mediterranean and Red seas shelled
creatures were brought mp from depths
of two thousand fathoms. The English
admiralty, exploring in behalf of
science, found mollusks at depth of
two thousand four hundred aud thirty
five fathoms, or fourteen thousand two
hundred and ten feet deep. What a
realm awful for vastnessi
As the shell is the only house and
wardrobe of insignificant animals of
the deep, why all that wonder and
beauty of construction? Gods care for
them is the only reason. And if God
provide so munifcently for them, will
He not see that you have wardrobe and
ch Na No e.,
periwinlxle; shall there not be ward
robe and shelter for a man? Would
God give coat of mail for the defense
of nautilus and leave you no defense
against the storm? Does He build
stone house for creature that lasts
season and leave without home soul
that takes hold on centuries and aeons?
Hugh Miller found 'The Footprints of
the Creator in the Old Red Sandstone"
and l hear the harnonies of God in the
tinl1le of the sea shells when the tide
comes in. The same Christ who drew
lesson of providential care from the
fact that God clothes the grass of the
field instructs me to draw the same les
son from the shells.
But while you get this pointed lesson
creatures of the deep, notice i'm their
construction that God helps them to
help themselves. This house of stone
in which they live is not dropped on
them and is not built around them
The material for it exudes from their
own bodies and is adorned with a
colored fluid from the pores of their
own neck. 1t is most interesting
thing to see these crustacean ami
mails fashisn their own homes
out of carbonate of lime and
membrane. And all of this is
almighty lesson to those who are wait
ing for others to build their fortunes,
when they ought to go to work and,
like the mollusl<s, build their own for
tunes out of their own brain, out of
their own sweat, out of their own in
dustries. Not mollusk on all the
beaches of all the seas would have a
house of shell if it had not itself built
one. Do not wait for others to shelter
You or prosper you. All the crustaceous
creatures of the earth, from every flake
of their covering and from every ridge
of their tiny castles on Atlantic and Pa
cific and Mediterranean coasts, say:
Help yourself while God helps you to
help yourself" Those people who are
waiting for their father or rich old un-
Gle to die and leave them a fortune are
as silly as molluslz would be to wait
for some other mollusk to drop on it
shell equipment. 1t would kill the
mollusl1. as in most cases it destroys a
man. Not one person out of hun
dred ever was strong enough to stand
large estate by Inheritance dropped
on him in chunk Have great ex-
pectations from only two persons-God
and yourself. Let the onycha of my
text become your preceptor.
But the more / examine the shells,
the more am impressed that God is
God of emotion. Many scott at emo
ton, and seem to think that God is a
God of cold geometry and iron laws
and eternal apathy and enthroned
stoicism. No! MOI The shells with
overpowering emphasis deny it. While
law and order reign in the universe,
you have but to see the lavishness of
color on the crustacea, all shades of
crimson from faintest blush to blood
of battlefield, all shades of blue,
all shades of green, all shades of all
colors from deepest black to whitest
light, just called out on the shells with
no more order than a mother pre-
meditates or calculates how many kisses
and hugs she shall give her babe wax
ing mp in the morning sunlight. Yes
My God is an emotional Gcd, and He
says: 1--WE must have colors and let the
sun paint all of them on the scroll of
that shell, and we must have music,
and here is carol for the robin, and
psalm for man, and doxology for the