The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-01-15

cheruDlc, Serapnlc, arcnangellcl
will come back again, carrying on my
shoulder a ransomed world. TiH this
is done choose earthly scof TO Heav-
emily reclamation, and q cattle pen to
a kings palace, frigid zone of earth to
atmosphere of celestial radiance. /
have no time to lose, for bark We to
the groan that grows mightier while
waiti FAREWELL FAREWELL "Ye know
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though He was rich, yet for your
sal1es He becomes poor"
Was there ever a contrast SO overE
towering as that between the noon
day of Christ's celestial departure and
the midnight of His earthly arrival?
Sure enough, the angels were out that
night in the sky, and an especial me-
teor acted as escort, but all that was
from other worlds, and not from this
world. The earth made no demcnstra-
ton of welcome. If one of the great
princes of this world steps out at de-
pot, cheers resound, and the bands
play, and the flags wave. But for the
arrival o this missionary prince of
the skies not a torch fared, not
trumpet blew, not plume huttered.
All the music and the pomp were
overhead. Our world opened for Him
nothing better than barn door. The
raj ah of Cashmere sent to Queen Vic
toria bedstead of carved gold and
canopy that cost $4,000, but the
world had for the Prince of Heaven
and earth only litter of straw. The
crown Jewels in the tower of London
amount to Sis, 600, 900, but this member
of eternal royalty had nowhere to lay
His head. To know how poor He was,
ask the camel driver, ask the shep-
herds, ask Mary, ask the three wise men
of the east, who afterward came to
Bethlehem. To know how poor He was,
examine all the records of real estate
in all that oriental country, and see
what vineyard, or what field He owned.
Not one. OF what mortgage was He
the mortgage? OF what tenement was
He the landlord? OF what lease was
He the lessee? Who ever paid Him
rent? Not owning the boat on
which He sailed, or the beast on which
He rode, or the pillow on which He
slept. Tie had so little estate that in
order to pay HIS tax He had to per-
form miracle, putting the amount of
the assessment in a fish's mouth and
having it hauled ashore. And after
His death the world rushed in to take
an inventory of His goods, and the en-
tire aggregate was the garments He
had worn, sleeping in them by night
and travelling in them by day, bearing
on them the dust of the highway and
the saturation of the sea. st. Pail in
my text hit the mark when he said of
the missionary Prince: For your sake
He became poor"
The world could have treated Him
better if it had chosen. 1t had all the
means for making His earthly condi-
tions comfortable. Only a few years
before when Pompey, the general, ar
rived in Brindisi he was greeted with
arches and a costly column which cell
ebrated the 1000, 900 people whom he
had killed or conquered and he was al
lowed to wear his triumphal robe in
the senate. The world had applause
for imperial butchers, but buffeting
for the Prince of Peace. Plenty of
golden chalices for the favored to
drink out of, but our Prince must put
His lips to the bucket of the well by
the roadside after He had begged for a
drink? Born in another mans barn,
and eating at another mans table,
and cruising the lake in another mans
fishing smack, and buried in another
mans tomb. Four inspired authors
wrote His biography,and innumerable
lives of Christ have been published,
but He composed His autobiography
in a most compressed way. He said,
~ have trOdden the wine press alone.
Poor in the estim alton of nearly all
the prosperous classes They called
him Sabbath-breaker, wine bibber,
traitor, blasphemer, and ransacked
cover to cover to express their detesta-
tion. 1 can think now of only two
well-to-do men who espoused his
cause-Nicodemus and Joseph OF
Arimathea. His friends for the most
part were people who, in that climate
where ophtbalmia or inflammation of
the eyeball sweeps ever and anon as a
scourge, had become blind, sick
people who were anxious to get
well, and troubled people in whose
family there was some one dead or
dying. If He had a purse at all it
was empty, or we would have heard
what the soldiers did with the con-
tents. Poor? The pigeon in the dove
cote, the rabbit in it's burrow, the
silkworm in it's cocoon, the bee in its
hive, is better provided for, better of,
better sheltered. Aye, the brute Gre
alton has a home on earth, which
Christ had not. A poet says:
If on windy days the raven
Gambol like dancing skiff,
Not the less he loves his haven
On tie bosom Of the Gift.
If almost with eagle pinion
Ger the Alps the chamois roam,
Yet he has some small dominion
Which no doubt he calls his home.
But the Crown Prince of all Heaven
" dCminions has less than the raven,
less than the chamois, for He was
homeless. Aye, in the history of the
universe there is no other instance of
such coming down. Who can count
the miles from the top of the throne to
the bottom of the cross? Cleopatra,
giving a banquet to Antony, took a
pearl worth a 500, 600 and dissolved it
in vinegar and swallowed it. But when
our Prince, according to the evangel-
list, in His last hours, took the VIM
egar, in it had been dissolved all the
pearls of His Heavenly royalty. Down
until there was no other harrassment
to suffer, poor until there was no
other pauperism to torture. Billions
of dollars spent in wars to destroy
men, who will furnish the statistics of
the value of that precious blood that
was shed to save us? "Ye know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that,
though He was rich, yet for your sake
He became poor"
Only those who study this text in
two places can fully realize its power,
The Holy Land of A sia Minor and 4ho