The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-02-12

thermometer 81 three degrees GS1OW
zero to tone up the system. December
and January Just as important as May
and June. / tell you we need the
storms of life as much as we do the
sunshine. There are more men ruined
by prosperity than by adversely. If we
had our own way in life, before this
we would have been representations
of selfishnesS and wordliness and dis
gushing sin, and pulled up until we
would have been like Julius Caesar,
who was made by sycophants to be-
lieve that he was divine, and the
freckles on his face were said to be as
the stars of the armament
Oh, what a mercy it is that in the
text and all up and down the Bible
God induces us 70 look out toward
other wOrldsl Bible astronomy in
Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in the
Psalms, in the prophets, major and
minor, in ST. Johns Apocalypse, prac-
tically saying; ''Worldsi worldsi
worlds! Get ready for theml" We
have nice little world here that we
stick to, as though losing that we lose
all. We are afraid of falling off
this little raft OF a world. We are
afraid that some meteoric iconoclast
will some night smash it, and we want
every thing to revolve around it, and
are disappointed when we find that 1t
revolves around the sun instead of the
sun revolving around 1t. What fuss
we make about this little bit of
world, Its existence, only abort time
between two spasms, the parOxysm by
which it was hurled from chaos into
order, and the paroxysm of it's demo-
lition.
And 1 am glad that SO many texts
call us to look off to other worlds,
many of them larger and grander and
more respondent. Look here" says
Job, ''at Nazareth and Arcturus and
his sons!" Look there" says St. John,
TAT the moon under Christ's feetr'
Look there" says Joshua, ''at the
sun standing still above GideonI"
Look there" says Moses, ''at the
sparkling armament" Look there"
says Amos, the herdsman, lat
the Seven Stars and Orionl"
Do not let us be so sad about those
who shove off from this world under
ChristlY pilotage. Do not let us be so
agitated about our own going off this
little barge or sloop or canal boat of
world to get on some Great Eastern
of the heavens. Do not let US persist
in wanting to stay in this barn, this
shed, this clubhouse of a world, when
all the Kings palaces already occupied
by many of our best friends are SWING
ing wide open their gates to let us in.
When L read, I'm my Fathers house
are many mansions" l do not know
Il 4 i i
many rooms as there are worlds,
stellar stairs, stellar galleries, stellar
Railways, stellar windows, stellar
domes. How are departed friends
must pity US shut up in these
cramped apartments, tired if we
walk fifteen miles, when they
some mornings by one stroke of
wing, can make circuit of the whole
stellar system and be back in time for
mathis! Perhaps yonder twinkling
constellation is the residence of the
martyrs; that group of twelve lumi-
naries may be the celestial home of
the apostles. Perhaps that steep Of
light is the dwelling place of angels
cherubic, seraphic, archangelic. A
mansion with as many rooms as worlds,
and all their windows illuminated for
feStivity.
Oh, how this widens and lifts and
stimulates our expectation! How little
it makes the present, and how stupen.
dous it makes the future! How it con-
soles us about our pious dead, that in
stead of being boxed up and under the
ground have the range of as
many rooms as there are worlds,
and welcome everywhere, for it
is the Fathers house, in which
there are many mansions! Oh, Lord
God of the Seven Stars and Orion,
how can endure the transport, the
ecstasy, of such a visionl L must obey
my text and seek Him. l will seek
Him. / seek Him now, for 1 call to
mind that 1t is not the material uni
verse that is most valuable, but the
spiritual, and that each of us has a
soul worth more than all the worlds
which the inspired herdsmen saw from
his booth on the hills of Tekoa.
l had studied it before, but the ca
thedral of Cologne, Germany, never
impressed me as it did one summer.
1t is admittedly the grandest Gothic
structure in the world, its foundation
laid in 124s, only few years ago COM
pleted. More than GOO years in build
ing. All Europe taxed for its con-
struction. Its chapel of the Magi,
with precious stones enough to
purchase a kingdom. It's chapel
of st. Agnes with masterpieces
of painting. It's spire springing
5l1 feet into the heavens. Its stdined
glass the chorus of all rich colors.
Statues encircling the pillars and en-
circling all. Statues above statues,
until sculpture can do no more, but |
faints and falls back against carved |
stalls and down on pavements over |
which the kings and queens of the |
earth have walked to confessional. |
Nave and aisles and transept and |
portals combining the splendors of !
sunrise and sunset. 1nterlaced, inter- |
foliated, intercolumned grandeur. AS |
1 stood outside, looking at the dou BILE |
range of flying buttresses and the |
forest of pinnacles, higher and higher |
and higher, until / almost reeled from |
dizziness; 1 exclaimed Great dox-
ology in stone! Frozen prayer of |
many nations!"
But while standing there 1 saw a |
poor man enter and put down his pack |
and kneel beside his burden on the |
hard floor of that cathedral. And tears |
of deep emotion came into my eyes. as
l said to myself: There is a son!
worth more than all the material sur
roundings. That man will live after
the last pinnacle has fallen,
and not one stone of all that
glory shall remain un.
o,-,1 m h1ad He ia pnvu
rags and poverty and WEAKNESS, but
and son of the Lord God
and the prayer he now of