The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-05-06
A RIFT IN THE CLOUD.
Dr.. Talmage Tries to Bring Comfort
Into Clouded Lives.
Dependent People Urged TO Cast Aside
Their Gloomy FOrebOdings and
Look Only to the Light
Beyond.

signals out. Ship reefng main top
sails! Awnings taken in. Prophecies
of foul weather everywhere. The
clouds congregate around the sun, pro
posing to abolish him. But after
awhile he assails the TANKS of the
clouds with flying artillery of light,
and here and there is sign of clearing
weather. Many do not observe it.
Many do not realize it. "And now
men see not the bright light which is
in the Clouds" In other words, there
are hundred men looking for storm
where there is one man looking for
sunshine. My object will be to get you
and myself into the delightful habit OF
making the best of everything.
You may have wondered at the sta
tistics that in India, in the year 1878,
there were over $4,000 people slain by
wild beasts, and that in the year 1876
there were in India over 10000 people
destroyed by wild animals. But there
is a monster in our own land which is
year by year destroying moro than
that. 1t is the old bear of melancholy,
and with gospel weapons 1 propose to
chase it back to it's midnight caverns.
l mean to do two sums-a sum in sub
traction and sum in addition-a sub
traction from your days of depression
ind an addition to your days of Joy.
If God will help me l will compel you
TO see the bright light that there is in
the clouds, and compel you to make
the best of everything.
In the first place, you ought to make
the very best of all your financial mis-
fortunes. During the panic a few years
ago you all lost money. Some of you
lost it in most unaccountable WAYS
For the question:: How many thou
sands of dollars shall l put aside this
year," you substituted the question:
How shall l pay my butcher, and
baker, and clothier, and landlord?"
You had the sensation of rowing hard
with two oars and yet all the time 60
ing down stream.
You did not say much about it be-
cause it was not polite to speak of
financial embarrassment; but your wife
knew. Less variety of wardrobe, more
economy at the table, self-denial in art
and tapestry. Compression; retrench-
ment. Who did not feel the necessity
of it? My friend, did you make the
best of this? Are you aware of how
narrow an escape you made? Suppose
you had reached the fortune toward
which you were rapidly going? What
then? You would have been as proud
as Lucifer.
How few men have succeeded largely
IN financial sense and yet retained
their simplicity and religious consecra-
ton! Not one man out of a hundred
There are glorious exceptions, but the
general rule is that in proportion as a
man gets well off for this world he
gets poorly off for the next. He loses
his sense of dependence on God lie
gets a dictate for prayer meetings.
With plenty of bank stocks and plenty
of government securities, what does
that man know of the prayer: Give
me this day my daily bread?" How few
men largely successful in this world
are bringing souls to Christ or show
ing self-denial for others, or are emf
nent to piety? You can count them
all upon your eight fingers ana two
thumb S.
One of the old cOvetous souls, when
he was sick, and sick unto death, used
to have 4 basin brought ina basin
filled with gold, and his only amuse-
ment and the only relief he got for Ais
inflamed hands was running them down
the gold and turning it mp in
the basin. On, what infatuation and
what destroying power money has for
many a man! Now, you were sailing
at 30 knots the hour toward these vOr-
tees of wOrldliness-what mercy it
was, that honest defalcation! The
same Divine hand that crushed your
your bank, your office, your
insurance company lifted you out of
destruction. The day you honestly
in business made your for
tune for eternity.
oh" you say, II could get along
very well myself, but l am so disap-
pointed that l can not leave a compe-
tence for my children. My brother,
the same financial misfortune that is
going to save your soul will save your
children. With the anticipation of
large fortune, how much industry
would your children have?-without
which habit of industry there is no
safety. The young man would say:
Well, there's no need of my working;
my father will soon step out, and then
I'll have just what l want" You can
not hide from him how much you are
worth. You think you are hiding it; he
knows all about it. lie can tell you
almost to a dollar. Perhaps he has
been to the county Office and searched
the records of deeds and mortgages,
and he has added it all up, and he has
made an estimate of how long you will
probably stay in this world, and is not
rs much worried about your rheuma-
tism and shOrtness of breath as you
are. The only fortune worth anything
that you can give your child is the
fortI you put in his head and heart
Of all the young men who started life
with $4,000 capital, how many turned
put well? do not know half a dozen.
The best inheritance a young man
can have is the feeling that he has to
fight his own battle, and that life is
into which he must throw
body, mind and soul, or be disgrace
fully worsted. Where are the burial
places of the men who started life with
3 fortune? Some of them in the pot
ter's field; some in the suicides grave
But few of these men reached 81 years
Of age. They drank, they smoked,
they gambled. In them the beast de- |
stroyed the man. Some OF them
lived long enough to get their for
tunes, and went through them. The !
vast majority of them did not live to
get their inheritance From the gin !
shop or house of infamy they were |
home to their fathers house,
and in delirium began to pick on loath-
some reptiles from the embroidered !
pillow and 10 fipht hack imaginary !