The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-06-11

But would rather have him pray for
me if I was sick or in trouble than any
Christian man know of, and in that
church all the people preferred him id
exhortation and prayers to all others.
| Why's Because he was so thoroughly
pious aud had such power with God he
was irresistible. and as he went ON in
his prayer sinners fepented and saints
shouted for joy and the 5ereaved
seemed to get back their dead in celss-,
tial companionship. And when he had
stopped praying and as soon as could
wipe out of my eyes enough tears to
see the closing hymn l ended the
meeting, fearful that some long wind.
ed prayer meeting bore would pull Us
down from the seventh heaven.
Not word have to say against &C.
curacy of speech or fine elocution or
high mental culture. Get all these you
| can. But / do say to those who were
brought up in the day OF poor school,
houses and ignorant schoolmasters and
no opportunity: You may have so much
of good in your soul and so much of
Heaven in your everyday life that you
will be mightier for good than any
| who went through the curriculum of
Harvard or Yale or Oxford, yet never
graduated in the school of Christ.
When you get up to the gate of Heav'
en-, no one will ask you whether you
can parse the first chapter of Genesis,
but whether you have learned the fear
of the Lord, which is the beginning of
wisdom, nor whether you know how
to square the circle, but whether you
have lived square life in a round
world. Mount Zion is higher than
Mount Parnassus.
But what other multitudes there are
under other disadvantages! Here is
Christian woman whose husband
thinks religion sham, and while the
wife prays the children one way the
husband swearS them another. Or
here is Christian man who is trying
to do his best for God and the church,
and his wife holds him back and says
on the way home from prayer meet
ing, where he gave testimony for
Christ: What a fool you make of
yourself! 1 hope hereafter you will
keep still" And when he would
be benevolent and give $50 she criti-
cises him for not giving so cents. !
must do justice and publicly thank
God that l never proposed at home to
give anything for any cause of human
ity or religion but the other partner
in the domestic firm approved it, and
when it seemed beyond my ability and
faith in God was necessary she had
three-fourths the faith. But know
men who, when they contribute to
charitable objects, are afraid that the
wife shall find it out What wither-
good man!
Then there are others under the
great disadvantage of poverty. Who
ought to get things cheapest? You
say those who have little means. But
they pay more. You buy coal by the
ton; they buy it by the bucket You
buy -four by the barrel; they buy it by
the pound. You get apparel cheap be-
cause you pay cash; they pay dear be-
cause they have to get trusted. And
the Bible was right when it said, 1.-THE
destruction of the poor is their pow
erty."
Then, there are those who made a
mistake in early life, and that over
shadows all their days ''Do you not
know that that man was once in pris.
on?" is whispered. Or, "Do you know
that that man once attempted sui
cide?" Or, "Do you known that that
man once absconded?" Or, "Do you
know that that man was once dis
charged for dishonesty" Perhaps
there was only one wrong deed in the
mans life, and that one act haunts the
subsequent half century of his exc
istence.
nAhorC 70
nance of some mental faculty, and
their rashness throws them into wild
enterprises. or their trepidation makes
them decline great opportunity, 1r
there is a vein of melancholy in their
disposition that defeats them, or they
have an endowment or overmirth that
causes the impression of insincerity.
Others have a mighty obstacle in
their personal appearance, for which
they are not responsible. They forget
that God fashioned their features, and
their complexion and their stature, the
size of their nose and mouth and hands
and feet, and gave them their gait and
their general appearance, and they for
get that much of the worlds best work
and the church's best work has been
done by homely people, and that Paul
the Apostle is said to have been hump
backed and his eyesight weakened by
ophthalmia, while many of the finest
in appearance have passed their time
before f1attering looking glasses or in
studying killing attitudes and in Dis
playing the richness OF wardrobes-
not one ribbon or vest or sack or
glove or button or shoestring of which
they have had brains to earn for them
selves.
Others had wrong proclivities from
the start. They were born wrong, and
that sticks to one even after he is born
again. They have a natural cranlxi-
ness that is 275 years old. It came
over with their great grandfathers
from Scotland, or Wales, or France.
1t was born on the banks of the
Thames, or the Clyde, or the Tiber. or
the Rhine, and has survived all the
plaques and epidemics of many gen.
erations, and is living to-day on the
banks of the Potomac, or the Hudson,
or the Androscoggin, or the Savannah,
or the La Plata. And when a man
tries to stop this evil ancestral procliv-
ity he is like man on a rock in the
rapids of Niagara, holding on with
grip from which the swift currents are
trying to sweep him into the abyss
beyond.
Oh, this world is an overburdened
world. an overworked world. 1t is an
awfully tired world. 1t is a dreadfully
unfortunate world. Scientists are try
ing to find out the cause of these earth
ouakes in all lands, cisatlantic and
Transatlantic Some say this and some
say that 1 have taken the diagnosis
of what is the matter with the earth.
1t has so many burdens on it and so