The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-01-07
t does a great deal for us. You have

nedfd, perhaps, OF that pain ter who
wished to get an expression of great
distress for his canvas, and who had
his servant lash inan fast and put
him to great t6ftdre, and then tho
artist caught the look Oh the Victims
face and Immediately transferred it to
the canvas. Then he said to the SER
want, More torture, and under more
torture there was q more thorough e.,-
preston of pain, and the artist said:
stop there; wait till l catch that ex-
preston. There! Now have it u pom
the canvas. Let lose the victim. /
have g work that will last forever"
| "Oh, you say; The wis ah itihufdau
painter" No doub about it. Troub BILE
MS cruel and inhuman: but lie is a great
painter, and out of our tears and blood
on his palette. he makes colors that
never die. Oh, that it might be a pic
ture of Christian fortitude, of shining
hope!
On the day / was licensed to preach
the Gospel an old Christian man took
my hand and said: my son, when
you get in tight corner on Saturday
night, without any sermon, send for
me, and l will preach for YOU" Well,
1t was great encouragement to be
backed Dip by such good old minister,
and it was not long before 1 got into
a tight corner on Saturday night,
without any sermon, and 1 sent for the
old minister, and he came and
preached, and it was the last sermon
he ever preached. All the tears l cried
at his funeral could not express my af-
lection for that man, who was willing
to help me out Of a tight corner. All!
my friends, that is what we all
want-somebody to help us out
of tight corner. You are in
one now. How do 1 know til
| am used to judging of human counte-
nances, and see beyond the smile and
beyond the courageous look with
which you hide your feelings from 9TH
ers. l know you are in tight corner.
What to do? Do as l did when / sent
for old DR.. Scott. Do better than did
send for the Lord God of Daniel, and
of Joshua, and of every other man who
got into tight corner. TO-" says
some one, why can not God develop
me through prosperity instead of
through adversity?" l will answer
your question by asking another. Why
does not God dye our northern and
temperate seas with the coral? You
say: THE water is not hot enough"
ThereI In answering my question you
have answered your own. Hot climate
for richest specimens of coral; hot
trouble for the jewels of the soul. The
coral-fishers going out from Tore del
Greece never brought ashore such fine
specimens as are brought out of the
scalding surges of misfortune. l look
down into the tropical sea, and there
is something that looks like blood, and
say: ''Has there been a great battle
down there?" Seeming blood scattered
all up and down the reefs 1t is the
blood of the coral, and it makes me
think of those who come out of great
tribulation and have their robes
washed white in the Blood of the
Lamb. But these gems of earth are
nothing to the gems of Heaven. mo |
mention shall be made of coral"
take your hand again and walk a |
little further on in this garden of the |
sea, and l notice the durab ility of the |
work of the coral. Montgomery |
speaks of it. He says: "Frail were |
their forms, ephemeraI their lives, |
their masonry imperishable." Rhlzo- |
pods are insects so small they are in |
visible, and yet they built the |
Apprentices and they planted for
their own monument the Cor |
dilleras! 1t takes 1S7. 900, 900 of them |
to make one grain. Corals are chang |
ing the navigation of the sea, saying
to the commerce of the world: "Take |
this channel;" take that channel;o
''avoid the other channel" Animal
cules beating back the Atlantic and |
Pacific seas! If the insects of |
the ocean have built reef
thousand miles long, who knows
but that they may yet build reef
3, 600 miles long, and thus that by one
stone bridge Europe shall be united
with this continent on one side, and by
another stone bridge Asia will be
united with this con tinent on the other;
and the tourist of the world, without
the turn of a steamers wheel or the
spread of ships sail, may go all
around the world, and thus be fulfilled
the prophecy: There shall be no more
sea-"
One specimen of coral is called the |
because is like a tree:
another is called the astrara, because
t is like a star; another is called
the brain coral. because it IS
ike the convolutions of the hui
nan brain; another is called fan coral,
because it is like the instrument with
which you cool yourself on hot day:
another specimen is called the organ
pipe coral, because it resembles the
King of musical instruments. All the
lowers and all the shrubs in the gar
lens of the land have their CORE
'pondencies in this garden of the sea.
Jorallum 1t is a synonym for beauty.
And yet there is no beauty in the
,oral compared with our religion.
It gives physiognomic beauty. 1t
Ices not change the features; it does
lot give features with which the per-
ION was not originally endowed, but
t sets be hind the features of the home
lest person Heaven that shines clear
through. So that often, on first ac-
luain lance, you said of a man: "He is
he homelieSt person l ever saw" when,
.fter you came to understand him and
lis nobility of soul shining through
lis countenance, you said: He is the
oveliest person l ever saw" No one
ver had homely Christian moth
r. Whatever the world may have
hought of her, there were two
Who thought well-your father, who
lad admired her for so years, and you,
,ver whom she bent with so many ten
Ter ministrations. When you think of
he angels of God, and your mother
.mong them, she outshines them all.
)h. that our young people could under
tand that there is nothing that SO
much beauties the human counte-
lance as the religion of Jesus Christi
+ makes evervthino beautiful TroubIa |