The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-03-22

| Deen Dy all the churcheS, L would
utter nothing which might in the
least appear invidious against any.
Yet without this it may fairly be
said that the Methodist Episcopal
church, not less devoted than the
best, is by its great numbers the
most important of all. 1t is no fault
in others that the Methodist church
| sends more soldiers to the field, more
nurses to the hospital and more
prayers to Heaven than any. God
bless the Methodist church-bless all
the churches-and blessed be God
who in this our great trial giveth US
the churches"
What a great thing it was that the
Christian books which Mr.. Lincoln
read obliterated from his mind the inf
del literature! William Carey became
a missionary by reading 1.-The Voyages
of Captain Cook" John Wesley's
life was shaped by reading Jeremy
Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying"
There are books in your library or ly-
ing on your parlor table or secreted
in some place by your child that will
decide for two worlds, this and the
next. the character of its reader.
Through books we sit down and talk
with the mightiest spirits of all the
ages. We accompany Tennyson on his
spring-time walk as he falls upon his
knees in the meadows, crying to his
| companion: ''Niolets, man, violets!
Smell them" Or we ride with Ira jan
in his triumphal march, or stand with
Godfrey at the taking of Jerusalem, or
| with arctic RVnlnrar haar the ash
of the icebergs, or are received with
fernando Cortes in the halls of
| Montezuma, or watch in the observa-
| tory as Herschel with his telescope
| captures another star, or the ink in
the inkhorn turns red as blood, and
we are at Marengo and Arbela and
Eylau and Borodino and Leipsic; or
we sail with Hamilcar from Carthage
to Palermo, or we see Calico fighting
for the solar system, and around US
gather for conversation Aristotle and
Plato and Robert South and Sydney
Smith and Locke and Samuel Rogers
and Chaucer and Paul Richter and
Swift and Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt and
Talleyrand and Burke and Edward
Irving, while to make music for us
Handel and Mozart and Mendelssohn
come in, and we watch Columbus land
ing and see John Harvard's legacy of
1900 paid over for the founding of
Harvard university, and Joshua Rey
nolds and David Wilkie and Rem
brandt tell us of their pictures. Oh,
the booksi Thank God for the books,
and thanks be to all the authors!
May the inkhorn ever be under divine
inspiration!
A wrong theory is abroad that the
newspaper impression is ephemeral.
Because we read and cast it aside in
an hour and never see it again we are
not to judge that we are parted from
its influence. No volume of 500 pages
makes such impression upon the peo
pie as the daily newspaper. 1t is not
what we put away carefully upon the
shelf and once in awhile refer to that
has as close relation to our welfare
as the story of what the world is
now doing or has recently done. Yes
terday has more to do with to-day
than something occurring a century
previous. The engineers who now
guide the rail trains, the sea captains
who now command the ships, the ar
chitects who now design the build
ings, the batons that now control the
orchestras, the legislators who now
make the laws, the generals who now
march the hosts, the rulers who now
govern the nations, the inkhorns that
now flood the world with intelligence
these are what we have most to do
with.
You have all seen what is called
indelible ink, which is a weak solu-
tion or silver nitrate, and that ink
you cannot rub out or wash out. |
Put it there, and it stays. Well, the
liquid of the editorial and reportorial
inkstands is an indelible ink. II puts
upon the souls of the passing gener-
ations characters of light or dark
ness that time cannot wash out and
eternity cannot efface. Forever in
delible. Be careful how you use it.
The impression made with it will be
resplendent or repulsive on the day
for which all other days were made.
But how shall ] speak of the ink
horn of the worlds evangelzation? !
Oh, how may loving and brilliant and |
glorious pens have been dipped into |
it! Thomas Kempis dipped into IT !
and brought up his Limitation of |
Christ" Horace Bushnell dipped into |
it and brought up every Mans Life
a Plan of God'' Thomas Binney |
dipped into it and brought up his |
"Weigh House Chapel Discourses."
Conybeare dipped into it and brought |
up the Life and Epistles of Paul"
Trench dipped into it and |
brought up the "Epistles to the Seven
Churches" Stuart Robinson dipped |
into it and brought up "Discourses of |
Redemption" Austin Phelps dipped |
into it and brought up 1.-The Still |
Hour" Mary Hopkins dipped into il
and brought up Evidences of Chris
tianity." Thomas Guthrie dipped
into it and brought mp 1.-The Gospel in
Ezekiel" John Cumming dipped into
it and brought up "The Apocalypse
Oh, the opulence of Christian litera-
ture, Oh, the mighty streams of evan
gelistic power that have poured from
the writer's inkhorn that appeared |
in Ezekiers vision!
While you recognize the distin-
guished ones who have dipped into
the inkstand of the worlds evangeliza-
tion do not forget that there are hun
dreds of thousands of unknown men
and women who are engaged in in
ways doing the same
thingi How many anxious mothers
writing to the boys in towni How