The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-12-02
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

HGtH III ulteI uts pan bNS"oSN - -
thrall of strong drink. The president
said to him: "Sr, lie of good cheer
You can be saved. Sign the pledge.
"Ah," said the despairing victim,
have often signed the pledge. but have
always broken my pledge. But
said the president, Il will be your
strength to keep the pledge. Will be
your friend anu with loving arm
around you will hold you up. Nhen
YOUR appetite burns, and you feel thar
YOU must crafty it, come TO my house.
Sit down with me in the study or WIN
the family in the parlor, and Will pe
a shield to you. All that | can do for
YOU with my books. my sympathy, my
experience, my society, my love, my
money, will do. You shall forget your
annette and mister it, A look of hope
gIowed on the poor mans face, and he
replied: "Sir, will you do all that?
Surely l will" Then | will over
come" He signed the pledge and kept
it. That plan of President Davis which
saved one man, tried on a large SCALE
will save million men.
What a boon to the world if Russia
and Germany and England and the
United States could safely disband all
their standing armies and dismantle
their fortresses and spike their guns!
What uncounted millions of dollars
would be saved, and, more than that
what complete cessation OF human
slaughter! What an improvement OF
the morals of nations! What an adop-
ton of that higher and better manifesto
which was set to music and let down
from the midnight heavens of Bethle-
hem ages ago! The world has got 10
come to this. Why not make it the
1eroration of the nineteenth century?
Are we going to make present to the
twentieth century of reeking hospitals
and dying armies and hemisphere
graveyards? Do you want the hoo1s
of other cavalry horses on the breasts
of fallen men? Do you want other har-
vest fields quilted with wheels of gun
carriages? Do you want the sky glar-
ing with confagration of other home
steads? All, this nineteenth century
has seen enough of war. Make the de-
termination that no other century shall
be blasted with it.
viii it not be grand if on the first day
of the twentieth century the last will
and testament of the nineteenth GEN.
tury shall be opened and it shall be
found to read: SIN the name of God,
amen. l, the dying century, do make
this my last will and testament. I give
and bequeath to my heir, the twentieth
century, peace of nations; swords,
which | direct to be beaten into plow-
shares, and spears, which must be
turned into pruning hooks; armories,
to be changed into schoolhouses and
fortresses to be rebuilt into churches,
and | order that greater honors be put
on those who save life than upon those
who destroy it. And if amid the uni
versal peace now attained those two
nations, Spain and Turkey, do not stop
their cruelties, let the other nations,
banded together, extemporize police
force to wipe those countries off the
map of nations as a wet sponge wipes
from a boys slate at school hard sum
in arithmetic. This last will l sign and
seal and deliver on the 31st day of De-
cember, in the year of our Lord 1900,
all the civilized nations of earth and all
the glorified nations of Heaven witness
ing"
But what we do as individuals as
churches, as nations, as continents, we
must do very soon, if we want the trans
ition from century to century to be
worthy transition, for | hear the trum-
pets of the approaching century and the
Gathering hOofs of the host it leads oD.
1t has been a custom in all Christian
lands for people to keep watch night
as an old year goes out and new year
comes in. People assemble in churches
about ten o'clock of that last night of
the old year, and they have prayers and
songs and sermons and gratulations
until the hands of the church clock al
most reach the figure II, and then all
bow in silent prayer, and the scene is
nightly impressive, until the clock in
the tower of the church or the clock in
the tower Of the city hall strikes IL,
and then all rise and sing with smiling
face and iubilant voice the grand dox-
ology, and there is shaking of hands
all around.
But what tremendous watch might
the world is soon to celebrate! This
century will depart at IL o'clock of the
31st of December of the year 1900.
What a night that will be, whether
starlit or moonlit or dark with tenn
pest! 1t will be such sight asyou and
| never saw. Those who watched the
coming in of the nineteenth century
long ago went to their pillows of dust.
Here and there one will see the new
L, IL E
yet they were too infantile to appre-
ciate the arrival. But on the watch
night of which | speak in all neighbor-
hoods and towns and cities and conti->
nents audiences will assemble and bow
in prayer, waiting for the last breath
of the dying century, and when the
clock shall strike IL there will be So
lemnity and an overwhelming awe such
as have not been felt for 100 years, and
then all the people will arise and chant
I the welcome of new century of joy and
sorrow, of triumph and defeat, of haFpi-
ness and woe, and neighborhood will
shake hands with neighborhood, and
church with church, and city with city.
and continent with continent. and
hemisphere with hemisphere, and
earth with Heaven, at the stupendous
departure and the majestic arrival.
May we all be living on earth to see the
solemnities and join in the songs and
shake hands in the congratulations of
that watch night, or if between this and
that any of US should be off and away
may we be Inhabitants of that land
where ''a thousand years are as one
day." and in the presence of that angel
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