The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-08-20

bruised, when He might have
taken the splendors of the sunset for
His equipage and moved with horses
and chariots of fire? Why beg a drink
from the wayside, when out of the crys-
tai chalices of eternity He poured the
Euphrates, the Mississippi, and the
Amazon, and dipping His hand IN the
fountains of Heaven, and shaking that
hand over the world. from the tips of
His fingers dripping the great lakes
and the oceans? Why let the Roman
regiment put Him to death, when He
might have ridden down the sky fol-
lowed by all the cavalry of Heaven,
mounted on white horses of eternal
victory?
You can not understand. Who can?
You try to confound me. l am con-
founded before you speak. Paul said
it was unsearchabIe. He went climbing
up from argument to argument and
from antithesis to antithesis, and from
glory to glory, and then sank down in
exhaustion as he saw far above him
other heights of divinity unscaled, and
exclaimed, that in all things he might
have the pre-eminence."
Again: Christ was wonderful in His
teaching. The people had been used
to fOrmali5ies and technicalities; Christ
upset all their notions as to how
preaching ought to be done. There
was a popularity about His preaching:
! The people knew what He meant. His
illustrations were taken from the hen
calling her chickens together; from
salt, from candles, from fishing tackle,
| from hard creditor collaring 4 debt
or. How few pupils of this day would
have allowed Him entrance? He would
have been called undignifed and
| familiar in His style of
preaching. And yet the people went
| tie hear Him. Tho5e old Jewish rabbits
might have preached on the side of
Olivet so years and never got an audi
! ence. The philosophers sneered at His
ministrations and said: This will
never .do"' The lawyers caricatured,
but the common people heard Him
gladly. Suppose you that there were
any sleepy people in His audiences?
Suppose you that any woman who
ever mixed bread was ignorant of
what lie meant when lie compared
the kingdom of Heaven with leaven
or yeast? Suppose you that the
sunburned fishermen, with the fish
scales upon their hands, were listleSs
when lie spoke of the Kingdom of
Heaven as a net? We spend three
years in a college studying ancient
mythology, and three years in the the
illogical seminary learning how to
make Il sermon, and then we GO out to
save the world; and if we can not do it
according to Claude's ''Sermonizing,"
or "Blair's Rhetoric" or Kane's Crit
icism," we will let theworld go to per-
dition. If we save nothing else, we
will save Claude and Blair. We see a
wreck in sight. We must go out and
save the crew and passengers. We
wait until we get on our fine cap and
coat and ind our shining oars, and
then we push out methoIically and
scientifically, while some plain shores
man, in rough fishing smack. and with
broken Oarloclls goes out and gets the
crew and passengers, and brings them
ashore in safety. We throw down our
delicate oars and say: What a ridic-
ulous thing to save men In that way!
You ought to have done 1t scientifically
and beautifully" ''Ah" says the
shoresman, IF those sufferers had
waited until you got out your fine boat
they would have gone to the bottom"
The work of religious teacher is to
save men, though every law of gram
mar should be snapped in the under
taking, and there be nothing but awk-
wardnesS and blunders in the mode, |
all hail to the man who saves u soul.
Christ, in His preaching, was plain,
earnest, and wonderfully sympathetic. |
We can not dragOon men into Heaven.
We can not drive them in with the |
.butt-end of a catechism. We waste |
our time in trying to catch flies with |
acids instead of the sweet honeycomb |
of the Gospel. We try to make crab
apples do the work of pomegranates.
Again: Jesus was wonderful in His |
sorrows. The sun smotc Him, and the |
cold chilled Him, the rain pelted Him,
thirst parched Him, and hunger ex-
hausted Him. Shall l compare His
sorrow to the sea? No; for that is
some times hushed into calm. Shall /
l compare it with the night? No; for
that sometimes CLEANS with Orino,
or kindles with AURORA. If one
thorn should be thrust through
your temple you would faint.
But here is a whole crown made
from the Rhamnus or Spina Christi
small, sharp, singing thOrns. The mob
makes a cross. They put down the
long beam, and on it they fasten a
shorter beam. Got Him at last Those
hands, that have been doing kindness
and wiping away tears-hear the ham
mer driving the spikes through
them. Those feet, that have
been going about on ministra-
tons of mercy-battered against
the cross. Then they lift it up.
Look! look! look! Who will help Him
now? Come men of Jerusalem-ye
whose dead He brought to life; We
whose sick He healed; who will help
Him? Who will seize the weapons of
the soldiers? None to helpl Having
carried such cross for us, shall we re-
fuse to take our cross to Him?
Shall Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No; there's q cross for every one,
And there's a cross for me-
You know the process of migrating.
You bore hole into a tree, and put
N the branch of another tree.
This tree of the cross was hard and
.ough, but in to the holes where the
nails went there have grated branches
If the Tree of Life that now bear fruit
'or all nations. The original tree was
bitter, but the branches ingrafted
we're sweet and now all the nations
pluck the fruit and live forever.
Again: Christ was wonderful in His
First-Over the forces of nature. The
lea is a crystal sepulchere. 1t swal-
owed the Central America the praSi