The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-02-01
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

GN II 10 N@NbiA DhbCu+ hbOdS
fifteen years ago the distinguished
editor of a New York daily news
paper said to me in his editorial
room: "You ministers talk about evils
of which you know nothing. Why don't
you go with the officers of the law and
explore for yourself, so that when you
preach against sin You can speak from
what you have seen with your own
eyes?" l said: ~ will" And in COM
pany with commissioner of police and
a captain of police, and two elders OF
my church, explored the dens and
hiding places of all styles of crime in
New York and preached series of ser
mons warning young men, and setting
forth the work that must be done lest
the judgments of God whelm this
city with more awful submerg-
ment that the volcanic deluge
that buried Herculaneum and Pompeii.
/ received as nearly as ] can remember
several hundred columns of newspaper
abuse for undertaking that explora-
ton. Editorials of denunclation.
double-leaded, and with captions OF
great primer type, entitled The Fall
of Talmage," or "Talmage Makes the
Mistake of His Life" or Down with
Talmagc," but I still live and am in
full sympathy with all movements for
municipal publication. But a move
ment which ends with crime exposed
and law executed stops half way.
Nay, it stops long before it gets
half way. The law never yet saved
anybody; never yet changed anybody.
Break up all the houses of iniquity in
this city, and you only send the occu-
pants to other cities. Break down all
the policemen in New York, and while
it changes their worldly fortunes, it
does not change their heart Of life.
The greatest want in New York to-
day is the Transforming influence of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ to change the
heart and the life, and uplift the tone
of moral sentiment, and make men do
right, not because they are afraid of
ludlow Street jail or Sing Sing but
because they love God and hate un~
righteousness. l have never heard,
nor have you heard, of anything eX-
cept the Gospel that proposes
to regeneratc the heart, and by
the influence OF that regenerat-
ed heart. rectIfy the life EX>
ecutc the law, most certainly; but
preach the Gospel, by all mcans-in
churches, in theaters, in homes, in
prisons, on the land and on the sea.
The Gospel is the only power that can
revolutionizc society and save the
world All else is half and half work
and will not last. In New York it has
allowed men who got by police bribery
their thousands, and tens Of thousands,
and perhaps hundreds of thousands OF
dollars, togo scot free; while some who
were merely the cats paw and
agents OF bribery are struck
with the lightnings of the law.
1t reminds me of scene in Philadelf
phia when / was living there. A poor
woman had been arrested and tried
and imprisoned for selling molasses
candy on Sunday. Other law-brealSers
had been allowed to go undisturbed,
and the grog shops were open on the
Lords day, and the law with its hands
behind its back walked up and dow
tho streets declining to molest many o.
the offenders; but we all rose up in
our righteous Indignation, and calling
upon all powers, visible and invisible,
to help us. we declared that though tho
heavens fell no woman should be al
lowed to sell molasses candy on Sum
day.
The work is not so difficult as many
suppose. You say: "Therc are the
foreign populations. Yes; but many
of them arc Hollanders. and they were
brought up to love and worship God,
and it will take but little to persuade
the Hollanders to adopt the religion
of their forefathers. Then there arc
among these foreigners so many of the
Scotch. They or their ancestors heard
Thomas Chalmers thunder, and Rob
ert McCheyne pray. The breath Of
God so often swept through the heath
er of the Highlands, and the voice of
God has so often sounded through the
Trossachs, and they all know how to
so that they will not have
often to be invited to accept the God
of John Knox and Boutwell,.
Then there are among these foreign
ers so many of the English. They in
herited the same language as we i'm
herited-the English in which Shake
spearc dramatized, and Milton chimed
his cantos, and Henry Melville gospel
lied, and Oliver Cromwell prorogued
and Wellington command
ed his eager hosts. Among these for
eigners are the Swiss, and they were
rocked in cradle under the shadow OF
the Alps, that the cathedral of the
Almighty in which all the elements,
snow, and hail, and tempest, and
hurricane worship. Among these for
aigners are q vast host of Germans,
and they feel centuries Gfterward the
power of that unparaled spirit who
shook the earth when he trod it, and
the heavens when he prayed-Martin
Luther! From all nations our
foreign populations have come, and
they are homesich. far away
from the place of their childhood
and the graves of their ancestors,
and our glorious religion presented to
them Alright will meet their needs, and
FIJI their souls, and kindle their enthu-
siasm. They shall come from amid the
wheat sheaves Of Dakota, and from the
ore beds of Wyoming, and from the sill
yer mines Of Nevada, and from the
golden gulches Of Colorado, and from
the banks of the Platte, and the Ore
pon, and the Sacramento, and the Co
lumbia. ''They shall come from the
wcst!'
Frederick the Great, notwithstand-
ing the mighty dominion over which
he reigned, was SO depressed at times
he could not speak without crying
and carried small bottle of quick pol
son with which to end his misery when
he could staEd it no longer. But