The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-08-26
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

not dismissed her.. Planting one foot
| upon outside persecution, and the other
! foot on home trouble, John Wesley
climbed up into the heights of Chris
tian joy, and after preaching 10000 SER
mons and travelling 270,000 miles,
reached the heights of Heaven, though
in this world he had it hard enough
"a sharp rock on the one side, and
sharp rock on the other"
| Again, that woman stands in the
| crisis of the text who has bereavement
and struggle for livelihood at the
same time Without mentioning
names, l speak from observation. All,
it is q hard thing for a woman to make
an honest living, even when her heart
is not troubled, and she has fair
cheek, and the magnetism of an ex-
quisite presence. But now the hus-
band, or the father, is dead. The eX
penses of the obsequis have absorbed
all that was left in the saviags bank;
| and, wan and wasted with weeping
| and watching, she goes forth-a
grave, hearse, a coffin behind her
| to contend for her existence and the
| existence of her children. When see
| such a battle as that open l shudder at
the ghastliness of the spectacle. Men
sit with embroidered slippers and
write heartleSs ESSAYS about woman's
wages; but that question is made up
of tears and blood, and there is more
blood than tears. Oh, give women
! free access to all the realms where she
can get a livelihood, from the tele-
graph office to the pulpit! Let mems
wages be cut down before hers are
cut down. Men have iron in their
souls and can stand it. Make the
way free to her of the broken heart.
May God put into my hand the
cold, bitter cup of privation, and
give me nothing but a windowIess hut
for shelter for many years, rather than
that after l am dead there should go
out from my home into the pitiless
world a woman's arm to fight the Get
tysburg, the Austerlitz, the Waterloo
of life for bread! And yet, how many
women there are seated between the
rock of bereavement on the one side
and the rock of destitutiOn on the
other! Bozez and Seneh interlocl1ing
their shadows and dropping them upon
her miserable way. "There is a sharp
rock on the one side, and sharp rock
on the other side. F"
What are such to do? Somehow, let
them climb up into the heights of the
glorious promise: "Leave thy father
less children-I will preserve them
alive, and let thy widows trust in me-"
Or get up into the heights of that other
glosious promise: THE Lord pre-
serveth the stranger, and relieveth the
widow and the fatherless." 0 We sew
ing women, on starving wages! Dye
widows, turned from the once beauti-
full home! Oye female teachers, kept
on niggardly stipendl 0 ye de-
spairing women, seeking in vain
for work, wandering along the
docks, and thinking to throw your
selves into the river last night! o ye
women of weak nerves, and aching
sides, and short breath, and broken
heart, you need something more than
human sympathy; you need the SYM
pathy of God. Climb up into His arms.
He knows it all, and He loves you more
than father. or mother, or husband
ever could or ever did; and, instead of
sitting down, wringing your hands in
despair, you had better begin to climb.
There are heights of consolation for
you, though now there is a sharp rock
on one side, and a sharp rock on the
other side"
Again, that man is in the crisis of
the text who has wasted life on the
one side and an unilluminated eternity
on the other. Though man may all
his life have cultured deliberation and
sclf-poise, if he gets into that position,
all his self-possession is gone. There
are all the wrong thoughts of his ex-
istence, all the wrong deeds, all this
wrong words-strata above strata,
granite, ponderous, overshadowing.
That rock | call Bozez. On the other
side are all the retributions of the
future, the thrones of judgment, the
eternal ages; angry with his long de-
fiance. That rock | call Seneh. Be-
tween these two rocks 10000 times 1O,-
900 have perishcd.
o man immortal, man redeemed, man
blood bought, climb up out of those
shadows! Climb up by the way of the
Cross. Have your wasted life for
given; have your eternal life secured
This hour just take the look to the
past, and see what it has been;
and take one look to the future,
and see what it threatens to
be. You can afford to lose your health,
you can afford to lose your property,
you can afford to lose your reputation;
but you can not afford to lose your
soul. That bright, cleaning, glorious,
precious, eternal possession you must
carry aloft in the day when the earth
burns up and the heavens burst.
You see from my subject that when
a man gets into the safety and peace
of the Gospel, he does not demean him
self. There is nothing in religion
that leads to meanness or un-
manliness. The Gospel of Jesus
Christ only asks you to climb as
Jonathan did-climb toward God, climb
toward Heaven, climb into the sun
shine of Gods favor. TO become
Christian is not to go meanly down; it
is to come gloriously up-up into the
communion of saints; up into the peace
that passeth all understanding; up into
the companionship of angels. He lives
upward; he dies upward.
Oh, then, accept the wholesale invi-
tation which l make this day to all the
people! Come up from between your
invaiidism and financial embarrass-
bereavements and your destitution.
Come up from between a wasted
life and an unillumined eternity. Like
Jonathan, climb up with all your
might, instead of sitting down TO
wiring your hands in the shadow and
Ill the darkneSS-''a sharp rock on the