The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-02-04
AIILURING INFLUENCES.
Traps for the Unwery DiscOursed
Upon by Dr.. Talmage.
The Punishment of Tasting Little Honey
-Blighting / .f1uences of corrupt
Literature, Drinking and
Gambling.

| sunday succeeding ms recent marriage
but prepared the following sermon for
his great reading congregation. 1t is
based on the text:
1 did but taste a little honey with the end Of
the rod that was in my hand and 10, must
die.-L Samuel, xiv, 43.
The honey bee is a most ingenious
architect, a Christopher Wren among
insects; geometer drawing hexagOns
and pentagons, a freebooter robbing
fields of pollen and aroma, wondrous
creature of God whose biography,
written by Huber and Swammerdam,
is an enchantment for and lover OF
nature. Virgil celebrated the bee in
his label of Aristaeus; and Moses, and
Samuel, and David, and Solomon, and
jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and st. John
used the delicacies of bee manufacture
as Bible symbol. A miracle of for
nation is the bee; five eyes, two
tongues, the outer having sheath of
| protection, hairs on all sides of its tiny
body to brush up the PARTICLES of flow
ers, its flight SO straight that all the
world knows of the bee line. The
| hODeycomb is a palace such as no one
but God could plan, and the honey bee
| construct; its cells, sometimes a store
| house, aud sometimes a cemetery.
| These winged toilers first make eight
| strips of wax, and by their antennae,
which are to them hammer, and chisel,
| and square, and plumb-line, fashion
them for use. Two and two these
| workers shape the wall If an acct
dent happens, they put up buttresses
/ of extra beams to remedy the damage.
| When about the year 1T76, an insect
before unknown, in the night time at
tackled the bee hives all over Europe,
and the men who owned them were in
vain trying to plan something to keep
out the invader that was the terror of
the bee hives of the continent, it was
found that everywhere the bees had
arranged for their own protection, and
built before their honey-cOmbs an es-
Pecial wall of wax with portfolios
through which the bees might go to
and fro, but not large enough TO admit
the winged cOmbatant, called the
SPHINX A:rOpos.
Do you know that the swarming of
the bees is divinely directed? The
mother bee starts for a new home, and
because of this the other bees of the
hive get into an excitement which
raises the heat of the hive some four
degrees, and they must die unless they
leave their heated apartments and fol-
low the mother bee and alight on the
branch of a tree, and cling to each
other and hold on until committee of
two or three bees have explored the
region and found the hollow of a tree
or rock not far off from stream of
water, and they here set up a new col
ony, and ply their aromatic industries,
and give themselves to the manufac-
ture of the Saccharine edible. But
who can tell the chemistry of that
mixture of sweetness, part of it the
very life of the bee, and part of it the
life of the fields?
Plenty of this luscious product was
hanging in the woods of Bethaven
during the time of Saul and Jonathan.
Their army was in pursuit of an enemy
that by Gods command must be eXter-
minated. The sOldiery were positively
forbidden to eat anything until the
work was done. If they disobeyed
they were accursed. Coming through
the woods they found a place where
the bees had been bnsy-a great honey
mandatory. Honey gathered in the
hollow of the trees until it Overhowed
upon the ground in great profusion of
sweetness. All the army obeyed orders
and touched it not save Jonathan, and
he, not knowing the military order
about abstinence, dipped the end of
stick he had in his hand into the can
died liquid, and, as yellow and tempt
ing it glowed on the end of the stick,
he put it to his mouth and ate the
honey. Judgment fell upon him, and
but for special Intervention he would
have been slain. In my text Jonathan
announces his awful mistake: Il did
but taste Il little honey with the end of
the rod that was in my hand, and, 10, l
must die Alas, what mulLitudes of
people in all ages have been damaged
by forbidden honey, by which l mean
temptation, delicious and attractive,
but damaging and destructive!
Corrupt literature, fascinating but
beautiful, comes in this category.
Where one good, honest, healthfuI
book is read now, there is hundred
made up of rhetorical trash consumed
with avidiJy. When the boys on the
cars come through with a pile of publ
cations, look over the titles and notice
that nine out of ten of the books are
injurious. All the way from here to
Chicago or New Orleans notice that OBJ |
iectionable books dominate. Taste for
pure literature is poisoned by this scum
Of the publishing house. Every book !
in which sin triumphs over virtue, or
in which d glamour is thrown over dis |
sipation, or which leaves you at its |
last line with less respect for the |
marriage institution and less abhor-
renee for the paramount, is a depression
of your own moral character. The |
book bindery may be attractive, and !
the plot dramatic and startling, and |
the style of writing sweet as the |
honey that Jonathan took up with his |
rod. but your best interests forbid it.
your moral safety forbids it, your God
forbids it, aud one taste of it may lead |
to such results that you may have to
say at the close of the experiment, or
at the close of misimproved life: IL
did but taste a little honey with the
rod that was in my hand, and 10!
must die
Corrupt literature is doing more to-
day for the disruption of domestic life
than any other cause. Elopments,
marital intrigues, sly correspondence,
fictitious names given at post Office
windows, cladestine meetings in parks,
and at ferry gates, and in hotel par
Iors, and cOnjugal perjuries are among
the ruinous results. When woman,
young or old, gets her head thoroughly |
stuffed with the modern novel she is
in appalling peril But some one will
say: The heroes are SO adroitly knav-
ish, and the heroines so bewitchingly