The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-11-02
SUBSCRIPTION: s1.OO Per Year

out from the continent toward the
sea and then burn in from the sea
toward the land. New York and Lon
don with one cut of the red scythe OF
destruction will go down. Twenty-Five
thousand miles of confagration! The
earth will wrap itself round and
round in shroud of fame and lie down
to perish. What then will become of
your golden calf? Who then so poor
as to worship it? Melted or between
the upper and the neither milestone of
falling mountains ground to powder.
Dagon down. Moloch down. Jugger-
naut down, golden calf down!
But every day is a day of judgment,
and God is all the time grinding to
pieces the golden calf Some years
ago in a time of panic we learned as
never before that forgeries will not
pay, that the watering of stock will not
pay, that the spending of $4,000 on
country seats and a palatial city resi-
dence when there are only $4,000 in
come will not pay, that the appropria-
ton of trust funds to our own private
speculation will not pay. We had
great national tumor in the shape of
fictitious prosperity. We called it ma
tional enlargement. Instead of calling
it enlargement we might better have
called it swelling. 1t was tumor,
and God cut it out, and the nation was
sent back to the principles of our fa-
theirs and grandfathers, when twice
three made six instead of 60 and when
the apples at the bottom of the barrel
were just good as the apples on the
top of the barrel and a silk handker-
chief was not half cotton and man
who wore a ive-dollar coat paid for
was more honored than a man who
wore $50 coat not paid for.
Te modern golden calf, like the one
of the text, is very apt TO be made out
of borrowed gold. These Israelites of
the text borrowed the earrings of the
Egyptians and then melted them into
| god That is the way the golden calf is
made nowadays. A great many house
| keepers not paying for the articles they
get borrow of the grocer and the baker
and the butcher and the dry goods
| seller Then the retailer borrows of
the wholesale dealer. Then the whole
! sale dealer borrows of the capitalist,
! and we borrow and borrow and borrow
until the community is divided into two
! classes, those who borrow and those
who are borrowed of, and after awhile
the capitalist wants his money, and he
rushes upon the wholesale dealer, and
the wholesale dealer wants his money
and he rushes upon the retailer, and
! the retailer wants his money, and he
rushes on the customer, and we all go
down together. There is many a man
in this day who rides in carriage and
owes the blacksmith for the tire and
| the wheelwrght for the wheel and the
trimmer for the curtain and the driver
| for unpaid wages and the harness max
er for the bride and the furrier for
the robe, while from the tip of the car
riage tongue clear back to the tip of
the camel's hair shawl futtering out
of the back of the vehicle everything
is paid for by notes that have been
three times renewed.
I tell you that in this country we
shall never get things right until we
stop borrowing and pay as we go. 1t is
this temptation to borrow and borrow
and borrow that keeps the people ever
lastingly praying to the golden calf
for help, and just the minute they ex-
pect the help the golden calf treads
on them. The judgments of God, like
Moses in the text, will rush in and
break up this worship, and l say let the
work go on until every man shall
learn to speak truth with his neigh
Dor, and those who make agements
shall feel themselves bound to keep
them, and then a man who will not
repent of his business iniquity, but
goes on wishing to satiate his canni-
bal appetite by devouring widows
houses, shall, by the law of the land,
be compelled to exchange the brown
stone front for the penitentiary. Let
the golden calf perish!
l want you to change temples and to
give up the worship of this unsatisfy-
ing and cruel god for the service of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the gold
that will never crumble. Here are the
securities that will never fail. Here
are the banks that will never break.
Here is an altar on which there has
been one sacrifice that does for all,
for "by one sacrifice hath Christ per-
fected forever them that are sancti-
fed" Here is a God who will COM
fort you when you are in trouble and
soothe you when you are sick and save
you when you die. For He has said:
when thou passeth through the wa
ters, will be with thee, and through
the rivers they shall not overflow thee;
when thou wall<est through the fire.
thou shalt not be burned, neither shall
the flame kindle upon thee"
their last and the old, wrinkled and
trembling hands can no more be put
upon your head for blessing, He will
be to you a father and mother both,
giving you the defense of one and the
comfort of the other. For have we not
Paul's blessed hope that as Jesus died
and rose again, "even so them also
which sleep in Jesus shall God bring
with Him." And when your children
go away from you, the sweet darlings,
you will not kiss them and say good
by forever. He only wants to hold
them for you little while. He will
give them back to you again, and He
will have them all waiting for you at
the gates of eternal welcome. Oh,
what God He is! He will allow you
to come so close that you can put your
arms around His neck, while He in
response will put His arms around
your neck, and all the windows OF
Heaven will be hoisted to let the re-
deemed look out and see the spectacle
of a rejoicing Father and a returned
prodigal locked in that glorious en-
brace. Quit worshiping the golden
calf and bow this day before Him in
whose presence we must all appear
when the world has turned to ashes,