The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-05-20

path through raging Jordan Tor just
two to pass over; the man who with
wheel of fire rode over death and es-
capped into the skies without mortuary
disintegration; the man who, thou
sands of years after, was called out of
the eternities to. stand beside Jesus
Christ on Mount Tabor when it was
ablaze with the splendors of transfgur-
ation-this man could look back to the
time when voracious and filthy ravens
were his only caterers.
See also in this call of Moses that
God has great memory. Four hum
bred years before He had promised the
dehverance of the oppressed Israelites
of Egypt. The clock of time has struck
the hour. and now Moses is called to
the work of rescue. Four hundred
years is very long time, but you see
God can remember promise 400 years
as well as you can remember 400 min
utes. Four hundred years includes all
your ancestry that you know anything
about and all the promises made to
them, and we may expect fulfillment
in our heart and life of all the bless
ings predicted to our Christian
ancestry centuries ago. You have
dim remembrance, if any
remembrance at all, of your great
grandfather, but God sees those who
were on their knees in 1898 as well as
those on their knees in 1898, and the
blessings He promised the former and
their descendants have arrived, or will
arrive. While piety is not hereditary,
it is grand thing to have had pious
ancestry. So God in this chapter calls
up the pedigree of the people whom
Moses was to deliver, and Moses
is ordered to say to them: The
Lord God of your fathers, the
God of Arabian, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob hath sent me unto
YOU" If that thought be divinely
accurate, let me ask: What are we
doing by prayer and by holy life for
the redemption of the next four hum
dred years? Our work is not only with
the people of the latter part of the
nineteenth century, but with those in
the closing of the twentieth century,
and the closing of the twenty-second
century, and the closing of the twenty
third century. For four hundred
y IL bIc NOElu "
swing until that time, or if it drops,
then, Notwithstanding, the influence
viii go on in other ATTITUDES and longi-
tudes of Gods universe.
Notice, also, that Moses was 80 years
of age when he got his call to become
the Israelitish deliverer Forty years
he had lived in palaces; another 40 years
ha haH liua1 in fhn NxyiITnrnoSc Of Ar.a-
bia. | should not wonder if he had
said: Take younger man for this
work. Eighty winters have exposed
my health; eighty summers have
poured their heats upon my head.
There are the 40 years that l spent
among the enervating luxuries of
a palace, and then followed
the 40 years of wilderness hard
ship. am too old. Let me off. Bet
ter call man in the fofties or ffties,
and not one who has entered upon
the eighties" Nevertheless, he under
took the work, and if we want to know
whether he succeeded, ask the aban.
doned brick kilns of Egyptian task
masters, and the sPlintered chariot
wheels strewn on the beach of the Red
sea, and the timbrels which Miriam
clapped for the Israelites passed over
and the Egyptians gone under.
Do not retire too early. Like Moses,
you may have your chief work to do
after 80. 1t may not be in the high
places of the field, it may not be where
a strong arm and an athletic foot and
a clear vision are required, but there is
for you yet to do. Perhaps
it may be to round off the work
you have already done; to demon
strate the patience you have been rec
all your lifetime; perhaps
to stand a lighthouse at the mouth of
the bay to light others into the har-
Dor; perhaps to show how glorious
sunset may come after a stormy day.
You see, religion is a tremendous
We all have the general
call to salvation. We hear it in songs,
in sermons, in prayers; we hear it year
after year. But after awhile, through
our own sudden and alarming illness,
or the death of playmate, or the de-
cease of a business partner, or the de-
mise of next-door neighbor, we get
the especial call to repentance, and
new life and eternal happiness, and we
know that God means us. Oh, have
you noticed this way in which God
calls us twice? Two failures of invest
nents, two Sicknesses; two persecu-
lions; two bereavements; two diSap-
oointments; two disasters. Moses
Moses!
sNill further notice that the call of
Moses was written in letters of fire. On
Sinai peninsula there was thorn
bush called the acacia, dry and brittle,
aud it easily goes down at the touch of
The flame. 1t crackles and turns to
ashes very quickly. Moses, seeing one
IF these bushes on fire, goes to look at
t. At first, no doubt, it seemed to be
botanical curiosity, burning, yet
no leaf, parting no stem,
no ashes. 1t was
fire that did no
damage to the vegetation. That
burning bush was the call. Your call
will probably come in letters of fire.
Ministers get their call to preach in
etters on paper, or parchment, or type
written, but it does not amount to
much until they get their next call in
etters of fire. You will not amount
% much in usefulness until somewhere
lear you find burning bush. 1t may
De found burning in the hectic flush
If your childs cheek; it may be found
burning in business misfortune; it may
,e found burning in the fire of the
worlds scorn or hate or misrepresenta-
ion. But harken to the cracl1le of the
burning bush!
A great snow storm came on prairie
n Minnesota, and farmer in sleigh
vas lost, bat after awhile struck the
rack of another sleigh, and felt
:heered to go on, since he had
ound the TRACK of another traveller