The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-03-19


Queen Elizabeth rode shouted in the
street, God save the Queenp One
moment the world applauds, and the
next moment the world mathematics.
Oh, come over into this greater Joy, this
sublime selace, this magnificent beati:
tade. The night after the battle OF
Shiloh, and there were thousands Of
wounded on the field, one Christian
soldier lying there a-dying under the
starlight, began to sing:
There is a land of pure delight
And when he came to the next line
there were scores of voices singing:
Where saints immortal reign
The song was caught up all through
the fields among the wounded until it
was said there were at least 10000
wounded men uniting their voices as
they came to the verse!
There everlasting spfing abides
And nevef-withering flowers;
'Tis but a narrow stream divides
This heavenly land from ours.
Oh, it is a great religion to live by,
and great religion to die by. There
is only one heart-throb between you
and that religion. Just look into the
face of your pardoning God and sur
render yourself for time and eternity,
and He is yours. and Heaven is yours,
and all is yours. Some of you, like
the young man of the text, have gone
far astray. l know not the history,
but you you know it, you know it.
When young man went forth into
life, the legend says, his guardian an
gel went forth with him, and getting
him into q field, the guardian angel
kept circle clear around where the
young man stood. 1t was a circle of
virtue and honor, and he must not step
beyond that circle. Armed foes came
down, but were obliged to halt
at the circle. They could not
pass. But one day a temptress,
with diamonded hand, stretched
forth and crossed that circle with the
hand, and the tempted soul took it, and
by that one fell grip was brought be-
yond the circle and died. Some of you
have stepped beyond that circle. Would
you not like this day, by the grace of
God, to step back? This, say to you,
is your hour of salvation. There was
in the closing hours of Queen Anne
what is called the clock scene. Flat
down on the pillow in helpless sick
ness, she could not move her head or
move her hand. She was waiting for
the hour when the ministers of state
should gather in angry contest, and
worried and worn out by the
coming hour, and in momentary
absence of the nurse, in the
power, the strange power which
delirium sometimes gives one,
she arose and stood in front of the
clock, and stood there watching the
clock when the nurse returned. The
nurse said: DO you see anything pc
culiar about that clock?" She made no
answer, but soon died. There is clock
scene in every history. If some of you
would rise from the bed of lethargy
and come out from your delirium of sin
and look on the clock of your destiny
this moment, you would see and hear
something you have not seen or heard
before, and every tick of the minute,
and every stroke of the hour, and every
swing of the pendulum, would say,
''NOw, now, now, noww Oh, come
home to your Fathers house. Come
home, oh, prodigal, from the wilder
ness. Come home, come homel
But l notice that when the prodigal
came there was the fathers Joy. He
did not greet him with any formal
''How do you do?" He did not come
out and say: "You are unfit to enter;
go wash in the trough by the well, and
then you can come in; we have had
enough trouble with you" All, no!
When the proprietor of that estate pro-
claimed festival, it was an Outburst of
a fathers love and fathers joy. God
is your father. l have not much SYM
pathy with the description of God 1
hear, as though He were
Turkish sultan, hard and unsympa-
thetic, and listening not to the cry of
his subjects. A man told me he saw in
one of the eastern lands king riding
along, and two men were in alterca-
ton, and one charged the other with
having eaten his rice, and the king said:
Then slay the man, and by post
examination find whether he
has eaten the rice" And he was slain.
All! the cruelty of scene like that.
Our God is not a sultan, not a despot,
but Father-kind, loving, forgiving,
and He makes all Heaven ring again
when a prodigal comes back. Il have
no pleasure" He says, 'in the death of
him that dieth." All may be saved.
If man does not get to Heaven, it is
because he will not go there. No diff
ference the color, no difference the his
tory, no difference the antecedents, no
difference the surroundings, no diff
ference the sin. When the white horses
of Christ's victory are brought out to
celebrate the eternal triumph you may
ride one of them, and as God is greater
than all, His joy is greater, and when
soul comes back there is in His heart the
surging of an infinite ocean of gladness;
and to express that gladneSs it takes all
the rivers of pleasure, all the thrones
of pomp and all the ages of eter-
nifty. 1t is Joy deeper than all depth
and higher than all height, and wider
than all width, and vaster than all i'm
1t overtops, it undergirds, it
all the united splendor and
Joy of the universe, and who can tell
what Gods Joy is? You remember
reading the story of a king, who on
some great day of festivity scattered
silver and gold among the people, who
sent valuable presents to his courtiers;
but methinks, when a soul comes back
God is so glad that TO express His Joy
He filings out new worlds into space,
and kindles up new suns, and rolls
among the white-robed anthems of the
redeemed greater hallelujah, while
with voice that reverberates among
the mountains of frankincense and is
echoed back from the everlasting gates
He cries: This, my Son, was dead,
and He is alive again"
At the opening of the exposition in
New Orleans l saw a Mexican futist,
and he played the solo, and then after