The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-11-06

TO get along without religion, amid
the annoyances and vexations that
nip them slightly here and nip them
/ there. But after awhile death comes.
1t is black frost, and all is ended.
oh, what whitening and scattering
death makes among those not pre-
pared, to meet It'll They leave every
thing pleasant behind them-their
house, their families, their friends,
their books, their pictures, and step
out of the sunshine into the shadow.
! They quit the presence of bird, and
bloom, and wave. to go unbeclKoned
and unwelcomed The bower in
which they stood, and sang, and wove
chaplets, and made themselves merry,
has gone down under an awful equi-
noctial No bell can toll one-half the
dolefulness of their condition. Frosted
But thank God that is not the way
| people always die. Tell me, on what
! day of all the year the leaves of the
woodbine are as bright as they are to-
day? So Christian character is never
SO attractive as in the dying hour.
Such go into the grave, not as dog,
with frown and harsh voice, driven in
to kennel, but they pass away calm
", brightly, sweetly, grandly! As the
leaf As the leaf
Why go to the death-bed of distin.
guished men, when there is hardly a
house on this street but from it a
Christian has departed? When your
baby died there were enough angels
in the room to have chanted coro-
nation. When your father died you
sat watching, and after awhile felt
of his wrist, and then put your hand
under his arm to see if there
was any warmth left, and placed
the mirror to the mouth to see
If there were any sign of breathing;
and when all was over you thought
how grandly he slept-a giant resting
after battle. Oil there are many
Christian death beds. The chariots of
God, come to take His children home,
are speeding every-whither. This one
halts at the gate of the almshouse; that
one at the gate of princes. The shout
of captives breaking their chains
comes on the morning air. The
heavens ring again and again with
the coronation. The 12 gates of
ing righteous. I see the accumulated
glOries of thousand Christian death
beds-an autumnal forest illuminated
by an autumnal sunset! They died
not in shame, but in triumph As the
leaf! As the leaf
Lastly: As the leaves fade and fall
only to rise, so do we. All this golden
shower of the woods is making the
ground richer, and in the juice, the
sap and life of the tree the leaves will
come up again. Next May the south
wind will blow the resurrection trum-
pet, and they will rise. Sowe fall in the
dust only to rise again. THE hour is
coming when all who are in their
graves shall hear His voice and come
forth" It would be horrible consid-
GRAFTON to think that only bodies were
only to lie in the ground. However
beautiful the flowers you plant there,
we do not want to make our everlaSt-
ing residence in such place.
have with these eyes seen SO many
of the glories of the natural world,
and the radiant faces of my friends,
that l do not want to think that when
I close them in death shall never open
hand or foot amputated. In hos
pital, after soldier had had his hand
taken off, he said: 'Good-by, dear
old hand, you have done me a
great deal of good service"
and burst into tears. 1t is
a more awful thing to think of having
the whole body amputated from the
soul forever. l must have my body
again, to see with, to hear with, to
walk with. With this hand l must
clasp the hand of my loved ones when
l have passed clean over Jordan, and
with it wave the triumphs of my King.
Ahal we shall rise again-we shall
rise again. AS the leaf! As the leafl
Crossing the Atlantic the ship may
founder, and our bodies be eaten by
the sharks; but God tameth leviathan,
and we shall come again. In awful ex-
plosion of factory boiler our bodies
NAV be shattered into hundred frag.
ments in the air; but God watches
the disaster, and we shall come
again. He will drag the deep, and
ransack the tomb, and upturn the will
derness, and torture the mountain,
but He will find us, and fetch us out
and up to judgment and to victory.
We shall come up with the perfect
eye, with perfect hand, with perfect
foot, and with perfect body. All our
weaknesses left behind.
We fall, but we rise: we die, but we
live againl We molder away, but we
come to higher unfolding! As the leafl
As the leaf!
Character.
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