The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-06-30

been scattered by the winds or overlaid
| by whole generations of the dead
looking for the myriad particles of its
own body, while there are a thou
sand million other spirits doing the
same thing, and all the assortment to
be made within one day?" You say:
IF one hundred and fifty men go into a
place of evening entertainment, and
leave their hats and overcoats in the
hall, when they come back it is almoss
impossible for them to get the right
ones, or to get them without a greas
deal of perplexity. And yet you tel;
me that myriads of spirits in the last
/ day will come and find myriads OF
bodies" Have you any more ques-
lions to ask? any more difficulties to
suggest? any more mysteries? Bring
them on. Against whole regiment
OF skepticism l will march these two
champions: Marvel not at this, for
the hour is coming when all who are
In their graves shall come forth. "
THE Lord shall descend from Heaven
with a shout, and the voice of the arch
angel, and the trump of God, and the
dead in Christ shall rise first" You
see l stick to these two passages. Who
art thou, oh, fool, that thou repliest
against God? Hath He promised, and
shall He not do it? Hath He COM
manded, and shall He not bring it to
| pass? Have you not confidence in His
omnipotence? If He could, in the first
place, build my body, after it is torn
down. can He not build it again?
ooh" you say; II would believe that
if you would explain it. l am not dis
posed to be skeptical, but explain how
it can be done" My brother, you be-
lieve a great many things you can not
explain. You believe your mind acts
on your body. Explain the process.
| This seed planted comes upa blue flower.
| Another planted comes up yellow
flower. Another seed planted comes up a
white flower? Why? Why that wart on
your finger? Tell me why some cows
| have horns and other cows have no
horns? Why, when two obstacles
strike each other in the air, do YOU
hear the percussion? What is the sub
tie energy that dissolves solid in a
crucible? What makes the notches in
an oak leaf different from any other
kind of leaf? What makes the orange
How can the almightiness which rides
on the circle of the Heaven find room
to turn it's chariot on a heliotrope? Ex-
plain these. Can you do it? Then
will not explain the resurrection. You
explain one-half of the common mys-
teries of everyday life, and l will ex-
plain all the mysteries of the resurrec-
ton. You can not answer me very
plain questions in regard to ordinary
affairs. am not ashamed to say that
/ can not explain God, and the judy
ment, and the resurrection. l simply
accept them as facts, tremendous and
infinite
Before the resurrection takes place,
everything will be silent. The mauso-
leums and the labyrinths silent. The
graveyards silent, the cemetery silent,
save from the clashing of hoofs and
the grinding of wheels as the last
funeral procession comes in. No breath
of air disturbing the dust where Per-
sepolis stood, and ThebeS and Babylon.
No winlzing of the eyelids long
closed in darkness. No stirring of
the feet that once bounded the
hillside. No opening of the hand that
once plucked the flower out of the edge
of the wild wood. No clutching of
swords by the men who went down
when Persia battled and Rome fell.
Silence from ocean beach to mountain
cliff, and from river to river. The sea
singing the same old tune. The lakes
hushed to sleep in the bosom of the
same great hills. No hand disturbing the
gate of the long-barred sepulchre. All
the nations of the dead motionless in
their winding sheets Up the side of
the hills, down through the trough of
the valleys, far out in the caverns,
across the fields, deep down into the
coral palaces of the ocean depths where
leviathan sports with his fellows
everywhere, layer above layer, height
above height, depth below depth
dead dead dead! But in the
twinkling of an eye, as quick
as that, as the archangePs trum-
pet comes pealing, rolling, reverberat-
ing, crashing across continents and
seas, the earth will give one fearful
shudder and the door of the family
vault, without being unlocked, will
burst open; and all the graves of the
dead will begin to throb and heave like
the waves of the sea; and the mauso
leum of princes will fall into the
dust; and Ostend and Sebastopol,
and Austerlitz and Gettysburg,
stalk forth in the lurid air,
and the shipwrecked rise from the deep,
their wet locks looming above the bill
low; and all the land and all the sea
become one moving mass of life-all
generations, all ages with upturned
countenances-som kindled with rap
ture and others blanched with despair,
but gazing in one direction, upon one
object, and that the throne of resurrec-
toni
While l present these thoughts this
morning, does it not seem that Heaven
comes very near to us, as though our
friends, whom we thought great way
off, are not in the distance, but close
by? You have sometimes come down
to ariver at nightfall, and you have been
surprised how easily you could hear
voices across that river. You shouted
over to the other side of the river,
and they shouted back. 1t is said that
when George Whitefeld preached Id
Third street, Philadelphia, one even
ing time, his voice was heard clear
across to the New Jersey shore. When
/ was a little while chaplain in the
army, / remember how at even
tide we could easily hear the
voices of the piclxets across the Poto-
mac just when they were using
1sr-r,