The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-05-03

Rev. Il. Dewitt 16in1Ee delivered
the following sermon in the Academy Of
music. New York city, on the subject:
AFTER the Battle" basing it On the
text:
And It came 10 pass of the morrow. SAsn
the Philistiaes tame 70 strip tkS slain, that
they foNad saul and his tafee sons fallen in
Mount GilboA.-h Samuel, XXI, 8.
Some CT you were at South Noun
tain, or Shiloh, or Balls Bluff, or Get
tysburg, on northern or southern side,
and ask you IL there is any saddef
sight than a battlefield after the gbhs
have stopped fringe / walked across
the Geld of AntietanA just after the
conflict. The scene was so sickening
shall not describe it. Every valuable
thing had been taken from the bodies
of the dead, for there are always Vul-
lures lowering over and around an
army, and they pick up the watches
and the memorandum books, and the
letters, and the daguerreotypes, and
The hats and the coats, applying them
to their own uses. The dead make no
resistance. So there are always camp
followers going on and after an army,
rs when Scott went down into Mexico,
as when Napoleon marched up toward
Moscow, as when Won Moltke went 10
Sedan. There is a similar scene in my
text:
Saul and his army had been horribly
cut TO !pieces. Mount Gilboa was
Uhastly with the dead. On the morrow
the stragglcrs came on TO the field, and
they lifted the latchet of the helmet
from under the chin of the dead, and
they picked up the swords and bent
them ON their knee TO test the temper
of the metal, and they opened the wal
lets and counted the coin. Saul lay
dead along the ground, eight or nine
feet in length, and l suppose the cow
ardly Philistines, 90 show their BRAY
cry, leaPed upon the trunk of his car
cRss, and jeered at the fallen slain,
and whistled through the mouth of
his helmet. Before night those eof=
morants had taken everything yalua-
bic from the held: "AAd it came to
pass on the morrow, when the Phil
shines came To strip the slain, that
they found Saul and his three sons fall.
en- in Mount Gilboa."
Before get through to>dayG will show
you that the same process is Eclhg on
all the world over and every day, and
that when men have fallen, Satan and
the world, SO Tar from plying them or
helping them, go to work remorse-
lessly to take what little there l. left,
thus stripping the slain,
There are tens of thousands of young
men every year coming from the coun-
try to cur great cities. They come
with brave hearts and grand expecta-
tions. The country lads sit down in
the village grocery, with their feet on
the iron rod around the red-hot stove,
in the evening, talking over the proc
poets of the young man who has gone
off to the city. Two or three of them
think that perhaps ne might get along
well and succeed, but the most of them
prophecy failare, for it is very hard TO
think that those whom we knew in
boyhood will ever make any great sue
cess an the world.
But cur young man has fine posi-
ton IN dry goods store. The menth
Is over. He gets his wages. He Is not
accustomed to have se ,aHeh money be-
longing to himself, lie is little ex-
cited, and does not know exactly what
to do with it, and he spends it in some
places where he ought not Soon there
come up new companions and acquaint-
ances from the bar rooms and the saa
Icons of the city. Soon thai young
man begins to waver In The battle of
| temptation. and soon his soul goes
down. In few months, or few years,
he has fallen. He is morally dead.
He is a mere corpse of what he once
was The harpies of sin snuff up the
faint and come on the field. His gar
ments gradually give out He has
pawned his watch. His health is fail
ing him. His credit perishes. He is
too poor to stay in the city, and he is
too poor to pay his way home to the
country. Down! down. Why do the
low fellows of the city now stick to
him so closely2 Is it to help him back
to a moral and spiritual life? Oh, no!
1 will tell you why they stay; they are
Philistines stripping the slain.
Do not look where point, but yon-
der stands man who once had beau
tiful home in this city. The house had
elegant furniture, his children were
beautifully clad, his name was
synonymous with honor and useful
nesS; but evil habit knocked at his
front door, knocked at his back door,
knocked at his parlor door, knocked at
his bedroom door. Where is the piano?
Sold to pay the rent. Where is the hat
rack? Sold to meet the butchers bill.
Where are the carpets? Sold to get
bread. Where is the wardrobe? Sold
to get rum. Where are the daugh-
tiers? Working their fingers off in
trying to keep the family together.
Worse and worse until everything is
gone. Who is that going up the front
steps of that house? That is a credi-
tor, hoping to find some chair or bed
that has not been levied upon. Who
are those two gentlemen now going up
the front steps? The one is a
constable, the other is the sheriff. Why
do they go there? The unfortunate is
morally dead, socially dead, financially
dead. Why do they go there? 1 will
tell you why the creditors, and the con-
stables, and the sheriffs go there.
They are, some on their own account,
and some on account of the law, strip
ping the slain.
There is another way, however, of
doing that same work. Here is a man
who, through his sin, is PROSTATE. He
acknowledges that he has done wrong
Now is the time for you to go to that
man and say: Thousands of people
have been as far astray as you are and
got back" Now is the time for you to
go to that man and tell him of the ON