The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-03-29
SUBSCRIPTION: S1.OO Per Year

vivals. While the pews on one side
the altar cry for mercy, the pulpits
on the other side of the altar must
cry for mercy. Ministers quarreling.
Ministers trying to pull each other
down. Ministers struggling for eccle-
siastical place. Ministe ters, lethargic
with whole congregations dying on
their hands. What a spectacle!
During our civil war the president
of the United States made proclama-
tion for $4,000 troops. Some of you
remember the big stir. But the King
| of the universe to-day asks for
1 200, ,OOO, 900 more troops than are en-
listed, and we want it done softly,
imperceptibly, no excitement, one by
one. You are a dry goods merchant
on a large scale, and 1 am a merchant
on a small scale, and come to you
and want to buy 1000 yards OIL cloth.
Do you say: THANK you. I'll sell
you 1000 yards of cloth, but I'll sell
you 20 yards to-day and 20 tomorrow
and 20 the next day, and if it takes
me six months I'll sell you the whole
thousand yards. You will want as
long as that to examine the goods,
and I'll want as long as that to exam
inc the credit, and besides that 1000
yards of cloth is too much to sell all
at once?" No; you do not say that
You take me into the counting-room,
and in ten minutes the whole transac-
ton is consummated. The fact is we
cannot afford to be fools in anything
but religion.
That very merchant who on Satur-
day afternoon sold me the thousand
yards of cloth at one stroke the next
! Sabbath in church will stroke his
beard and wonder whether it would
not be better for a thousand souls to
come struggling along for ten years
! instead of boiling in at one service.
1t seems to me as if God is prepar-
/ ing the world for some quick and
universal movement. A celebrated
electrician gave me telegraph chart
| of the world. On that chart the wires
crossing the continents and the cables
under the sea looked Ike veins red
with blood. On that chart / see that
the headquarters of the lightnings are
in Great Britain and the United
! States. In London and New York
the lightnings are stabbed, waiting
to be harnessed for some quick dis
patch. That shows you that the tel
egraph is in the possession of Chris
| tianity.
1t is significant fact that the mani
who invented the telegraph was an
old-fashioned Christian, Prof. Morse,
and that the man who put the telc-
graph under the sea was an old-fash-
ioned Christian, Cyrus w. Field, and
that the president of the most IA
nous of the telegraph companies of
! Il foc
Christian, William Orton, going from
the communion table on earth
straight to his home in Heaven. What
does all that mean?
I do not suppose that the telegraph
was invented merely to let us know
whether flour is up or down or which
horse won the race at the Derby or
which marksman beat at the latest
contest. 1 suppose the telegraph was
| invented and built to call the world
| to God.
In some of the attributes of the
| Lord we seem to share on a small
scale. For instance, in His love and
| His kindness. But until of late fore
knowledge, omniscience, omnipreS-
ence, omnipotence, seem to have been
exclusively Gods possession. God, de-
| string to make the race like Himself,
gives us species of foreknowledge
in the weather proba bilities, gives us
a species of omniscience in telegraphy,
! gives us species of omnipresence in
the telephone, gives US species of
omnipotence in the steam power. Dis
coveries and inventions all around
about us, people are asking what next?
l will tell you what next. Next, a
stupendous religious movement. Next,
the end of war. Next, the crash OF
despotism. Next, the worlds eXpurga-
ton. Next, the Christlike dominion.
Next, the judgment. What becomes
of the world after that / care not.
1t will have suffered and achieved
enough for one world. Lay it up in
the drydocks of eternity, like an old
man of war gone out of service, or fit
it up like Constellation to carry
bread of relief to some other suffering
planet or let it be demolished. Fare
WELL dear old world, that began with
paradise and ended with judgment
| confiagration.
Last summer / stood on the Isle of
Wight, and l had pointed out to me
the place where the Eurydice sank
with 200 or 300 young men who were
| in training for the British navy. You
remember when that training ship
went down there was thrill of horror
all over the world. Since then there
was another training ship missing.
, /, The Atalanta, gone down with all on
board BY order of her majesty's gov
| ernment vessels went cruising up and
down the Atlantic trying to find that
lost training ship in which there were
so many young men preparing for
the British navy. Alas, for the lost
Atalantal Oh, my friends, this world
| is only training shipl On it we are
training for Heaven. The old ship
sails up and down the ocean of i'm
mensity, now through the dark waves
of midnight, now through the golden
crested wave of the morn, but sails
on and sails on. After awhile her
work will be done, and the inhabitants
| of Heaven will look out and find a
world missing. The cry will be:
''Where is that earth where Christ
died and the human race was emanci-
pated? Send out fleets of angels to
find the missing craft" Let them sail
up and down, cruise up and down the
ocean of eternity, and they will catch
not one glimpse of her mountain masts
or her topgallants of floating cloud.
Gone down, The training ship of
world perished in the last tornado.