The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-09-07

there then shame on the church.
Religion is not a mere Towering SEN
timentality. 1t is a practical, life
giving, healthful fruit, not posies, but
apples.
'Oh," says somebody, 81 don't see
what your garden of the church has
yielded" Where did your asylums
come from? And your hospitals?
And your institutions of mercy?
Christ planted every one of them;
He planted them in His garden. When
Christ gave sight to Bartimeus, He
laid the cornerstone of every blind
asylum that has ever been built.
When Christ soothed the demoniac
of Galilee, He laid the cornerstone of
every lunatic asylum that has ever
been established. When Christ said
to the sick man: 'Take up thy bed
and walk" He laid the cornerstone
of every hospital the world has ever
seen. When Christ said: 81 was in
prison and We visited me,' He laid the
cornerstone of every prison reform
association that has ever been or
ganized. The church of Christ is a
glorious garden, and it is full of fruit.
L know there is some poor fruit in it.
[ know there are some weeds that
ought to be thrown over the fence.
know there are some crap apple
trees that ought to be cut down. I
know there are some wild grapes that
ought to be uprooted, but are you
going to destroy the whole garden
because of a little gnarled fruit?
You will find worm eaten leaves in
Fontainebleau and insects that sting
in the fairy groves of the Champs
Elysees. You do not tear down and
destroy the whole garden because
there are a few specimens of gnarled
fruit.
I admit there are men and women
in the church who ought not to be
there, but let us be just as frank and
admit the fact that there are hun
dreds and thousands and tens of thou
sands of glorious Christian men and
women-holy, blessed, useful, conse-
Grated and triumphant. There is no
grander collection in all the earth
than the collection of Christians
There are Christian men in every
church whose religion is not a mat
ter of psalm singing and church go
ing. Tomorrow morning that reli-
gion will keep them just as consist
ent and consecrated in their worldly
occupation as it ever kept them at
the communion table. There are
women with us to-day of a higher
type of character than Mary of Beth
any. They not only sit at the feet
of Christ, but they go out into the
kitchen to help Martha in her work,
that she may sit there, too. There
is a woman who has a drunken hus-
band who has exhibited more faith
and patience and courage than Rid
ley in the fire. He was consumed in
20 minutes. Hers has been 20-years'
martyrdom. Yonder is a man who
has been IS years on his back, unable
to feed himself, yet calm and peace
full as though he lay on one of the
green banks of Heaven, watching the
oarsmen dip their paddles in the crys-
tai river! Why, it seems to me this
moment as if st. Paul threw to us
a pomologist's catalogue of the fruits
growing in this great garden of
Christ-love, JOY, peace, patience,
character, brotherly kindness, gentle
ness, mercy; glorious fruit, enough to
fill all the baskets of earth and
Heaven.
have not told you of the better
fruit. 1t was planted just outside
Jerusalem a good while ago. When
that tree was planted, it was so split
and bruised and barked men said
nothing would ever grow upon it, but
no sooner had that tree been planted
than it budded and blossomed and
fruited, and the soldiers spears were
only the clubs that struck down that
fruit, and it fell into the lap of the
nations, and men began to pick it up
and eat it, and they found in it an
antidote to all thirst, to all poison,
to all sin, to all death; the smallest
cluster larger than the famous one
of Eshcol, which two men carried on
a staff between them. If the one
apple in Eden killed the race, this one
cluster of mercy shall restore.
Again, the church in my text is
appropriately called a garden because
it is thoroughly irrigated. No gar !
den could prosper long without plen-
ty of water. l have seen a garden
in the mid~t of a desert, yet bloom
ing and luxuriant. All around was
dearth and barrenness, but there
were pipes, aqueducts, reaching from
this garden up to the mountains,
and through these aqueducts the wa
ter came streaming down and toss
ing up into beautiful fountains until
every root and leaf and flower was
saturated. That is like the church
The church is a garden in the midst
of a great desert of sin and suffering,
but it is well irrigated, for "our eyes
are unto the hills from whence com
eth our help" From the mountains
of Gods strength there flow down
rivers of gladness. "There is a river
the stream whereof shall make glad
the city of our God" Preaching the
Gospel is one of the aqueducts. The
Bible is another. Baptism and the |
Lords Supper are aqueducts. Water
to sIake the thirst, water to wash the |
unclean, water tossed high up in the |
light of the Sun of Righteousness, |
showing us the rainbow around the |
throne. Oh, was there ever a garden |
so thoroughly irrigated? You know |
that the beauty of Versailles and |
depends very much upon
the great supply of water. came
to the latter place, Chatsworth, one |
day when strangers are not to be ad-
mitted, but by an inducement which
always seemed as potent with an
as an American I got |
in, and then the gardener went far /