The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-10-07
JONATHAN SLEW HIM.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Talks to Men
with Unhealthy Ambition.
The Dangers of Overmuch RIches-A Com
potency with COntentment Better
Than Millions with Nerv-
Gus Dyspepsia.

healthy ambition for great wealth OF
fame. The text is:
a man of great stature, whose fin.
gers and toes were four and twenty ,siN
on each hand, and six on each foot;
and he also was the son of giant
But when he defied Israel, Jonathan
the son of Shimea, David's brother,
slew him. Chron., Xxx, 6-7.
MalformatiOn photographed, and fol
what reason? Did not this passage
slip in by mistake into the sacred
Scriptures, as sometimes a paragraph
utterly obnoxious to the editor gets
into his newspaper during his alb
sence? is it not this Scr1ptural err
rata? No, no; there is nothing hap
hazard about the Bible. This passage
of Scripture was as certainly intended
to be put in the Bible as the verse:
'In the beginning God created the
Heavens and the EARTH" or, God SO
loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son."
And 1 select it for my text to-day
because it is charged with practical
and tremendous meaning. By the
people of God the Philistines had been
conquered, with the exception of a
| few giants. The race of giants is
mostly extinct, l am glad to say.
There is no use for giants now except
to enlarge the income of museums.
But there were many of them in olden
| times. Goliath was, according to the
Bible, IL feet Az inches high. Or, if
you doubt this, the famous Pliny de-
clares that at Crete, by an earthquake,
monument was broken open, discov-
ering the remains of giant 40 cubits
| long, or GO feet high. So, whether
you take sacred or profane history,
| you must come to the conclusion that
there were in those times cases of hui
man altitude monstrous and appal-
ling.
David had smashed the skull of one
of these giants, but there were other
giants that the Davidean wars had not
yet subdued, and one of them stands
in my text. He was not only of AL
pine stature, but had a surplus of dig
it's. To the ordinary fingers was an
neXed an additional finger, and the
foot had also a superfluous addendum.
He had 81 examinations to hands and
feet, where others have 20. 1t was not
the only instance of the kind. Taver-
nier, the learned writer, says that the
emperor of Java had son endowed
with the same number of eXtremities.
Nolcatius, the poet, had six fingers on
each hand. Maupertuis, in his cele-
brated letters, speaks of two families
near Berlin similarly equipped ofhand
and foot. All of which l can believe,
for / have seen two cases of the same
physical superabundance. But this
giant of the text is in battle, and as
David, the STRIPPING warrior, had dis
patched one giant, the nephew of Da-
vid slays this monster of my text, and
there he lies after the battle in Gath,
dead giant. His stature did not save
him. and his superHuous appendices of
hand and foot did not save him. The
probability was that in the battle his
sixth finger on his hand made him
clumsy in the use of his weapon, and
his sixth toe crippled his gait. Be
hold the PROSTATE and malformed gil
ant of the text: "a man of great
stature. whose fingers and toes were
four and twenty, six on each hand
six on each foot; and he also was the
son Of a giant. But when he defied
Israel. Jonathan, the son of Shimea,
David's brother, slew him."
Behold how superhuities are a him
drance rather than help! In all the
battles at Gath that day there was not
man with ordinary hand and ordi-
nary foot and ordinary stature that
was not better off than this physical |
curiosity of my text. A dwarf on the |
right side is stronger than a giant on |
the wrong side, and all the body |
and mind and estate and opportunity |
that you can not use for God and the |
betterment of the world is a sixth fin |
ger and a sixth toe, and terrible him |
drance. The most of the good done in |
the world, and the most of those who |
win the battles for the right, are or
binary people. Count the fingers of |
their right hand, and they have just |
fve-no more and no less. One DR.. |
Duffie among missionaries, but 5000 !
that would tell you they |
have only common endowment. One |
Florence Nightingale to nurse the
sick in conspicuous places, but 10000
women who are just as good nurses,
though never heard of. The Swamp
Angel" was big gun that during the
civil war made a big noise, but mus
kets of ordinary caliber and shells of
ordinary heft did the execution.
President Tyler and his cabinet go
down the Potomac one day to expert
ment with the "Peacemaker," a great
ron gun that was to alright with its
thunder foreign navies. The gunner
touches it of, and it eXPlodes, and
caves cabinet ministers dead on the
ieck, while at that time, all up end
Town our coast, were cannon of ordi-
nary bore, able to be the defense of
ouch to waken to duty. The curse of
he world is big guns. After the politi-
,ians, who have made all the noise, go
home hoarse from an angry discussion
IN the evening of the first Monday in
the next day the people,
With the silent ballot, will settle every
hing, and settle it right, 100000 of
he white slips of paper they drop
making about as much noise as the
all of an apple blossom.
Clear back in the country to-day
here are mothers in plain apron, and
shoes fashioned on a rough last by a
hOemaker at the end of the lane,
'ocking babies that are to be Martin
.uthers and the Faradays and the Ed
sons and the Bismarcks and the
iladstones and the Washingtons and
he George Whitefields of the future.
The longer l live the more like COM
con falls Thnr- do the Nrnrld's rrnrlr |