The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-01-05
PAST EXPERIENCES.
DR.. Talmage Says They Should Be
Our Guides for the Future.
Some Practical and Timely SuEges-
uOns "a tn Right LIving-Our
Life as IN Tale That
L. Told"
lCoPyright. 1899. by Louis KIopschl
WaGhfnufon

lCoByright. 1899. by Louis Klopschl
Washington,
In this holiday discourse DR.. Tai
mage takes the opportunity of Of
fering some very practical and use
ful suggestions; text, Psalms, &c, .:
I'VE spend our years as a tale that is
told"
The Israelites were 40 years in the
wilderness, and during 3s years of the
40 nothing is recorded of them, and
suppose no other emigrants had a
duller or more uninteresting time
than they had. So they got to telling
stories stories concerning them
selves or concerning others; stories
about the brick kilns of Egypt, where
they had toiled in slavery; stories
about how the waters of the Red sea
piled up into palisades at their cross
ing; story Of how the lantern hung in
the heavens 10 guide them by night;
story of ibises destroying the reptiles
of the wilderness; stories of personal
encounter. 1t must have been an aw-
full thing to have had nothing to do
in IS years except to get lost every
time they tried to escape from the
wilderness. So they whiled away the
time in story telling. Indeed, there
were persons whose one business was
20 narrate stories, and they were
paid 10y such trifes as they could pick
up from the surrounding listeners. TO
such instances our text refers when it
says: I'VE spend our years as a tale
that is told"
At this tremendous passage from
the year 1899 to the year 1900 it viii
do us all good to consider that our
whole life is a story told-a good
story or bad story; a tragic story or
a mirthful story; wise story or a
foolish story a clean story or filthy
story; n story of success or a story of
failure. I've spend our years as a
tale that is told"
In the first place 1 remark that
every persons life is a very interest
ing story. Ny text does not depre-
ciate "a tale that is told" We have
all of us been entertained by the
story teller when snow bound in the
rail train; or in the group a winters
night in the farmhouse; or gathered
around a blazing hearth with some
hunters at the mountain inn. Indeed,
it is a praiseworthy art to imperson-
ate a good story well. If you doubt
the practical and healthful and inspir-
ing use of such a story, take down
from the library Washington Irving's
Tales of a Traveller" or Nathaniel
Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales" But
as interesting as any Of these would
be the story of many an obscure life,
if the tale were as well told. Why do
we all like biographies and autobiug
raphies? Because they are stories of
eminent human lives. But the story
of the life of a backwoOdsman of a
man who looks stupid, of one about
whom you never heard aword, must be
just as thrilling on small scale as on
n larger scale is the life of a Cyrus. or
4 Caesar, or PiZarro, or Mark An
tony, or = Charlemagne. or the late
Gen. Gordon, who was upon a parapet
leading his soldiers with nothing but
n stick in his hand. and his troops
cried: Gordon, come down. You
Will be killed" But he did not come
down, and one of the soldiers said:
1T is all right. He don't mind being
killed. He is one of those blessed
Christians"
II you get the confidence of that
very plain man just come out of the
backwoods and can induce him 10 give
the stirring experiences of his life, he
viii tell YOU that which will make
your blood curJlle and your hair stand
on end. That night when a panther
disputed his pathway on the way
home; that landslide when the noun
tains seemed about to come down on
his cabin; that accident to his house
hold, and no surgeon within IS miles;
that long storm that shut them in and
the food was exhausted; that contest
at his doorway with bandits who
thought there might be within some
thing worth taking; that deathbed,
with no one but himself to count the
fluttering pulses.
As Oliver Cromwell on the anniver-
sary Of his greatest victory followed
his darling daughter TO the grave, so in
the humblest and most unpretending
life there has been a commingling of
gladness and gloom, of triumph and de-
spair. Nothing that David Garrick
ever enacted at Drury Lane theater in
the way OF tragedy or Charles Mat
thews ever played in COvent Garden in
the way of comedy excelled things
which on a small scale have been seen
in the life of obscure men and women.
Many a profound and learned sermon
has put the audience to sleep, while
some man whose phraseolOgy could not
be parsed and whose attire was cut and
htted and made up by plainest house
wife has told the story of his life in a
way that melted the prayer circle into
tears as easily as a warm April sun dis
solves the snow of the previous night.
Oh, yes. while I'VE spend our years
as a tale that is told" il is an interesting
story. Il is the story of an immortal.
and that makes IL interesting. He is
launched on an ocean of eternal years,
in a voyage that Will never terminate.
He is striking the keynote of an ant hem
or dirge that will never come 10 its
last bar. That is what makes the de-
votiOnal meetings of modern times so
much more interesting than they used
TO be. They are filed not with dis
courses by lavmen on the subject of !
Justification aad sanctificatiOn. which
lay discourses administer more 10 the .
than 10 the edifyiug. bat with
stories of what God has done for
the soul how everything suddenly
changed; how The promises became /.