The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-03-03


turn the blinds the wrong way. Let
the light, which puts gold on the gem
tian and spots the pansy, pour into your
dwellings. Do not expect the little
feet to keep step to dead march. Do
not cover up your walls with such pic
lures as Vests Death on Pale Horse"
or Tintoretto's Massacre of the In
nocents." Rather cover them if you
have pictures with "The Hawking Par
ty," and THE Mil by the Mountain
Stream" and 1.-THE Fox Hunt" and the
"Chilidren Amid Flowers" and the
Harvest Scene" and THE Saturday
Night Marketing" Get you no hint of
cheerfulness from grasshopper's leap
and lambs frisk and quail's whistle
and garrulous streamlet, which from
the rock at the mountain top clear
down to the meadow ferns under the
shadow of the steep comes looking to
see where it can find the steepest place
to leap off at and talking just to hear it
self talk? If all the skies hurtled with
tempest and everlasting storm, wan
dered over the sea, and every mountain
stream were raving mad, frothing at
the mouth with mud foam, and there
was nothing but simooms blowing
among the hills and there were neither
lark's carol nor humnning birds trill,
nor waterfalls dash, but only bears
bark and panther's scream and VOLTS
howl, then you might we'll gather into
your homes only the shadows. But
when God has strewn the earth and the
heavens with beauty and with gladness,
let us take into our home circles all in
nocent hilarity, all brightness and all
good cheer. A dark home makes bad
boys and bad girls in preparation tor
bad men and bad women.
Above all, my friends. take into your
homes Christian principle. Can it be
that in any of the comfortable homes
whose inmates | confront the voice of
prayer is never lifted? What! No sup
p!ication at night for protection?
What! No thanks giving in the morn
ing for care? How, my brother, my
sister, will you answer God in the day
of Judgment with reference to your
children? 1t is a plain question, and
therefore l ask it, In the tenth chapter
of Jeremiah God says He will pour out
His fury upon the families that call
not upon His name. Oh. parents, when
yCu are dead and gone, and the moss
is covering the inscription of the tomb
stone, will your children look back and
think of father and mother at family
prayer? VIII they take the old family
Bible and open it and see the mark of
tears of eontrition and tears Of consol-
ing promise wept by eyes long before
gone out into darkness? Oh, if you
do not inculcate Christian principle in
the hearts of your children. and you do
not warn them against evil. and YOU do
not invite them to holiness and TO God,
and they wander off into dissipation
and into infidelity and at last make
shipwreck of their immoral soul, on
their deathbed and in the day of judg-
ment they will curse you!
Seated by the register or the stove,
what if, on the wall, should come out
the history of your children? What a
history-the mortal and immortal life
of your loved ones! Every parent is
writing the history of his child. lie is
COIL pOSlIIS IL iI(O SOuSs VI
pointing it with a groan.
Nv mind runs back to one of the best
of early homes. Prayer like a roof over
it. Peace like an atmosphere in it.
Parents personifcations of faith in trial
and comfort in darkness. The two
pillars of that earthly home long crum-
bled to dust. But shall l ever forget
4ba+ aor1I- bo0ooo Voc ,Dboo tho Hovrer
forgets the sun that warmed it. Yes,
when the mariner forgets the star that
guided him. Yes, when love has gone
out on the hearts altar, and memory
has emptied its urn into forgetfulness.
Then, the home of my childhood. l will
forget thee! The family altar of Il ia
theirs Importantly and a mothers ten
derness, the voices of affection, the
funeral of our dead, the father and
mother with interlocked arms like in
tertwining branches of trees making
a perpetual arbor of love and peace and
I will forget thee
then, and only then! You know, my
brother, that a hundred times you have
been kept out of sin by the memory
of such scene as ] have been describ-
ing. You have often had raging tempta-
tions, but you know what has held you
with supernatural grasp. ] tell you 4
man who has had such a good home as
that never gets over it, and man who
has had bad early home never gets
over it.
Again, home is a type of Heaven. AT
our best estatewe are only pilgrimsand
strangers here. Heaven is our home"
Death will never knock at the door of
that mansion, and in all that country
there is not single grave. How glad
parents are in the holidays to gather
their children home again! But have
noticed there is almost always Il son or
daughter absent-absent from home,
perhaps absent from the country, per-
haps absent from the world Oh, how
glad our Heavenly Father will be when
He gets all His children home with Him
in Heaven! And how delightful it will
be for brothers and sisters to meet aft
er long separation! Once they parted
at the door of the tomb. Now they
meet al the door of Immortality. Once
they saw only through a glass dark
ly." Now it is face to face, corruption,
interruption, mortality, immortality.
Where are now all their sinsa SORROWS
and troubles? Overwhelmed in the Red
sea of death, while they pass through
dry shod Gates of pearl, capstones of
amethyst, thrones of dominion do not
stir my soul so much rs the thought of
home. Once there, let earthly sor-
rows howl like storms and roll like
seas. Home! Let thrones rot and
empires wither. Home! Let the world
die in earthquake struggle and be bur
led amid procession of planets and
dirge of spheres. Home! Let ever
lasting ages roll in irresistible sweep.
Home! No sorrow. No crying. No