The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-09-21
SUBSCRIPTION: S1.OO Per Year


during those four years of civil COM
bat, and, my brethren, if we do not
quit some of our individual and ma
tional sins the Lord will again take
US IN hand. He has other razors with
in reach besides war - epidemics,
droughts, deluges, plaques = grass
hopper and locust-or our overtower-
ing success may so far excite the Jeal-
ousy of other lands that under some
pretext the great nations may COM
bine to put us down. Our nation, SO
easily approached on north and south
and from both oceans, might have on
hand at once more hostilities than
were ever arrayed against any one
power. I hope no such combination
against us will ever be formed, but l
want to show that, as Assyria was the
hired razor against Babylon, and the
Huns the hired razor against the
Goths, there are now many razors
that the Lord could hire if, because OF
our national sins, He should under
take to shave US. In 1870 Germany
was the razor with which the Lord
shaved France. Japan was the razor
with which He shaved China, and
America the razor with which He
shaved arrogant, oppressive and Bible
hating Spain. But nations are to re-
pent in a day. May a speedy and
worldwide coming to God hinder on
both sides the sea all national calam-
! ity. But do not let us as a natien
either by unrighteous law at Wash
ington or bad lives among ourselves
defy the Almighty.
One would think that our national
symbol of the eagle might sometimes
suggest another eagle-that which an
cient Rome carried. In the talons OF
that eagle were clutched at one time
Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Dalma-
tia, Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moe
sia, Dacia, Thrace Macedonia, Greece,
Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, Pales-
tine, Egypt and all northern Africa
and all the islands of the Medlterra-
nean-indeed, all the world that was
worth having, hundred and twenty
millions of people under the wings OF
that one eagle. Where is she now?
Ask Gibbon, the historian, in his prose
poem. "The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire" Ask her gigantic
ruins, bemoaning their sadness
| through the ages, the screech owl at
windows out of which worldwide con-
uuerors looked. Ask the day of judg-
ment, when her crowned debauchees,
| Commodus and PertinaX and CaliguIa
and Diocletian, shall answer for their
infamy. AS men and as nations let
IFS repent and have our trust in
pardoning God rather than depend on
| former. successes for immunity! Out
| of 13 of the greatest battles of the
world Napoleon had lost but one be-
fore Waterloo. Pride and destruction
often ride in the same saddle.
Rut notice once more, and more than
all, in my text, that God is so kind and
loving that when it is necessary for
Him to cut He has to go to others for
the sbarp-edged weapon. ''In the same
dav shall the Lord shave with razor
that is hired" God is love. God is
nity. God is help. God is shelter.
God is rescue. There are no sharp
edges about Him, no thrusting points,
no instruments of laceration. If you
want balm for wounds, He has that.
IF YOU want Divine salve for eyesight,
|
and cutting work to do. which re-
ouires a razor, that He hires. God
has nothing about Him that hurts,
save when dire necessity demands, and
then He has to go clear off to some
one else to get the instrument.
King Henry II. of England crowned
his son as king and on the day of coro-
nation put on a servants garb and wait
ed. he. the king, at the sons table, to
the astonishment of all the princes.
But we know of more wondrous
scene-the King of Heaven and earth
offering to put on you, His child, the
! crown of life and in the form of a serv-
ant waiting on you with blessing.
Extol that love, all painting, all sculp-
ture. all music, all architecture, all
worship! In. Dresdenian gallery let
Raphael hold Him up as child, and in
Antwerp cathedral let Rubens hand
| Him down from the cross as mar
| tyr, and Handel make all his oratorios
vibrate around that one chord: HE
was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities." But not
until all the redeemed get home, and
| from the countenances in all the gall
Ieries of the ransomed shall be re-
veaIed the wonders Of redemption.
shall either man or serdph or arch
| angel know the height and depth and
length and breadth of the love OF
God.
At our national capital monument
| in honor of him who did more than any
one to achieve our American independ-
ence was for scores of years in build
| ing. and most of us were discouraged
and said it never would be completed.
! And how glad we all were when in the
| presence of the highest officials of the
| nation the work was done! But viii
! the monument to Him who died for the
! eternal liberation of the human race
ever be completed? For ages the work
has been going up. EYangelists and
| apostles and martyrs have been add
ing to the heavenly pile, and every
one of the millions of redeemed going
up from earth has made to it contribu-
ton of gladness, and weight of glory
is swung to the top of other weight of
| glory, higher and higher as the centu-
ries go by, higher and higher as the
whole millenniums roll, sapphire on
| the top of jasper, sardonyX on the
| top of chalcedony and chrysoprasus
above topaz, until far beneath shall
| be the walls and towers and domes OF
our earthly capitol, a monument for
ever and forever rising and yet never
done, unto Him who hath loved Us
and washes US from our sins in His
| blood and made US kings and priests
forever" AIleluia amen