The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-12-08

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who would believe that this is TIT
world we lived in over 100 years ago
Look at those men and women W.
pass on the road! How improved tn,
human racei Such beauty, sucl
strength, such gracefulness, sucl
geniality! Faces without the mark o.
one sorrow! Cheeks that seem never
TO have been wet by one tear! a race
| sublimatedl A new world born!"
But 1 say to our escort: did al
this merely happen so? Are all the
good here spontaneously good? How
did you get the old shipwrecked world
aGoat again, out of the breakers into
the smooth seas?'' mo, mol" responds
our twenty-frst century escort. "DC
you see those towers? Those are the
/ towers of churches, towers of reform
atory institutions, towers of Christian
! schools. Walk with me, and let US
enter some of these temples" We en-
ter, and L find that the music is in
/ the major key and none of it in the
minor. "Gloria In EXcelsis'' rising
above Gloria In EXcelsis." Tremolo
stop in the organ not so much used
as the trumpet stop. More of Ariel
than of Naomi. More chants than
| dirges. Not a thin song. the words
of which no one understands on the
! lip of a soloist, but mighty harmonies
that roll from outside door to chan
eel and from floor to grained rafter
as though Handel had come out of
the eighteenth century into the TWEEN
ty-first and had his foot on the organ
pedal, and Thomas Hastings had come
out of the early part of the nineteenth
century into the twenty-fTst and were
leading the voices. Music that moves
the earth and makes Heaven listen.
But l say TO our twenty-first CEN
fury escort: Il cannot understand
this. Have these worshipers no sor-
rows, or have they forgotten their sor-
rows?" Our escort responds: 'Sor-
rows! Why, they had sorrows more
than you could count, but by a divine
illumination that the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries never enjoyed
they understand the uses of sorrow
and are comforted with supernatural
coincidence such as previous centuries
never experienced"
| ask again of the interpreter: HAS
death been banished from the world %
The answer is: NO, but people die
now only VIXEN the physical machine
~ is worn out, and they realize it is
time to go and that they are certain
~ and without doubt going into
world where they will be infinitely bet
ter off and are to live in a mansion
that awaits their immediate occu-
pancy." But how was all this eff
fected?" l ask our escort. Answer:
by floods of Gospel power. You who
lived in the nineteenth century never
saw n revival of religion to be COM
pared with what occurred in the lat
ter part of the twentieth and the early
part of the twenty-frst century. The
prophecy has been fulfilled that "a
nation shall be born in a day'-that is,
ten or twenty or forty million people
converted in "a hours. In our church
history we read of the great awak-
ening of 1857, when 100000 souls were
saved. But that was only a drop of
the coming showers that since then
took into the kingdom of God every
thing between the Atlantic and the
Pacific, between the Pyrenees and the
Himalayas." The evils that good peo-
pie were in the nineteenth century
trying to destroy have been overcome
by celestial forces. What human
weaponry failed to accomplish has
been done by omnipotent thunder
bolts.
As you and see in this terrestrial
visitation Of the coming centuries that
the church has under God accomplished
so much, we ask our escort, the spirit of
the twenty-frst century, to show us the
different kinds of churches. So we are
taken in and out of the churches of diff
ferent denominations, and we find that
they are just as different in the twenty
first century as they were different in
the nineteenth when we worshiped in
them. There is unity in them as to the
great essentials of salvation. But we
enter the Baptist church, and it is bap-
tismal day, and we see the candidates
for membership immersed. And we go
into a Presbyterian church and see q |
group of parents around the baptismal |
oAA AAOAttAAAS UP NLNAA NAlIANA I'll lOI Tic
And we enter the Episco- |
pal church and hear the solemn roll OF |
her GtuTgies, and her ministers are |
yowned and supplied. And we enter |
The Lutheran church. and we hear in the |
sermon preached the doctrines of the
greatest of German reformers. And we
20 into the Methodist church Just in |
line to sit down at a love feast and give
hubble amen" when the service stirs
Is. AT least 80 kinds of churches in the
wenty-first century, as there were $50
iifferent kinds of churches in the nine
zenith century.
But what is yonder row of buildings,
Majestic for architecture ?" The spirit
# the twenty-first century says:
Those are our legislative halls and
'laces of public trust. and if you would
Ike it l viii show you the political cir
les, the modes of preferment. the styles
# election, the character of public men
n this century" Thank you," l re-
'ly. Il can easily understand how Cos
would improve individual life
nd social life and commercial life, but
would like 10 see what it can do for
olitical life" Let me tell YOU" saws
ne spirit of the twenty-first century.
that 1 have read about political Chi
anery and corruption of more than 100
ears ago-the nineteenth century,. in
'hich you lived here-but the low po-
tical caucus has gone from the face of
ne earth, and the stuffed ballot box,
nd the bribery by money and by prom ]