The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-08-19

1 iAsAtO 1hSlO "a I
men at Albany, and at Harrisburg, and
at Washington, who would no more be
approached by bribe than a pira4e
boat with few cutlasses would dare
to attack n British man-of-war with
| two banks of guns on each side loaded
to the touch-hole. They are incor-
ruptible men, and they are the few
men who are to save the city and save
| the land.
Meanwhile, my advice is, keep out OF
| politics unless you are invulnera5le to
this style of temptation. Indeed, il
| even you are naturally strong, you
need religious buttressing. Nothing
but the grace of God can sustain our
public men, and make them what we
wish l wish that there might come
an old-fashioned revival of religion,
that it might break out in congress
and the legislatures, and bring many
of the leading republicans and demo
Gratis down on the anxious seat of re-
pentance. That day will come, or
| something better, for the Bible de-
clares that kings and queens shall be-
come nursing fathers and mothers to
the charch, and if the greater in
authority, then certainly the less.
My charge also to parents is, remem-
Der that this evil of bribery often be-
gins in the home circle, and in the
| nursery. Do not bribe your children.
Teach them to do that which is right,
and not because of the ten cents or the
orange which you will give them.
| There is a great difference between re-
warding virtue and making the profits
thereof the impelling move. That
man who is honest merely because hon
esty is the best policy" is already a
moral bankrupt.
My charge is to you, in all depart
| ments of life, steer clear of bribery all
of you. Every man and woman at
some time will be tempted to do wrong
for compensation. The bfibe may not
be offered in money. 1t may be offered
in social position. Let us remember
that there is IL day coming when the
most secret transactions of private life,
| and of public life, will come up for
public apprehension.
We can not bribe death, we can not
bribe sickness. we can not bribe the
grave, we can not bribe the judgments
of that God who thunders against this
SIM ''Fie!" said Cardinal Beaufort,
"fe!" Can't death be bribed? Is money
nothing? Must l die, and SO rich? If
the owning of the whole realm would
save me, could get it By policy or by
purchase-by money" No, death
would not be bribed then; he will not
be bribed now Men of the world often
regret that they have to leave their
money here when they go away from
the world. You can tell from what
they say in their last hours that one
of their chief sorrows is that they
have to leave their money. / break
that delusion. 1 tell that bribetaker
that he will take his money with him.
God will wrap it up in your
shroud, or put it in the palm of your
hand in resurrection, and there it will
lie, not the cool, bright, shining gold
as it was on the day when you sold
your vote and your moral principle,
but there it will lie, a hot metal, burn
ing and consuming your hand forever.
Or, if there be enough of it for "A chain,
then it will fall over the wrist, clank-
ing the fetters of an eternal captivity.
The bribe is an everlasting possession.
You take it for time, you take it for
eternity. Some day in the next world,
when you are longing for sympa thy,
you will feel on your check kiss.
Looking up, you will find it to be Ju-
das, who took thirty pieces of silver as
bribe, and finished the bargain by
putting an infamous kiss on the pure
cheek of his Divine Master
Another wrong use of money is seen
in the abuse of trust funds. Nearly
every man during the course of his
life, on a larger or smaller scale, has
the property of others committed to
his keeping. He is, so far, safety de-
posit he is an administrator, and holds
in his hand the interest of the family
of a deceased friend. Or he is an at
torney, and through his custody goes
the payment from door to creditor, or
he is the collector for business house,
which compenSates him for the re-
sponsibility; or he is treasurer for q
charitable institution, and he holds
aims contributed for the suffering; or
he is an official of the city or the state
or the nation, and taxes and subsidies
and salaries and supplies are in his
keeping.
1t is as solemn trust as God caf1
make it. It is concentrated and multi
piled condolences. On that man de-
pends the support of a bereft house
hold, or the morals of dependents, or
the right movement of a thousand
wheels of social mechanism. a man
may do what he will with his own, but
1,. VII oh f41r in ~
act commits theft, falsehood, perjury,
and becomes, in all the intensity of
the world, a miscreant. How many
widows and orphans there are with
nothing between them and starvation,
but sewing machine, or held up out
of the vortex of destruction simply by
the thread of needle, red with their
own hearts blood, who little while
ago had, by father and husband, left
them competency! What is the
matter? The administrators or the
executors have sacrificed it-running
risks with it that they would not have
dared to encounter in their own private
affairs.
How often it is that a man will earn
a livelihood by the sweat of his brow,
and then die, and within few mouths
all the estate goes into the stock-gam-
bling rapids of Wall street! How often
it is that you have known the man to
whom trust funds were com mmitted,
taking them out of the savings bank
and from trust companies and admin
istrators, turning old homesteads ITO
hard cash, and then putting the entire
estate into the vortex of specala-
ton. Embezzlement is an easy
word to pronounce, but it has
10000 ramitcations. There is not