The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-06-11
CONTRARY WINDS.
Many Persons Are Under the Dis.
advantage ofan Unfortunate Name.
Other1 Labor Under the Misfortune OF
Incomplete Physical Equipment-Dr.
TaImage's Beautiful Sermon of Ed-
eOuragement to Struggling Souls.

contrary"
As L well know by experience on
Lake Galilee, one hour all may be calm
and the next hour the winds and waves
will be SO boisterous that you are in
doubt as to whether you win land on
the shore or on the bottom of the deep.
The disciples in the text were caught
N such a stress of weather and the
sails bent and the ship plunged, for
''the wind was contrary" There Is in
one of the European straits a place
where, whichever way you sail, the
wieds are opposing. There are peo-
pie who all their life seem sailing in
the teeth of the wind. All things
seem against them. 1t may be said of
their condition as of that of the dis
ciples in my text, 1.-The wind was con-
trary."
A great multitude of people are un-
der seeming disadvantage and l will
to-day, in the swarthiest Anglo-Saxon
that l can manage, treat their cases
not as nurse counts out eight or ten
drops of a prescription and stirs them
in n half glass of water, but as when a
man has by 4 mistake taken large
amount of strychnine or paris green
or belladonna, and the patient is
walked rapidly round the room and
shaken up until he gets wide awake.
Many of you have taken a large
draught of the poison of discourage
ment, and l come out by the order of
the Divine Physician to rouse you out
of that lethargy.
First, many people are under the dis
advantage of an unfortunate name
given them by parents who thought
they were doing a good thing. Some
times at the baptism of children while
l have held up one hand in prayer l
have held up the other hand in amaze
ment that parents should have weight
ed the babe with such dissonant and
repulsive nomencla ture. 1 have not
so much wondered that some children
should cry out at the christening font
as that others with such smiling face
should take a title that will be the
burden of their lifetime. 1t is out
raSeous to afTlict children with an IN
desirable name because it happened to
be possessed by parent or a rich I'M
Gle from whom favors are expected or
some prominent man of the day who
iiAdN Gnu Ills AAAC III NAASSId IL ID AO
excuse, because they are Scripture
names, to call a child Jehoiakim or
Tiglath-Pileser. 1 baptized one by
the name Bathsheba. Why, under all
the circumam bient heaven, any parent
should want to give to a child the
name of that loose creature of Scripture
times / can not imagine. l have often
felt at the baptismal altar, when
names were announced to me, like
saying, as did Rev. DR.. Richards,
of Morristown, n. j., when a child
was handed him for baptism and the
name given, Hadn't you better call it
something else?"
Impose not upon that babe a name
suggestive of fippancy or meanness.
There is no excuse for such assault
and battery on the cradle when our
language is opulent with names music
al and suggestive in meaning, such as
John, meaning the gracious gift of
God," or Henry, meaning the chief
of a household" or Alfred, meaning
good counselor" or Joshua, meaning
God, our salvation" or Ambrose,
meaning Immortal, or Andrew,
meaning manly" or Esther, meaning
star" or Abigail, meaning my
fathers joy" or Anna, meaning
grace" or Victoria, meaning 'vic-
tory" or Rosalie, meaning 'beauti-
full as a rose,'' or Margaret, meaning
"a pearl" or Ida, meaning ''godi Ike,
Or Clara, meaning 'illustrious," or
meaning busy" or Bertha,
meaning beautiful" and hundreds of
other names just as good that are
help rather than a hindrance.
But sometimes the great hindrance
in life is not in the given name, but
in the family name. While legisla-
lures are willing to lift such incubus,
there are families which keep a
name which mortgages. all the gem
erations with a great disadvantage.
You say, 81 wonder if ne is any rela-
ton to ''So-and-so," mentioning some
family cele brated for crime or decep-
ton. 1t is a wonder to me that in all
such families some spirited young man
does not rise, saying to his brothers
and sisters, IF you want to keep
this nuisance or standardization of
name, 1 will keep it no longer than I'M
til by quickest course of law l can
slough off this gangrene." The city di-
rectory has hundreds of names the
mere pronunciation of which has been
a lifelong obstacle. If you have start
ed life under a name which either
ridiculous photography or
vicious suggestion has been an in
cum brance, resolve that the next gen.
Grafton shall not be so weighted. 1t is
not demeaning to change a name. Saul
Of Tarsus became Paul the Apostle.
''the myrtle" became
Esther, 'the star" We have in Amer
lea, and 1 suppose it is so in all coun-
tries, names which ought to be abol-
ished and can be and will be abolished
FOR the reason that they are libel and
a SANDER. But if for any reason you
are submerged either by given name
or by a family name that you must
bear, God will help you to overcome
the outrage by a life consecrated to
the good and useful You may erase
the curse from the name. If it once
stood for meanness, you can make it
stand for generosity If once it stood for
pride, you can make it stand for hui
mility. If it once stood for fraud, you
can make it stand for honesty. If once
it stood for wickedness. you can make
it stand for purity. There have been
multitudes of instances where men
and women have magnifcently con-
quered the disasters of the name in
a;cted upon them.
Again, many people labor under the
of incomplete physical
equipment We are by our Creator SO
built that we can not af-
ford the obliteration of any physical
faculty. We want our two eyes, our
two ears, our two hands, our two feet,
our eight fingers and two thumbs. Yet
what multitudes of people have but
one eve or but one footl The ordinary