The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-07-26

Il y
twenty or twenty-five years. You can
not shake them off They will hang
to you to the very day of your death.
If young man. through long course
/ of evil conduct, undermines his physi-
cal health, and then repents of 1T In
aftef-life, the Lord may pardon bim;
| but that does not bring back good
| physical condition. i said to a minis
ter of the Gospel one Sabbath at the
close of his sermon: "Where are you
preaching now?'' ''Oh," he says, 81
am not preaching. / am suffering
from the physical effects of early sin.
/ can't preach now; am sick" A
consecrated man he now is, and he
mourns bitterly over early sin; but
that does not arrest their bodily eff
fects.
The simple fact is that men and
women often take twenty years of
their life to build up influences that
require all the rest of their lives to
break down. Talk about a man be-
ginning life when he is twenty-one
years of age; talk about woman be-
ginning life when she is eighteen years
of agel All, no! In many respects
that is the time they close life. In
nine cases out of ten, all the questions
of eternity are decided before that.
Talk about majority of men getting
their fortunes between thirty and for
tyl They get or lose fortunes between
ten and twenty. When you tell me
that man is just beginning life,
tell you that he is just closing it. The
next fifty years will not be of as much
Importance to him as the first twenty.
Now, why do 1 say this? Is it for
the annoyance of those who have only
a baleful retrospection? You know
that is not my way. / say it for the
benefit of young men and women.
want them to understand that etern-
ity is wrapped up in this hour; that
the sins of youth we never get over;
that you are now fashioning the mold
in which your great future is to rum;
that minute, instead of being sixty
seconds long, is made up of everlast-
ing ages. You see what dignity and
Importance this gives to the life of
our young folks. Why, in the light of
this subject, life is not something
to be frittered away, not something to
be smirked about, nor something to be
danced out, but something to be
weighed in the balances of eternity.
Oh, young mani the sin of yesterday,
the sin of tomorrow, will reach over
ten thousand years, ay, over the great
and amending eternity. You may, af-
ter awhile, say: "I am very sorry.
Now, have got to be thirty or forty
years of age, and / do wish / had
never committed those sins" What
does that amount to? God may pardon
you; but undo those things you never
will, you never can.
In this same category of irrevoca BILE
mistakes I put all parental neglect.
We begin the education of our chill
dren too late. BY the time they get
to be ten or fifteen we wake up to our
mistakes, and try to eradicate this bad
habit, and change that; but it is too
late. That parent who omitS, in the
first ten years of the child's life, to
make an eternal impression for Christ,
never makes it. The child will prob
ably go on with all the disadvantages
which might have been avoided by
parental faithfulness. Now you see
what a mistake that father or mother
makes who puts off too late life ad-
who at fifty years of age says to you:
81 must be a Christian;" and he yields
his heart to God, and sits in the place
of prayer to-day Christian. None of
us can doubt it. He goes home, and
he says: Here at fifty years of age 1
have given my heart to the Saviour.
Now must establish family altar"
What? Where are your children now?
One in Boston; another in Cincinnati,
another in New Orleans; and you, my
brother, at your fiftieth year going to
establish your family altar? Very we'll;
better late than never; but alas, alas
that you did not do it twenty-five years
ago!
When ! was in Chamouni, Switzer-
land, / saw in the windows of one of
the shops picture that impressed my
mind very much 1t was a picture of
an accident that occurred on one of
the Swiss mountains. A company of
travellers, with guides, went up some
very steep places-places which but
few travellers attempted to go up. They
were, as all travellers are there, fas-
tened together with cords at the waist,
so that if one slipped, the rope would
hold him-the rope fastened to the
others Passing along the most dan
gerous point, one of the guides slipped,
and they all started down the preci-
pice; but after awhile one, muscular
than the rest, stuck his heels into the
ice and stopped; but the rope broke,
and down, hundreds and thousands of
feet, the rest went And so see whole
families bound together by the ties of
affection, and in many cases walking
on slippery places of worldliness and
sim The father knows it, and the
mother knows it, and they are all
bound together. After awhile they
begin to slide down sleeper and steep
err, and the father becomes alarmed,
and he stops, planting his feet on the
"Rock of Ages" He stops, but the
rope breaks, and those who were once
tied fast to him by moral and spiritual
influences, go over the precipice. Oh,
there is such a thing as coming to
Christ soon enough to save ourselves,
but not soon enough to save othersl
How many parents wake up in the
latter part Of his life to find out the
mistake! The parent SAYS: II have
been too lenient," or ~ have been too
severe in the discipline of my children.
If l had the little ones around me
again, how different / would dor'
You will never have them around
again. The work is done, the bent to
the character is given, the etern-
ity is decided. l say this to
young parents-those who are
~@f