The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-02-07

man ON the ptFB OF "A ADlnelGcn, altnOugn
l suppose some of the old Israelitish
heroes told Abimelch: ''You are only
going up there to be cut to pieces. "
Yet you are willing to testify to-day
that by no other mode-certainly not
by ordinary modes-could that temple
so easily, so thoroughly, have been
taken. Fathers and mothers, brethren
and sisters In Jssus Christ, what the
Church most wants to learn, this day,
is than any plan is right, is lawful, is
best, which helps to overthrow the
temple of sin. and capture this world
for God. We are very apt to stick
to the old modes of attack. We
put on the old-style coat of mail.
We come up with the sharp, keen,
| glittering steel spear of argument, ex-
pecting in that way to take the castle;
but they have a thousand spears
where we have ten. And so the castle
of sin stands. Oh, my friends, we will
never capture this world for God by
any keen saber of sarcasm, by any
glittering lances of rhetoric, by any
sapping and mining of profound dis
QUESTION, by any gunpowder explo-
sions of indignation, by sharpshoot-
ings of wit, by howitzers of mental
strength made to swing shell five
miles, by cavalry horses gorgeously
caparisoned paving the air. In vain
all the attempts on the part of these
ecclesiastical foot soldiers, light horse
men and grenadiers.
My friends, / propose a different
style of tactics. Let each one go to
the forest of Gods promise and invita-
tion, and hew down branch, and put
it on his shoulder, and let us come
around these obstinate iniquities, and
then with this pile, kindled by the
fires of a holy zeal and the flames of
consecrated life, we will burn them
out. What steel can not do, fire may.
And l announce myself in favor of any
plan of religious attack, however rad
ical, however odd, however unpopular,
however hostile to all the convention
alities of church and state. If one
style of prayer does not do the work,
let us try another style. If the church
music of to-day does not get the
victory, then let US make the assault
with backwoods chorus. Ii a prayer
meeting at $50 in the evening does
not succeed, let us have one as early
in the morning as when the angel
found wrestling Jacob too much for
him. If a sermon with the three au-
thorized heads does not do the work,
then let us have a sermon with 20
heads, or no heads at all. We want
more heart in our song, more heart IN
almsgiving, more heart in our prayer,
more heart in our preaching. Oh, for
less of Abimelech's sword and more of
Abimelech's confagration! | had
often heard
There is fountain filed with blood,
sung artistically by four birds perched
on their Sunday roost in the gallery,
until 1 thought of Jenny Lind, and
Nilsson, and Sontag, and all the other
warblers; but there came not one tear
to my eye, nor one master emotion to
my heart. But one night / went down
to the African Methodist meeting
house in Philadelphia, and at the close
of the service black woman, in the
middle of the audience, began to sing
that hymn, and all the audience joined
in, and we were floated some three or
f our miles nearer Heaven than have
ever been since. l saw with my own
eyes that fountain filed with blood"
red, agonizing, sacrifcial, redemp-
tive, and heard the crimson plash Of
the wave as we all went down under it.
For sinners plunged beneath that food
Lose all their guilty stains.
Oh, my friends, the Gospel is not
syllogism; it is not casuistry; it is not
polemics, or the science of squabbles.
1t is blood-red fact; it is warm-hearted
invitations; it is leaping, bounding fly
ing good news; it is efflorescent with
all light; it is rubescent with all sum-
merry glow; it is arborescent with all
sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise
on Mount Washington, and from the
Tip-top house; but there was no beauty
in that compared with the day-spring
from on high when Christ gives light
to a soul. / have heard Parepa sing;
but there was no music in that com
pared with the voice of Christ when he
said: ''Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in
peace" Good newsl Let every one cut
down branch of this tree of life and
wave it. Let him throw it down and
kindle it. Let all the way from Mount
Zalmon to Shechem be filed with the
tossing joy. Good news! This bonfire
of the Gospel shall consume the last
temple of sin, and will illumine the
sky with apocalyptic joy, that Jesus
Christ came into the world to save sim
ners. Any new plan that makes man
quit his sin, and that prostrates a
wrong, am as much in favor of as
though al the doctors, and the bish
ops, and the archbishops, and the sy-
mods, and the academical gownsmen
of Christianity sanctioned it. The tenn
pie of Berth must come down, and /
do not care how it comes.
Still further, learn from this sub
ject the power of example. If Abi-
melech had sat down on the grass, and
told his men to go and get the boughs,
and go out to the battle, they would
never have gone at all, or if they had
it would have been without any spirit
or effective result; but when Albime-
lech goes with his own ak and hews
down branch, and with Abimelech's
arm puts it on Abimelech's shoulder,
and marches on, then, my text says,
all the people did the same. How ma
tural that wasl What made Garibaldi
and Stonewall Jackson the most
magnetic commanders OF this
century? They always rode ahead
Oh, the overwhelming power
of examplel Here is a father
on the wrong road. Here is father
who enlists for Christ; his children en-
list. saw in some of the picture gal
leries of Europe that before many of