The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-11-23

nave found Out-AleXander longing
for other worlds to conqneg, and yet
drowned in his own bottle; Byron,
whipped by disquietudes around the
world; Voltaire, cursing his own soul
while all the streets of Paris were
applauding him, Henry IL, con-
suming with hatred against poor
Thomas a Becket-all illustrations
Of the fact that this world
can not make man happy. The very
man who poisoned the pommel of the
saddle on which Queen Elizabeth rode
shouted in the street: "God save the
Queen!" One moment the world APP
plauds, and the next moment the
world mathematics. Oh, come over
into this greater joy, this sublime sol
ace, this magnificent beatitude. The
night after the battle of Shiloh there
were thousands of wounded on the
field and the ambulances had not come.
One Christian soldier, lying there
a-dying under the starlight, began to
sing:
There is a land Of pure delight,
And when he came to the next line
there were score of voices uniting
WheEe saints immortal reign
The song was caught up all over the
field among the wounded; until, it was
said, there were at least ten thousand
wounded men uniting their voices as
they came to the verse:
There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers;
Death like a narrow stream divides,
That Heavenly land from ours.
Oh, it is great religion to live by,
and it is great religion to die by.
There is only one heart throb between
you and that religion this moment.
Just look into the face of your pardon
ing God, and surrender yourself for
time and for eternity, and He is yours.
Some of you, like the young man of
the text, have gone far astray. know
not the history, but you know it-you
know it.
When a young man went.f forth into
life, the legend says, his guardian
angel went forth with him, and get
ting him into a field, the guardian
angel swept a circle clear around
where the young man stood. 1t was
circle of virtue and honor, and he
must not step beyond that circle.
Armed foes came down, but were
obliged to halt at the circle-they
could not pass. But one day a tempt
ress with diamond hand stretched
forth and crossed that circle with
the hand, and the tempted soul took
it, and by that one fell grip was
brought beyond the circle, and died.
Some of you have stepped beyond that
circle. Would you not like this day,
by the grace of God, to step back?
This, say to you, is your hour of sal
vation. There was in the closing
hours of Queen Anne what is called
the clock scene. Flat down on the
pillow in helpless sickness, she
could not move her head or move
her hand. She was waiting for the
hour when the ministers of state
should gather in angry contest; and
worried and worn out by the coming
hour, and in momentary absence CT
the nurse, in the power-the strange
power which delirium sometimes gives
one-she arose and stood in front of
the clock, and stood there watching
the clock, when the nurse returned.
The nurse said, do you see anything
peculiar about that clock?" She made no
answer, but soon died. There is clock
scene in every history. If some of you
would rise from the bed of lethargy and
come out of your delirium of sin, and
look on the clock of your destiny this
moment, you would see and hear
something you have not seen or heard
before, and every tick of the minute,
and every stroke of the hour, and
every swing of the pendulum, would
say: Now, now, now, nowp' Oh,
come home to your fathers house.
Come home, no, prodigal, from the
wilderness. Come home, come home!
But / notice that when the prodigal
came there was the fathers joy. He
did not greet him with any formal
"How doyou do?" He did not come
out and say: ''You are unfit to enter;
go out and wash in the trough by the
well, and then you can come in;
we have had enough trouble
with you" All, no! When the
proprietor of that estate pro-
claimed festival it was an outburst
of fathers love and a fathers JOY.
God is your father. have not much
sympathy with that description of God
l sometimes hear, as though He were
a Turkish sultan-hard and unsympa-
thetic, and listening not to the cry of
his subjects. A man told me he saw.
in one of the eastern lands, king rid
ing along, and two men were in alter
cation, and one charged the other with
having eaten his rice; and the king
said, Then slay the man, and bv
post mortem examination find whether
he has eaten the rice" And he was
slain. Ahl the cruelty of a scene like
that. Our God is not a sultan, not a
despot, but father-kind, loving, for
giving, and he makes all heaven ring
again when prodigal comes back. II
have no pleasure" he says, sin the
death of him that dieth-
If a man does not get to Heaven, it
is because he will not go there. No
difference the color, no difference the
history, no difference the antecedents,
no difference the surroundings, no diff
ference the sin. When the white
horses of Christ's victory are brought
out to celebrate the eternal triumph,
you may ride one Of them, and as God is
greater than all, His joy is greater; and
when a soul comes back there is in
his heart the surging of an infinite
ocean of gladness; and to express that
gladness it takes all the rivers of pleas
ure, and all the ages Of eternity. 1t is
a Joy deeper than all depth, and higher
than all height. and wider than al