The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-04-08
good blood flowing smoothly from gen


could hardly help it. But suppose
he is born in IN ancestral line, in an
hereditary line, where the influences
have been bad, and there has been q
coming down over moral declevity,
if the man surrender to the influences
he will go down under the overmaS ter
ing gravitation unless some supernat-
ural aid be afforded him. Now, such a
person deserves not your excoriatlon,
but your pity. Do not sit with the lip
curled in scorn, and with an assumed
air of angelic innocence looking down
upon such moral precipitation. You
had better get down on your knees
and first pray Almighty God for their
rescue, and next thank the Lord that
you have not been throwa under the
wheels of that juggernaut-
In Great Britain and in the United
States, in every generation, there are
tens of thousands of persons who are
fully developed criminals and incar-
cerated. l say IN every generation.
Then l suppose there are tens of thou
sands of persons not found out in their
criminality. In addition to these there
are tens of thousands of persons who,
not positively becoming criminals, new
ertheleSS have a criminal tendency.
Any one of all those thousands by the
grace of God may become Christian,
and resist the ancestral influence, and
open a new chapter of behavior;
but the vast majority of them will
not, and it becomes all men, profess
sional, unprofessional, ministers of re-
igiOn, judges of courts, philanthrO-
pistS, and Christian workers, to recog-
nize the fact that there are these At
lantic and Pacific surges of hereditary
evil rolling on through the centuries.
l say, of course, a man can resist this
tendency, just as in the ancestral line
mentioned in the first chapter of Mat
thew. You see in the same line in
which there was wicked Rehoboam
and desperate Manases, there after
ward came a pious Josiah and glori-
Gus Christ. But, my friends, you must
recognize the fact that these inf1u-
ences go on from generation to genera
ton. l am glad to know, however,
that a river which has produced moth
ing but miasma for 100 miles, may,
after awhile, turn the wheels of fac
tories and help support industrious
and virtuous populations; and there are
family lines which were poisoned that
are a benediction now. At the last
day it will be found out that there are
men who have gone clear over into all
forms of iuiquity and plunged into
utter abandonment, who, before they
yielded to the first temptation, resisted
more evil than many man who has
been moral and s,pright all his life.
But, supposing now, that in this age,
when there are SO many good people,
that come down into this audience
and select the very best man in it. l do
not mean the man who would style
himself the best, for probably he is a
hypocrite; but l mean the man who be-
fore God is really the best. l will
take you out from all your Christian
surroundings. | will take you back
to boyhood. l will put you in a
depraved home. 1 will put you in
cradle of iniquity. Who is
bending over that cradle? An in
toXicated mother. Who is that
swearing in the next room? Your
father. The ne;ghbors come in and
talk, and their jokes are unclean.
There is not in the house a Bible or a
moral treatise, but only a few scraps
of an old pictorial.
After awhile you are old enough to
get out of the cradle, and you are
struck across the head for naughtiness,
but never in any kindly manner repri-
manded. After awhile you are old
enough to go abroad, and you are sent
out with basket to steal. If you
come home without any spoil you are
whipped until the blood comes At Is
years of age you go out to fight your
own battles in this world, which seems
to care no more for you than the
dog that has died of fit under the
fence. You are kicked and
cuffed and buffeted. Some day, rally
ing your courage, you resent some
wrong. A man says: ''Who are you?
know who you are. Your father had
free lodgings at Sing Sing. Your
mother, she was up for drunkenness ct
the criminal court. Get out of my
way, you low-lived wretch!'' My broth
er, suppose that had been the history
of your advent, and the history of your
earlier surroundings, would yo,. have
been the Christian man you are to-day,
seated in this Christian assembly?
tell you nay. You would have been a
vagabond, an outlaw, a murderer on
the scaffold atoning for your crime.
All these considerations ought to make
us merciful in our dealings with the
wandering and the lost.
Again, | have to remark, that in our
estimation of the misdoing of people
who have fallen from high respecta-
bility and usefulness we must take
into consideration the conjunc-
tion of circumstances. In nine
cases out Of ten a man who goes
astray does not intend any positive
wrong He has trust funds He risks
part of these funds in investment.
He says: ''Now, if [ should lose that
investment have of my own property
five times as much, and if this invest
ment should go wrong, l could easily
make it up; l could live times make If
up" With that wrong reasoning he
goes on and makes the investment, and
it does not turn out quite as well as he
expected, and he makes another in
vestment, and, strange to say, at the
same time all his other affairs get en-
tangled, and all his other resources
fail, and his hands are tied. Now he
wants to extricate himself. He goes a
little further on in the wrong invest
ment. He takes a plunge further
ahead, for he wants to save his wife
nd children; he wants to save his
home; he wants to save his member
ship in the church. He takes one more
plunge, and all is lost.
Some morning at 10 o'clock the bank
door is not opened, and there is cara
on the door signed by an officer of the
bank, indicating there Is trouble, and
the name of the defaulter or the de-
fr.al1der. heads the naHvsnana1. cr,lll1,a n