The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-09-21

Let US be careful how we SnooC at
others lest we take down the wrong
one, remembering the servant of
King William Rufus, who shot at
deer, but the arrow glanced against
a tree and killed the king. Instead OF
going out with shafts to pierce and
razors to cut we had better initiate
the friend of Richard Coeur de Lion.
Richard, in the war of the Crusades,
was captured and imprisoned, but
none of his friends knew where, so
his loyal friend went around the land
from stronghold to stronghold and
sang at each window a snatch of
song that Richard Occur de Lion had
taught him in other days. And one
day, coming before Jail where he
suspected his king might be incar-
cerated, he sang two lines of song,
and Immediately King Richard re-
sponded from his cell with the other
two lines, and so his whereabouts
were discovered, and a successful
movement was at once made for his
liberation. So let US go up and down
the world with the music of kind
words and sympathetic hearts, sere-
nading the unfortunate and trying to
get out of trouble men who had noble
natures, but by unforeseen circum-
stances have been incarcerated, thus
iberating kings. More hymn book
and less razor.
Especially ought we to be apollo
getic and merciful toward those who,
while they have great faults, have
also great virtues. No weeds verify,
much enraged at a nettle along the
fence if it be in field containing 40
acres of ripe Michigan wheat. Some
time ago naturalists told us there
was on the sun a spot 10000 miles
long, but from the brightness and
warmth 1 concluded it was a good
deal of a sun still. The sun can af-
ford to have very large spot upon
it, though it be 10000 miles long, and
I am very apologetic for those men
who have great faults, while at the
same time they have magnificent vir-
tues.
Again, when I read in my text that
the Lord shaves with the hired razor
of Assyria the land of Judea, I think
myself of the precision of Gods provi-
dence. A razor swung the tenth part
of an inch out of the right line
means either failure or laceration, but
Gods dealings never slip, and they do
not miss by the thousandth part of an
inch the right direction. People talk
as though things in this world were
at loose ends. Cholera sweeps across
Marseilles and Madrid and Palermo,
and we watch anXiously. VIII the
epidemic sweep Europe and America?
People say: THAT will entirely de-
pend on whether the incubation is
a successful experiment; that will de-
pend entirely on quarantine regula-
tions; that will depend on the early
or late appearance of frost. That ep-
idemic is pitched into the world, and
it goes laundering across the con-
tinents, and it is all guesswork and
an appalling perhaps" I think, per-
haps, that God had something to do
with it, and that His mercy may have
in some way protected US; that He
may have done as much for us as the
quarantine and the health officers. 1t
was right and a necessity that all
caution should be used, but there have
come enough macaroni from Italy
and enough grapes from the south
of France, and enough rags from tat
terdemalions, and hidden in these ar
ticles of transportation enough chol-
eraic germs to have left by this time
oil ~ IN, hn
teries. 1 thank all the doctors and
quarantines, but more than all, and
first of all, and last of all, and all
the time, I thank God. In all the 5000
years of the worlds existence there
has not one thing merely happened
so." God is not an anarchist, but
a king, a father.
When little Tad, the son of Presi-
dent Lincoln, died. all America SYM
pathized with the sorrow in the white
house. He used to rush into the room
where the cabinet was in session and
while the most eminent men of the
land were discussing the questions of
national existence. But the child had
no care about those questions. Now,
God the Father and God the Son and
God the Holy Ghost are in perpetual
session in regard to this world and
kindred worlds. Shall you, His child,
rush in to criticise or arraign or con-
denim the Divine government? No;
the cabinet of the Eternal Three can
govern and will govern in the wisest
and best way, and there never will be
a mistake, and, like razor skillfulIy
swung, shall cut that which ought
to be cut and avoid that which ought
to be avoided. Precision to the very
hairbreadth. Earthly timepieces may
get out of order and strike wrong,
saying it is one o'clock when it is two,
or two when it is three. Gods clock
is always right, and when it is one
it strikes one, and when it is 12 it
strikes IL, and the second hand is as
accurate as the minute hand.
Further, my text tells US that God
sometimes shaves nations. "In the
same day shall the Lord shave with
a razor that is hired" With one sharp
sweep He went acress Judea, and
down went it's pride and its power
In 1861 God shaved the American ma
ton. We had allowed to grow Sab
bath desecration and oppression and
blasphemy and fraud and impurity
and all sorts of turpitude. The south
had its sins, and the north its sins,
and the east its sins, and the west its
sins. We had been warned again and
again, and we did not heed. At length
the sword of war cut from the St.
Lawrence to the gulf and from At
lantic seabord to Pacific seaboard.
The pride of the land, not the cow
ards, but the heroes, on both sides