The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-11-09

knock YOU down." "I do not like
you,' says the snowflake to the snow
bird. "Why don't you like me?" said
the snowbird. "Oh," said the snow
fake, you are going up and 1 am
coming down." Young merchants,
young lawyers, young doctors, young
mechanics, young artists, young farm
ers, at certain times there are those
to sympathize with you, but now that
you are becoming a master of your
particular occupation or profession,
how is it now,. young lawyers, young
doctors, young artists, young farm
ers-how is it now? The greatest
crime that you can commit is the
crime of success.
Again, my subject impresses me
with the value of decision of char
acter in any department. Daniel
knew that if he continued his adher-
ence to the religion of the Lord he
would be hurled to the lions; but,
having set his compass well, he sailed
right on. For the lack of that ele-
ment of decision of character so emf
nent in Daniel many men are ruined
for this world and ruined for the
world to come. A great many at 40
years of age are not settled in any
respect, because they have not been
| able to make up their minds. Per-
haps they will go west; perhaps they
will go east; perhaps they will not;
perhaps they will so north; perhaps
| they may go south; perhaps they will
not; perhaps they may make that in
vestment in real estate or in rail-
roads; perhaps they will not. They
are like a steamer that should go
out of New York harbor, starting for
! Glasgow, and the next day should
change for Havre de Grace, and the
next for Charleston, and the next for
| Boston, and the next for Liverpool.
These men on the sea of life ever
lastingly tacking ship and making no
headway! Or they are like a man
who starts to build a house in the
Corinthian style and changes it to
Doric and then completes it in the
Ionic, the curse of all styles of archi-
lecture. Young man, start right and
keep on. Have decision of character.
Character is like the goldfinch of Ton
quin. 1t is magnificent while stand
ing firm, but loses all its beauty in
fight. How much decision of char
acter in order that these young men
may be Christians! Their old asso-
ciates make sarcastic filings at them.
They go on excursions, and they do
not invite them. They prophesy that
he will give out. They wonder if he
is not getting wings. AS he passes
they grimace and wink and chuckle
and say: There goes a saint" o
young man, have decision of charac
ter! You can afford in this matter
of religion to be laughed at. What do
you care for the SCOTS of these men,
who are affronted because you will
not go to ruin with them? When the
grave cracks open under their feet,
and grim messengers push them into
it, and eternity comes down hard
upon their spirit, and conscience
stings, and hopeless ruin lifts them
up to hurl them down, will they
laugh then?
I learn also from my subject that
men may take religion into their world
" business. This is a most appropriate
thought at this season of the year,
when so many men are starting out in
new enterprises. Daniel had enough
work to do to occupy six men. All the
affairs of state were in his hands; ques-
tions of finance, questions of war, of
peace; all international questions were
for his settlement or adjustment. He
must have had a correspondence vast
beyond all computation. There was
not a man in all the earth who had
more to do than Daniel, the secretary
of state, and yet we find him three
times a day bowling before God in
prayer. There are men in our day who
have not a hundredth part of Daniels
engagements who say they are too
busy to be religious. They have an
idea somehow that religion will spoil
their worldly occupation, that it will
trip the accountants pen or dull the
carpenters saw or confuse the lawyers
brief or disarrange the merchants
store shelf. They think religion is i'm
pertinent. They would like to have it
very well seated beside them in church
on the Sabbath, to find the place in the
psalmbook or to nudge them awake
when they get sleepy under the didac-
tic discourse, or they would like to
leave it in the pew on Sabbath evening
as they go out, closing the door, say
ing: Good night. religion; I'll be back
next Sunday!" But to have religion
go right along by them all through life,
to have religion looking over their
shoulder when they are making bar
gain, to have religion take up bag
of dishonest gold and shake it and say:
Where did you get that?" They think
that is an impertinent religion. They
would like to have a religion to help
them when they are sick, and when
the shadow of death comes over them
they would like to have religion as
sort of nightkey with which to open
the door of Heaven, but religion under
other circumstances they take to be
impertinence.
Now, my friends, religion never !
robbed a man of a dollar. Other things
being equal, a mason will build a bet
ter wall, a cabinet maker will make a
better chair, a plumber will make
better pipe, a lawyer will make bet
ter plea, a merchant will sell a better
bill of goods. I say, other things be-
ing equal. Of course when religion |
gives a man a new heart, it does not |
propose to give him a new head or to |
him or to change a |
mans condition when his ordinary |
state is an overthrow of the philoso- |
phical theory that total vacuum is |