The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-03-09
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
How the Homeliest Human Face
May Be Made Beautiful.
Goodness and Cheerfulness WIN Make the
Plainest Face AttractIve-The
ChiseIs That DIsngure the
Countenance.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took THE
Human Face" as the topic of a recent
discourse in the Brooklyn tabernacle,
taking for his text:
A mans wisdom maketh his face TO shine
and the holiness OF his face shall be changed.
| -Ecclesiates. viii, /.
Thus a little change in our English
translation brings out the better mean
ing of the text, which sets forth that
the character of the face is decided by
the character of the soul. The main
features of our countenance were de-
cided by the Almighty, and we can not
change them; but under God we de-
eide whether we shall have counte-
nances benignant or baleful, sour or
sweet, wrathful or genial, benevolent
| or mean, honest or scoundrelly, inn
pudent or modest, courageous or cow
ardly, frank or sneaking. In all the
works of God there is nothing more
wonderful than the human counte-
nance. Though the longest face is
less than twelve inches from the hair
line of the forehead to the bottom of
the chin, and the broadest face is less
than eight inches from cheek bone to
cheek bone, yet in that small compass
God hath wrought such differences
that the one billion and six. hundred
million of the human race may be dis
| tinguished from each other by their
facial appearance. The face is ordi-
narily the index of character. 1t is the
| throne of emotions. 1t is the battle
field of the passions. IL is the catalogue
of character. 1t is the map of the mind.
Now, what practical religious and
eternal use would l make of this sub
ject? ! am going to show that while
we are not responsible for features,
the Lord Almighty having decided
what they shall be pre-natally, as the
Psalmist declares when He writes: sin
Thy book all my members were writ
| ten which in continuance were fash
| Toned when as yet there was none of
| them, yet the character which under
God we form will chisel the face most
nightly. Every man would like to
have been made in appearance an
Alcibiades, and every woman would
like to have been made Josephine.
We all want to be agreeable. Our
usefulness depends so much upon it
that / consider it important and Chris
tian for every man and woman to be
as agreeable as possible. The SLOUGH,
the sloven, the man who does not care
how he looks, all such people lack
equipment for usefulness. A minister
who has to throw a quid of tobacco out
of his mouth before he begins to
preach, or Christians with beard I'M
trimmed, making them to look like
wild beasts come out of the liar, yea,
Il Il
greeable men or women, are a
hindrance to religion more than
recommendation.
And now am going to tell you of
some of the chisels that work for the dis
figuration or irradiatiOn of the human
countenance. One of the sharp9st and
most destructive of those chisels of the
countenance in Cynicism. That sours
the disposition and then sours the
face. 1t gives contemptuOus curl to
the lip. 1t draws now the corners of
the mouth and initiates the nostril as
with a malodor. What David said in
haste they say in their deliberation:
"All men are liars" everything is go
ing to ruin. All men and women are
bad, or going to be. Society and the
church are on the down grade. Tell
them of an act of benevolence, and
they say he gave that to advertise
himself. They do not like the present
fashion of hats for women, or of coats
for men. They are opposed to the ad
ministration, municipal, and state, and
national. Somehow, food does not
taste as it used to, and they wonder
| why there are no poets, or orators, or
preachers, as when they were boys
| Even Solomon, one of the wisest, and
at one time one of the worst, of men,
calls into the pessimistic mood, and
| cries out in the twenty-frst chapter of
Proverbs: ''WhO can find n virtuous
woman" If he had behaved himself
| better and kept in good associati ons he
would not have written that interroga-
tion point implying the scarcity good
womanhood. Cynicism, if habit, as
it is with tens of thousands of people,
writes itself all over the features; hence
so many sour visages all up and down
the church and the world. One good
way to make the world worse is to say
it is worse. Let depressed and fore
boding opinion of everything take
possession of you for twenty years and
you will be sight to behold. 1t is
the chastisement of God that when
man allows his heart to be cursed
with cynicism his face becomes
gloomed and scowled and lachrymosed
and blasted with the same midnight.
But let Christian cheerfulness try
| its chisel upon mans countenance.
| Feeling that all things are for his
| good, and that God rules, and that the
| Bible being true the worlds fOraliza-
| tion is rapidly approaching, and the
day when beer-mug, and demijohn,
and distillery, and bomb-shell, and
| riff 4-Fit; and seventy-fOur Founders,
and roulette tables, and corrupt books,
and satanic printing press will have
| quit work, the brightness that comes
| from such anticipation not only gives
zest TO his work, but shines in his eyes
and CLOVIS in his cheeks and kindles a
morning in his entire countenance.
Those are the faces look for in an au-
| dience. Those countenances are sections
of millennial glory. They are Heaven
impersonated. They are the sculpturing
of Gods right hand. They are hosan-
mas in human flesh. They are halle
luiahs alighted. They are Christ re-
incarnated. 1 do no care what your
features are or whether you look like
your father, or your mother, or no one
under the heavens-to God and man you
are beautiful. Michael Angelo, the
sculptor, visiting Florence, some one