The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-09-21

\ color OF That ODellSk. One man SAID AZ
was white, another said il was green,
another man said it was blue, and
when they were in the very heat Of the
controversy more intelligent travel
er came, and said. 'sGentlemen, have
seen that obelislx, and you are ali right
and you are all wrong. Why didn't
you walk all around the obelisk?"
Look out for the man who sees only
one side of a religious truth. Look
out for the man who never walks
around about these great glories of
God and eternity and the dead. He
will be bigot inevitably-the man
who only sees one side. There is no
man more to be. pitied than he who has
in his head just one idea-no more, no
less. More light. less sectarianism.
There is nothing that will so soon kill
| bigotry as sunshine-God's sunshine.
So l have set before you what I con-
slider TO be the causes of bigotry. i
have set before you the origin of this
| great evil. What are some of the bale
! full effects? First of all, it cripples in
vestigation. You are wrong, and / am
right, and that ends it. No taste for
exploration, no spirit of investigation.
/ From the glorious REIN of Gods truth,
over which an archangel might fly
from eternity to eternity and not reach
| the limit, the man shuts himself out
and dies, IA blind mole under corn
shock. 1t stops all investigation.
While each denomination of Chris
tians is to present all the truths of the
Bible, it seems to me that God has
| crixap 70 aaob da,,,ry,;,.a 4;o,, n >, as,,ao;al
mission to give particular emphasis to
some one doctrine; and SO the Calvinis-
tic churches must present the sover-
eighty of God, and the Arninian
churches must present mans free
agency, and the Episcopal churches
must present the Importance
of order and solemn ceremony,
and the Baptist churches must
present the necessity of ordinances,
and the Congregational church must
present the responsibility of the in
dividual member, and the Methodist
church must show what holy enthu-
siasm hearty congregational singing
can accomplish. While each denOmi-
nation of Christians must set forth all
the doctrines of the Bible, feel it is
especially incumbent upon each denOm-
ination to put particular emphasis on
some one doctrine.
Another great damage done by the
sectarianism and bigotry of the church
is that is disgusts people with the
Christian religion. Now, my friends,
the Church of God was never intended
for war barrack. People are afraid
of riot. You 60 down the street and
you see an excitement, and missiles
flying through the air, and you hear
the shock of firearms. Do you, the
peaceful and Industrious citizen, go
| through that street? Oh, mol you will
| say: ''I'll GO around the block" Now,
men, come and look upon this narrow
path to Heaven, and sometimes see &c
clesiastical bricLbats flying every
whittier, and they say: ''WeI, ] guess
| I'll take the broad road; there is so
much sharp-shooting on the narrow
road, I guess I'll take the broad roadr'
Again, bigotry and sectarianism do
great damage in the fact that they
hinder the triumph of the Gospel. Oh,
how much wasted ammunition! How
many men of splendid intellect have
given their whole life to controversial
disputes, when, if they had given their
life to something practical, they might
have been vastly useful! Suppose,
while l speak, there were a common
enemy coming up the bay, and all
the forts around the harbor be-
gan to fire into each other
you would cry out: National sui
eide! why don't those forts blaze away
in one direction, and that against the
common enemy?" And yet | some
times see in the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ a strange thing going on;
church against church, minister against
minister, denomination against denom-
ination, firing away into their own
fort, or the fort which ought to be on
the same side, instead of concentrate
ing their energy and giving one mighty
and everlasting vOlley against the
navies of darkness riding up through
the bay!
go out sometimes in the summer,
and / find two beehives, and these two
hives are in a quarrel. l come near
enough not to be stung, but 1 come
| just near enough to hear the contro-
versY, and one beehive says: THAT field
of clover is the sweetest" and another
beehive says: ''That field of clover is
| the sweetest. Il come in between
them, and say: stop this quarrel; if
/ you like that field of clover best, go
there; if you like that field of clover
| best, go there; but let me tell
you that hive which gets the most
honey is the best hive!' So l
come ont between the churches of the
Lord Jesus Christ. One denomination
of Christians says: THAT field of
! Christian doctrine is best, and another
says: This field of Christian doctrine
is best Well, say, go where you
/ get the most honey" That is the best
church which gets the most honey of
/ Christian grace for the heart. and the
most horny of Christian usefulness for
the life.
Besides hat, if you want to build up
any denomination, you will never build
it up by tr.ping to pull some other down.
/ Intolerance never put anything down.
/ How much less intolerance accom-
! plishes, for instance, against the Meth
odist church? For long years her
ministers were forbidden the pulpit of
Great Britain. Why was it that so
many of them preached in the fields?
! Simply because they could not get in
I the churches. And the name of the
/ church was given in derision and as
sarcasm. The critics of the church
said: ''They have no order, they have
/ no method III their worship;" and the
critice, therefore, in irony called them
I ssMethodists"