The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-11-04
LOVE SHOULD REIGN.
Rev. Dr.. Talmage Takes the Happy
Home for a Theme.
A Few of the Cardinal Principles of Do
mestIc BIiss-The Importance of
Mutual Forbearance and SYM
pathy of Occupation.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, in the fol-
lowing discourse, sets forth theories
which, if adopted, would brighten
many a domestic circle. The text is:
The disciples went away again unto
their own hoE-as.' john XIX, 10.
A church within church, a repub-
lie within a republic, world within "a
world, is spelled by four letters
Home! If things go right there, they
go right everywhere; f things go
wrong there, they go wrong every
where. The door sill of the dwelling
house is the foundation of church and
state. A man never gets higher than
his own garret or lower than his own
cellar. Domestic life overreaches and
undergirdles all other life. The high
est house of congress is the domestic
circle; the rocking chair in the nurse
ry is higher than a throne. George
Washington commanded the forces of
the United States, but Mary Washing
ton commanded George. Chrysos-
toms mother made his pen for him.
If a man should start out and run 20
years in a straight line, he could not
get out from under the shadow of his
own mantelpiece. I therefore talk to
to you about a matter of infinite and
eternal moment when l speak of your
home.
AS individuals we are fragments.
God makes the race in parts, and then
He gradually put US together. What
1 lack, you make up; what you lack.
I make up; our defects and surpluses
of character being the cog-wheels in
the great social mechanism. One per-
son has the patience, another has the
courage, another has the placidity, an
other has the enthusiasm; that which
is lacking in one is made up by an
other, or made up by all. Buffoloes in
herds, grouse in broods, quails in
fiocks, the human race in circles. God
has most beautifully arranged this. 1t
is in this way that He balances So
ciety; this conservative and that radi-
cal keeping things even. Every ship
must have its mast, cut-water, taffrail,
ballast. Thank God, then for Prince
ton and Andover, for the opposites.
have no more right to blame a man
for being different from me than
driving wheel has a right to blame the
iron shaft that holds it to the center.
John Wesley balances Calvin's Insti-
tutes. A cold thinker gives to Scot
land the strong bones of theology;
DR.. Guthrie clothes them with a
throbbing heart and warm flesh. The
difficulty is that we are not satisfied
with just the work that God has given
us to do. The water-wheel wants to
come inside the mill and grind the
grist, and the hopper wants to go out
and dabble in the water. Our useful
ness and the welfare of society de-
pend upon our staying in just the
place that God has put us, or intended
we should occupy.
For more compactness, and that we
may be more useful, we are gathered
in still smaller circles in the home
group. And there you have the same
variety again; brothers, sisters, hus-
band and wife; all different in tenn
permanent and tastes. 1t is fortunate
that it should be so. If the husband
be all impulse the wife must be all
prudence. If one sister be sanguine in
her temperament, the other must be
Emphatic. Mary and Martha are ne
cessities. There will be no dinner for
Christ if there be no Martha; there
will be no audience for Jesus if there
be no Mary. The home organization
is most beautifully constructed. Eden
has gone; the bowers are broken
down; the animals that Adam stroked
with his hand that morning when they
came up to get their names have since
shot forth tusk and sting, and growled
panther at panther; and, midair, iron
beaks plunge, till with clotted wing
and eyeless sockets the twain come
down from under the sun in
blood and fire. Eden has gone, but
there is just one little fragment left.
1t f1oated down on the river Hiddekel
out of paradise. 1t is the marriage
institution. 1t does not, at the begin
ming, take away from man rib. Now
it is an addition of ribs.
This institution ofmarriage has been
in our day. Socialism and
and the most damnable of
all things, freelovism, have been try
ing to turn this earth into a Turkish
harem. While the pulpits have been
silent, novels-their
cheapness only equaled by their nasti-
ness-are trying to educate, have taken
upon themselves to educate, this ma
ton in regard to holy marriage, which
makes or breaks for time and eterni-
ty. Oh, this is not mere question of
residence or wardrobe! 1t is a ques-
ton charged with gigantic JOY or sor-
row, with Heaven or hell. Alas for
this new dispensation ofGeorge Sands!
Alas for this mingling of the night
shade with the marriage garlands!
Alas for the venom of adders spit into
the tankards! Alas for the white |
frosts of eternal death that kill the |
orange blossoms! The Gospel of Je-
sus Christ is to assert what is right |
and to assail what is wrong. Attempt |
has been made to take the marriage |
institution, which was intended for |
The happiness and elevation of the |
race, and make it a mere commercial |
an exchange of houses and |
ands and equipage; business part
1ership of two stuffed up with the
stories of romance and knight-erranty, |
md unfaithfulness and feminine an
yelhood. The two after awhile have |
.oused up to find that, instead of the
paradise they dreamed of, they have |
rot nothing but a Van Amberg me-
1agerie, filed with tigers and wild !