The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-02-19
drea look back and think Of father ana

mother at family prayerf VIII they
take the old family Bible and open IL
and see the mark of tears of contri@
ton and tears of consoling promise;
wept by eyes long before gone out
into darkness? Oh, If yoz do not in.
culcate Christian principle in the
hearts of your children, and you do not
warn them against evil, and you do
not invite them to holiness and to God,
and they wander off into dissipation
and into infidelity, and at last make
shipweck of their immortal souls, on
their deathbed and in the day of judg-
ment they will curse you! Seated by
the register or the stove, what if on
the wall should come out the history
of your children? What a history
the mortal and immortal life of your
loved ones! Every parent is writing
the history of his child. He is writing
it, composing it into song or tuning
1t into groan.
My mind runs back to one of the
best of early homes. Prayer, like
roof over 1t. Peace, like an attnos-
phere in it. Parents, persOniflcations
of faith in trial and comfort in dark
ness. The two pillars of that earthly
home long ago crumbled to dust. But
shall / ever forget that earthly home?
Yes, when the flower forgets the sun
that warns it. Yes, when the
mariner forgets the star that
guided him. Yes, when love
has gone out on the hearts altar
and memoryh has emptied its urn into
forgetfulness. Then, home of my
l. i \,
family altar of fathers importantly
and a mothers tendernessj the voices
of affection, the funerals of our dead;
father and mother, with inter'locked
arms like intertwin'1g branches of
trees making O. p1ruetual arbor
of love and psa1e and kinaness-
then l will forget thee-then and
only then. You know, my brother,
that hundred times you have been
kept out of sin by the memory of such
a scene as l have been describing.
You have often had raging tempta-
tions, but you know what has held
you with supernatural grasp. / tell
you a man who has had such a good
home as that never gets over it, and
man who has had bad early home
never gets over that.
1t is 5000, 900 miles from here TO the
sun, and all astronomers agree in say
ing that our solar system is only one
of the small wheels of the great ma
chinery of the universe. turning around
some great center SO far distant it il
beyond all imagination and calcaia-
ton, and if, as some think, that great
center in the dis tant is Heaven. Christ
came far from home when He came
here. Have you ever thought of the
inconsistencies of Christ? Some of you
know what inconsistencies is when you
have been only q few weeks abb
sent from the domestic circle.
Christ was thirty-three years away
from home. Some of you feel home
sickness when you are 100 or 1000
miles away from the domestic circle.
Christ was more millions of miles away
from home than you could calculate if
all your life you did nothing but cal.
culate. You know what it is to be
homesick even amid pleasure BILE sur
roundings; but Christ slept IN huts,
and He was athirst, and He was
and He was on the way
from being born in one mans barn
to being buried in another MANS
grave. / have read how the Swiss
when they are far away from treir;
native country, at the sound of their
national air, get so homesick that they
fall into melancholy, and sometimes
they die under the inconsistencies. But,
oh, the inconsistencies of Christi Pow
erty, homesick for celestial riches
homesick for hosanna.
WEAKNESS, homesick for rest. Home
sick for angelic and archangelic COM
Homesick to go out of
the night, and out of the storm, and
the worlds execration, and all that
suffered to get us homel
One night, lying on my lounge, when
very tired, my children all around
a bout me in full romp and hilarity and
the lounge, half awake
and half asleep, l dreamed this dream:
l WAS in far country. 1t was not
Persia, although more than oriental
Iuxuriance crowned the cities. It was
not the tropics, although more than
tropical fruitfulness filed the
gardens. 1t was not Italy, al
though more than Italian softness
filed the air. And I wandered around |
looking for the thorns and nettles, but |
found that none of them grew there,
and saw the sun rise, and I watched
to see it set, bait it sank not. And /
saw the people in holiday attire, and I
said: when will they put off this
and put on workmen's garb and
again delve in the mine or
swelter at the forge?" but they
never put off the holiday attire.
A ho h,,r III ~
city to find the place where the dead |
sleep, and looked all along the line |
Of the beautiful hills. the place where |
the dead might most blissfully Sleep |
and saw towers and castles, but not |
4 mausoleum or a monument or |
4 white slab could L see. And |
[ went into the chapel of the |
great town and 1 said: Where |
10 the poor worship and where are
the hard benches on which they sit?"
And the answer was made me: I'VE
have no poor in this country" And |
then / wandered out to find the novels
Of the destitute, and found mansions
Of amber and ivory and gold, but not
tear could see, not sigh could hear,
and was bewildered, and l sat down
1nder the branches of great tree, and |
said: "Where am 1? And whence comes |
Ill this scene?" And then out from
among the leaves, and up the fowery |
paths, and across the bright streams
here came a beautiful group throng-
ng all about me, and as l saw them
come L thought I knew their step,
md as they shouted 1 thought knew
heir voices; but then they were so
arrayed in apparel, such as
had never before witnessed, that
bowed as stranger to strang-
ar. But when again thew clapped