The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-03-17
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

Il
due, you make him wait for them be-
cause he cannot help himself. Suppose
that, because his family is sick and he
| has had extra expenses, he should po-
| litely ask you to raise his wages, and
you roughly tell him If he wants
better place to SO and get it. Suppose,
by your manner, you act as though he
were nothing and you were everything.
| Suppose you are selfish aud overbear-
| ing and arrogant. Your first name
ought to be Attila and your last name
Attila, because you are the star Worm
wood, and you have imbittered one
| third if not three-thirds of the waters
that roll past your employees and OPP
eratives and dependents and associates.
and the long line of carriages which the
undertaken orders for your funeral, in
| order to make the occasion respectable,
will be filled with twice as many dry,
| fearless eyes as there are persons oc-
cupying them. You will be in this
world but few minutes. AS pared
with eternity, the stay of the longest
| life on earth is not more than a min
ute What are we doing with that
| mestic or social or political fountains,
or are we like Moses, who, when the
Israelites in the Wilderness complained
| that the waters of Lake Marah were
bitter and they could not drink them
| their leader cut off the branch of
certain tree and threw that branch
| into the water, and it became sweet and
slaked the thirst of the suffering host?
| Are we with branch of the tree of
| life sweetening all the brakish foun-
| tains that we can touch?
Dear Lord, send US all out on this
| mission. All around us imbittered lives
-imbittered by persecution, imbit-
| tered by hypercriticism, imbittered by
poverty, imbittered by pain. imbittered
by injustice, imbittered by sin. Why
not go forth and sweeten them by
! smiles, by inspiring words, by benefac-
tions, by hearty counsel, by prayer,
by gospelized behavior? Let us re-
| member that if we are wormwood to
others we are wormwood to ourselves,
and our life will be bitter and our eter-
nity bitterer. The Gospel of Jesus
Christ is the only sweetening power
that is sufficient. 1t sweetens the dis
| position; it sweetens the manners; it
sweetens life; it sweetens mysterious
providences; it sweetens affections;
It sweetens death; it sweetens every
thing. 1 have heard people asked in
social company: 'If you could have
three wishes gratifed, what would your
three wishes be?" If | could have
three wishes met, tell you what they
would be. First, more of the grace
of God; second, more of the grace of
God; third, more of the grace of God.
In the doorway of my brother John.
once a missionary to Annoy. China, there
was a tree called the emperor tree, the
two characteristics of which are that it
always grows higher than its sur
roundings, and it's leaves take the form
of a crown. If this emperor tree be
planted beside a rosebush, it grows
little higher than the bush and spreads
out above it a crown. If it be planted
by the side of another tree, it grows
little higher than that tree and spreads
above it a crown. Would God that this
religion of Christ, a more wonderful
emperor tree, might overshadow all
your lives! Are you lowly in ambi-
tion or circumstance, putting over you
its crown? Are you high in talent and
position, putting over you its crown?
Oh, for more of the saccharin in our
lives and less of the wormwood!
What is true of individuals is true of
nations. God sets them up to revolve
as stars, but they may fall wormwood.
Tyre-the atmosphere of the desert.
fragrant with spices coming in cara
vans to her fairs; all seas cleft into
foam by the keels of her laden mer-
chantmen; her markets rich with
horses and camels from Togarmah;
the bazar filled with upholstery from
Dedan, with emerald and coral and
agate from Syria, with mines from
Helbon, with embroidered work from
Ashur and Chilmad. Where now the
CLEAN of her towers? Where the roar
of her chariots? Where the masts of
her ships? Let the fishermen who dry
their nets where once she stood, let the
sea that rushes upon the barrenness
where once she challenged the admira-
tion of all nations, let the barbarians
who set their rude tents where once
her palaces glittered, answer the ques-
tions. She was a star, but by her own
sin turned to wormwood, and has
fallen.
Hundred gated Thebes, for all time
to be the study of the antiquarian and
hieroglyphist; her stupendous ruins
spread over 27 miles; her sculptures
presenting in figures of warrior and
chariot the victories with which the
now-forgotten kings of Egypt shook
the nations; her obelisks and columns;
karnak and Luxor, the stupendous
temples of her pride, Who can imagine
the greatness of Thebes in those days,
when the hippodrome rang with her
sports and foreign royalty bowed at
her shrines and her avenues roared
with the wheels of professions in the
wake of returning conquerors? What
dashed down the vision of chariots and
temples and thrones? What hands
pulled upon the columns of her glory?
What ruthlessness defaced her sculp-
tured wall and broke obelisks, and left
her indescribable temples great skele-
tons of granite? What spirit of de-
strhction spread the lair of wild beasts
in aer royal sepulehers and taught the
miserable cottagers of to-day to build
huts in the courts of her temples and
sent desolation and ruin skulking be-
hind the obelsks and lodging among
the sarcophagi, and leaning against
the columns, and STOPPING under the
arches, and weeping in the waters
which go mournfully by, as though
they were carrying the tears of all
ages? Let the munmies break their
long silence and come up TO shiver in
the desolation and point t. fallen