The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-03-10
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.00 Per Year.


outsideallurements Temptations that
have utterly destroyed more people
than now inhabit the earth. Gambling
saloons and rummeries, and places
where dissoluteness reigns supreme,
enough in number to go round and
round the earth. Discouragements,
iealousies, revenges, malevolences, dis
appointments, swindles, arsons, confia-
grations and cruelties which make con-
tinued existence of the human race
wonderment. Was any valuable bun
die ever so imperiled as this bundle of
life? Oh, look at the address and get
that bundle going in the right way!
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart. and soul, and mind, and
strength" Heaven with its I2 gates
standing wide open with invitation. All
the forces of the Godhead pledged for
| our heavenly arrival if we will do the
right thing. All angeldom ready for
our advance and guidance. All the
lightnings of Heaven so many drawn
swords for our protection. What a
| pity, what an everlasting pity, if this
| bundle of life, so well bound and so
| plainly directed, does not come out at
the right station, but becomes lost
| bundle, cast out amid the rubbish of
| the universe!
| Know also that this bundle of life will
| be gladly received when it comes to the
/ door of the mansion for which it was
bound and plainly directed. With what
alacrity and glee we await some pack
age that has been foretold by letter;
| some holiday presentation; something
| that will enrich and ornament our
! home; some testimony of admira ton
and affection! With what glow of ex-
| pectation we unite the knot and take off
the cord that holds it together in safe
ty, and with what glad exclamation we
unroll the covering and see the gift or
purchase in all its beauty of color and
| proportion. Well, what a day it will
be when your precious bundle of life
shall be opened in the house of ''many
mansions" amid sanity and angelic
and Divine inspection! The bundle may
| be spotted with the marks of much eX-
posure. 1t may bear inscription after
inscription to tell through what ordeal
it has passed. Perhaps splashed of wave
and scorched Of flame, but all it has
within undamaged of the journey. And
with what shouts of JOY the bundle of
| life will be greeted by all the voices of
the heavenly home circle!
In our anxiety at last to reach Heaven
we are apt to lose sight of the glee or
welcome that awaits us if we get in at
| all. We all have friends up there. They
| will somehow hear that we are coming.
| Such close and swift and constant COM
munication is there between those up
lands and these lowlands that we will
not surprise them by sudden arrival.
| If loved ones on earth expect our COM
ing visit and are at the depot with car
| riage to meet US, surely we will be met
at the shining gate by old friends now
sainted and kindred now glorified. If
there were no angel of God TO meet us
and show us the palaces and guide us to
our everlasting residence, these kim
dred would show us the way and point
| out the splendors and guide us to our
| celestial home, powered and fountained
and arched and illumined by sun that
| never sets. viii it not be glorious, the
going in and the settling down after
all the moving about and upsettings of
| earthly experience? We will soon know
all our neighbors, kingly, queenly,
| prophetic, apostolic, seraphic, archan-
| gelic. The precious bundle Of life
| opened amid palaces and grand marches
and acclamations. They will all be so
glad we have got safely through. They
saw us down here in the struggle. They
saw us when we lost our way. They
knew when we got off the right course.
None of the 80 ships that were overdue
at New York harbor in the storm of
| week before last was greeted so heart
lily by friends on the dock or the steam
tugs that went out to meet them at
Sandy Hook as we will be greeted in the
heavenly world if by the pardoning
and protecting grace of God we come
to celestial wharfage. We shall have
to tell them of the many wrecks that we
have passed on the way across wild seas
and amid Caribbean cyclones. 1t will
be like our arrival some years ago from
New Zealand at Sydney, people sur
prised that we got in a all, because we
were two days late, and some of the
ships expected had gone TO the bottom,
and we had passed derelicts and aban-
doned crafts all up and down that aw-
ful channel-our arrival in Heaven all
the more rapturously welcomed be-
cause of the doubt as to whether we
would ever get there at all.
Once there it will be found that the
safety of that precious bundle of life
was assured because it was bound up
with the life of God in Jesus Christ.
Heaven could not afford to have that
bundle lost, because it had been said in
regard to its transportation and safe
arrival: "Kept by the power of God
through faith unto complete salvation"
The veracity of the heavens is involved
in its arrival. IfGod should fail to keep
His promise to just one ransomed soul
the pillars of Jehovah's throne would
fall, and the foundations of the eternal
city would crumbIe. and infinite power
ties would dash down all the chaIices
and close all the banquetipg halls, and
. the river of life would change its course.
sweeping everything with desolaton,
and frost would blast all the gardens,
and immeasurable sickness slay the inn
mortais, and the new Jerusalem be
come an abandoned city,with no chariot
wheel on The streets and no worshipers
in the temple-a dead Pompeii Of The
skies, a buried HercuIaneum Of the
heavens. Lest anyone should doubt
the God who cannot lie smites His ON
nipotent hand on the side of His throne
and takes affidavit, declaring: "As
live, said the Lord God, have no pleas
ure in the death of him that dieth."
Oh, l cannot tell you how feel about
it, the thought is so glorious! Bound
up with God. Bound up with infinite
mercy. Bound up with infinite joy.