The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-09-06
A SUMMER SERMON:
Discourse Full of the Breath OF
Hills and Fields.
DR.. TaImaGe Applies His Text to the
World in Which We Live-The
Need of Olive branches in
Every Day Life.
Copyright, 1901, by Louis Ilopsch. n. Y ]
Washington,


Washington,
This discourse of DIR. Talmage is
full of the breath of the hills and
fields and is a summer sermon: text,
Nehemiah viii, Is, go forth unto the
mount and fetch olive branches and
pine branches and myrtle branches
and palm branches and branches of
thick trees to make booths"
1t seems as if Mount Olivet were
unmoored. The people have gone in
to the mountain and have cut off
tree branches and put them on their
shoulders, and they come forth now
into the streets of Jerusalem and on
the house tops, and they twist these
tree branches into arbors or booths.
Then the people, come forth from
their comforta BILE homes and dwell
for seven days in these booths or
arbors. Why do they do that? well,
it is a great festal time. 1t is the
feast of tabernacles, and these peo-
pie are going to celebrate the desert
travel of their fathers and their oe-
liverance from their troubles, the eX-
perience of their fathers when, travel
ING III IHc QcScIl, tACy llNOo III OOONNN'
on their way to the land of Canaan.
And so these booths also became high
ly suggestive will not say they are
necessarily typical, but highly sug-
gestive-of our march toward Heaven
and of the fact that we are only liv-
ing temporarily here, as it were, in
booths or arbors, on our way to the
Canaan of eternal rest. And what
was said to the Jews literally may
be said figuratively to all this au-
dience. Go forth unto the mountain
and fetch olive branches and pine
branches and myrtle branches and
palm branches and branches of thick
trees to make booths.
Yes, we are only here in tenn
porary residence. We are marching
on. The merchant princes who used
to live in Bowling Green, New York,
have passed away, and their resi-
dences are now the fields of cheap
merchants. Where are the men who
so years ago owned Washington and
New York? Passed on. There is nc
use in our driving our stakes toe
deep into the earth; we are on the
march. The generations that have
preceded us have gone so far on that
we cannot even hear the sound OF
their footsteps. They have gone
over the hill, and we are to follow
them. But, blessed be God, we are
not in this world left out of doors
and unsheltered. there are Gospe
booths or Gospel arbors in which ouI
souls are to be comforted. Go forth
unto the mountain and fetch olive
branches and pine branches and
myrtle branches and palm branches
and branches of thick trees and build
booths.
Well, now we are ready to construct
a Gospel arbor or Gospel booth, and
how shall we construct it? Well, we
must get all the tree branches an6
build. According to my text, we
must go up into the mount anC
bring olive branches. What does
that mean? The olive tree grows
in warm climates, and it reaches the
height of ~ or % feet, a straight
stem and then an offshoot from thai
stem. And then people come, ant
they strip off these branches some
times, and when in time of war the
general of one army takes one o.
these olive branches and goes out tC
the general of another army, what
does that mean? Why, it means un
saddle the war chargers. 1t means
hang up the war knapsacks. 1t is bu
beautiful way of saying, Peace!
Now. if we are to-day going tC
succeed in building this Gospel arbo1
we must go into the mount of God:
blessing and fetch the olive branches
and whatever else we must have We
must have at least two oliv,
branches, peace with God and peac,
with man. When 1 say peace will
God, L do not mean to represent Goo
as an angry chieftain, having ;
grudge against us, but L do mean tt
affirm that there is no more antag
onism between a hound and a hare
between a hawk and pullet, be
tween elephant and swine, than ther,
is hostility between holiness and sin
And if God is all holiness and we ar,
all sin there must be a treaty, ther'
must be a stretching forth of DIV,
branches.
There is a great lawsuit going OF
now, and it is a lawsuit which man i
bringing against his Maker. Tha
lawsuit is now on the calendar. 1t i
the human versus the Divine, it is ini
ouity versus the immaculate, it i
weakness versus omnipotence. MAJ
began it. God did not begin the law
suit. We began it. We assaulted on
Maker, and the sooner we end thi
part of the struggle, in which th
finite attempts to overthrow the in
finite and omnipotent-the sooner w
end it the better. Travellers tell u
there is no such place as Noun
Calvary, that it is only hill, only al
insignificant hill, but | persist il
calling it the mount of Gods divin
mercy and love, far grander thar
any other place on earth, grande
than the Alps or, the Himalayas, an
there are no other hills as compare'
with it, and / have noticed in ever.
sect where the cross of Chris. is Sc
forth it is planted with DIV
branches. And all we have to do
to get rid of this war between &C.
and ourselves, of which we are a.
tired. We want to back ont of tn
war, we want to get rid of this hos
tllity All we havs to do is just t
get up on the mount of Gods bless