The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-04-08
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

OI circumstances COl1Nl
ever have overthrown me-" and there
is a superabundance of Indignation,
but no pity. The heavens full of
lightning, but not one drop of dew. ii
God treated us as society treats that
man we would all have been in hell
long ago.
Wait for the alleviating circum-
stances. Perhaps he may have been
the dupe of others. Before you let all
the hounds out from their kennel to
maui and tear that man, find out if he
has not been brought up in CONNER
cial establishment where there was a
wrong system of ethics taught; find out
whether that man has not an extrava-
giant wife who is not satisfied with his
honest earnings, and in the temptation
to please her he has gone into that ruin
into which enough men have fallen,
and by the same temptation, to make
a procession of many miles. Perhaps
some sudden sickness may have touched
his brain, ard his judgment may be un-
balanced. He is wrong, he is awfully
wrong, and he must be condemned, but
there may be mitigating circumstances.
Perhaps under the same temptation
you might have fallen. The reason
some men do not steal 100000 is be-
cause they do not get a chance! Have
righteous Indignation you must about
that mans conduct, out temper it with
mercy.
God lets the man GO. God, who had
kept that man under His protecting
care, lets the man go, and try for him
self the majesty of his integrity. God
letting the man go, the powers of dark
ness pounce upon him. see you some
day in your Office in great excitement.
One of two things you can do. Be hon
est, and be pauperized, and have your
children brought home from school,
your family dethroned in social
influence. The other thing is, you
can step a little aside from that
which is right, you can only just go
half an inch out of the proper path, you
can only take little risk, and then
you have all your finances fair and
right. You will have a large property.
You can leave fortune for your chill
dren, and endow a college, build a
public library in your native town.
You halt and wait, and halt and wait
until your lips get white. You decide
to risk it. Only few strokes of the
pen now. But, oh, how your hand
trembles! The die is cast. By the strang-
est and most awful conjunction of cir
cumstances anyone could have imag-
ined, you are Frustrated. Bankruptcy,
commercial humiliation, exposure,
crime. Good men mourn and devils
hold carnival, and you see your own
name at the head of the newspaper
column in a whole congress of ex-
clamation points; and while you are
reading the apathema in the reportOrial
and editorial paragraph, it occurs to
you how much this story is like that OF
the defalcation fifteen years ago, and
clap of thunder shakes the window
sill. saying: "With what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you
again"
But, you say: 81 am sorry that the
innocent should suffer-" Yes, am, too
sorry for the widows and orphans
who lost their all by that defalcation,
l am sorry also for the business men,
the honest business men, who have had
their affairs all crippled by that defal-
cation. | am sorry for the venerable
bank president to whom the credit of
the bank was a matter of pride. Yes,
| am sorry also for that man who
brought all the distress; sorry that he
sacrificed body, mind, soul, reputation,
Heaven, and went into the blacknes5 of
darkness forever.
You defiantly say: 81 could not be
tempted in that way" Perhaps you
may be tested after awhile. God has a
very good memory, and He sometimes
seems to say: This man feels SO
strong in his innate power and good
ness he shall be tested; he is so full of
bitter invective against that unfortu-
nate, it shall be shown now whether
he has the power to stand" Fifteen
years go by. The wheel of fortune
turns several times, and you are in a
crisis that you never could have antici-
pated. Now, all the powers of dark
ness come around, and they chuclIle
and they chatter and they say: aha!
hereis the old fellow who was SO proud
of his integrity, and who Dragged he
couldn' be overthrown by temptation,
and was SO uproarious in his demon
strations of indignation at the defalca-
lion Is years ago. Let us see!"
In the study of society have come
to this conclusion, that the most of the
people want to be good, but they do
not exactly know how to make it out
They make enough good resolutions to
lift them into angelhood. The vast
majority of people who fall are the
victims of circumstances. They are
captured by ambuscade. If their temp
tations should come out in a regiment
and fight them in a fair field they
would go out in The strength and the
triumph of David against Goliath. But
they do not see the giants and they do
not see the regiment. Temptation
comes and says: Take these bitters.
take this nervine, take this aid to di-
gestion, take this night cap" The
vast majority of men and women who
are destroyed by opium and by rum
first take them as medicines. In MAX
ing mp your dish of criticism in regard
to them, take from the caster and the
cruet of sweet oil and not the cruet of
cayenne pepper.
[ see the scribes of Heaven looking
up into the face of such man, saying:
''What! you plead for m ercy, you, Who
in all your lie never had any marcy on
your fellows! Don't yourem IN Der how
hard you were in your opinions OF those
who were astray? Don't you remember
when you ought to have given help
ing hand you employed harI heel?
Mercy You must mis-spea'x oIrs,lf
when yoa plead for mercy here.
Mercy for others but no mercy for you.
Look" say the scribes of Heaven,
''looa at that inscription over the
throne of Gods judgment. Seeit con.
ing out letter by letter, word by word,
sentence by sentence, until your start
led vision reads it and your remors eful
sDir;t a1nroDriates II. ssWihh WIN