The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1894-08-03

try. I wonder how many good deeds
can do in the next sixty years? win
try. God help me.'
That young man enters life. He is
buffeted, he is tried, he is perplexed.
A grave opens on this side and grave
opens on that side. He falls, but he
rises again He gets into a hard bat
tie, but he gets the victory. The main
course of his life is in the right direc-
ton He blesses everybody he comes
an contact With. God forgives his mis-
ta4es, and makes everlasting record Of
his holy endeavors, and at the close OF
it God says to him: well done, good
and faithful servant; enter into the
joys of thy Lord" My brother, my
sister, do not care whether that man
dies at thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seven
ty or eighty years of age; you can
chisel right under his name on the
tombstone these words: His life was
worth living"
Amid the hills of New Hampshire, in
olden times, there sits mother. There
are six children in the household-four
boys and two girls. Small farm.
Very rough. hard work to coax a living
out of it. Mighty tug to make the two
ends of the year meet. The boys go to
school in winter and work the farm in
summer. Mother is the chief pre-
siding spirit. With her hands
she knits all the stockings for
the little feet, and she is the
mantuamaker for the boys, and she
is the milliner for the girls. There is
| only one musical instrument in the
| house-the spinning wheel. The food
4 =
vided, The winters are very cold, but
are kept out by the blankets she quilt
ed. On Sunday, when she appears in
the village church, her children around
her, the minister looks down, and is re-
minded of the Bible description of
good housewife: Her children arise up
and call her blessed; her husband also,
and he pFaiseth her."
Some years go by, and the two eldest
boys want collegiate education, and
| the household economies are severer,
and the calculations are closer, and I'M
til those two boys get their education
there is hard battle for bread. One
of these boys enters the university,
stands in a pulpit widely influential,
and breaches righteousness, judgment
and temperance, and thousands dur
ing his ministry are blessed.
The other lad who got the col
leglate education goes into the
law, and thence into legislative halls,
and after awhile he commands listen
ing senates as he makes plea for the
down-trodden and the outcast. One of
the younger boys becomes merchant,
starting at the foot of the ladder, but
climbing on up until his success and
his philanthropies are recognized all
over the land. The other son stays at
home because he prefers farming life,
and then he thinks he will be able to
take care of father and mother when
they get old.
OF the two daughters, when the war
broke out one went through the hos
pitfalls of Pittsburg Landing and
Fortress Monroe, cheering up the dy-
| ing and homesick, and taking the last
message to kindred far away. So that
every time Christ thought of her III o
said, as of old: 1.-THE same is my sister
and mother" The other daughter has
bright home of her own, and in the
afternoon of the forenoon when she
has been devoted to her household, she
goes forth to hunt up the sick and en-
courage the discouraged, leaving
smiles and benediction all along the
way.
But one day there start five tele-
grams from the village for these five
absent ones, saying: Come, mother is
dangerously ILL.," But before they can
be ready to start they receive another
telegram, saying: Come, mother is
dead" The old neighbors gather in
the old farm house to do the
last Offices of respect. But as that
farming son, and the clergyman, and
the senator, and the merchant,
and the two daughters stand by the
caslxet of the dead mother, taking tbs
last look, or lifting their children to
see once more the face of dear ole
grandma, l want to ask that group
around the casket one question: "Dc
you really think her life was worth
living?' A life for God, a life for 9TH
ers, a life of unselfshness, a useful
life, a Christian life, is always work
living.
l would not find it hard to persuade
you that the poor lad, Peter Cooper,
making glue for living, and then
amassing great fortune until he could
build philanthropy which has had its
echo in ten thousand philanthropies all
over the country-I would not find it hard
to persuade you that his life was worth
living Neither would l find it hard to
persuade you that the life of Susan
nah Wesley was worth living. She
sent out one son to organize Meth
odism and the other son to ring his
anthems all through the ages. would
not find it hard to persuade you that
the life of Frances Leere was WORTH
living, as she established in En-
gland a school for the scientific
nursing of the sick, and when
the war broke out between
France and Germany, went to the
front, and with her own hands scraped
the mud off the bodies of the soldiers
dying in the trenches with her weak
arm-standing one night in the hos
pital-pushing back German soldier
to his couch, as, all frenzied with his
wounds, he rushed toward the door
and said: Let me go, let me go to
my 1iebe mutter.'" Major generals
standing back to let pass this angel of
mercy.
But know the thoughts in the minds
of hundreds who read this. You say:
''While I know all these lived lives
worth living, I don't think my life
amounts to much" All! my friends,
whether you live life conspicuous