The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-04-12

| y
believe anything can't understand" !"
Why, putting down one kind of flower
seed, comes there up this flower of this
color? Why, putting down another
flower seed, comes there up a flower
of this color? One flower white, an
other flower yellow, another flower
crimson. Why the difference when the
seeds look to be very much alike-are
very much alike? Explain these things.
Explain that wart on the finger. EX-
plain the difference why the oak leaf
is different from the leaf of the hlck-
ory. Tell me how the Lord Almighty
can turn the chariot of His omnipo-
tence on a rose leaf. You ask me ques-
| tions about the resurrection / cannot
| answer. 1 will ask you thousand
questions about everyday life you can
not answer.
/ find my strength in this passage:
"All who are in their graves shall
come forth" 1 do not pretend to
make the explanation. You go on
and say: suppose a returned mis-
sionary dies in this city. When he
was in China, his foot was ampu-
tated; he lived years after in Eng
land, and there he had an arm ampu-
tated; he is buried to-day in yonder
cemetery. In the resurrection will
the foot come from China, will the
| arm come from England, and will the
different parts of the body be re-
constructed in the resurrection? How
is that possible?"
You have noticed. I suppose, in
reading the story of the resurrection
that almost every account of the
Bible gives the idea that the charac-
teristic of that day will be great
sound. 1 do not know that it will be
very loud, but 1 know it will be very
penetrating. In the mausoleum
where silence has reigned a thousand
years that voice must penetrate. In
the coral cave of the deep that voice
must penetrate. Millions cf spirits
will come through the gates of
eternity, and they will come to the
tombs of the earth, and they will
cry: "Give us back our bodies; we
gave them to you in corruption; sur
render them now in interruption" {"
Hundreds of spirits lowering about
the fields of Gettysburg, for there
|
thousand spirits coming to Green
wood, for there the bodies are buried,
waiting for the reunion of body and
soul.
All along the sea route from New
York to Liverpool, at every few miles
where a steamer went down, depart
ed spirits coming back, lowering over
the wave. There is where the City
of Boston perished. Found at last.
There is where the President per-
ished. Steamer found at last. There
is where the Central America went
down. Spirits lowering, hundreds of
spirits lowering, waiting for the re-
union of body and soul. Out on the
prairie a spirit alights. There is
where a traveller died in the snow.
Crash goes Westminster abbey, and
the poets and the orators come
forth; wonderful mingling of good
and bad. Crash go the pyramids of
Egypt, and the monarchs come forth.
Who can sketch the scene? 1 sup
pose that one moment before that
general rising there will be an entire
silence, save as you hear the grinding
of a wheel or the clatter of the hoofs
of a procession passing into the GEM
etery. Silence in all the caves of the
earth. Silence on the side of the
mountain. Silence down in the val
leys and far out into the sea. Silence.
But in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, as the archangel's trumpet
comes pealing, rolling, crashing,
across the mountain and sea, the
earth will give one terrific shudder,
and the graves of the dead will heave
like the waves of the sea, and Ostend,
Sevastopol and Chalons will stalk
forth in the lurid air, and the
drowned will come up and wiring out
their wet locks above the pillows, and
all the land and all the sea become
one moving mass of life-all faces,
all ages, all conditions, gazing in one
! direction and upon one throne-the
throne of resurrection. "All who are
in their graves shall come forth
But" you say, eff this doctrine of
the resurrection is true, as prefgured
by this Easter morning, can you tell
us something about the resurrected
body?" I can. There are mysteries
about that, but 1 shall tell you three
or four things in regard to the res
urrected body that are beyond guess
ing and beyond mistake.
In the first place, remark in re-
gard to your resurrected body, it will
be a glorious body. The body we
have now is a mere skeleton of what
it would have been if sin had not
marred and defaced it. Take til
most exquisite statue that was ever
made by an artist and chip it here
and chip it there with a chisel, and
batter and bruise it here and there
and then stand it out in the storms
of a hundred years, and the beauty
would be gone. Well, the human
body has been Clipped and battered
and bruised and damaged with the
storms of thousands of years-the
physical defects of other generations
coming down from generation to gen
Grafton, we inheriting the infelicities
| of past generations. But in the morn
ing of the resurrection the body will
be adorned and beautified according
| to the original model. And there is
no such difference between a gymnast
and an emaciated wretch in a laz-
arctic as there will be a difference
between our bodies as they are now
and our resurrected forms. There
you will see the perfect eye after the
waters of death have washed out the
lstains of tears and study. There you
will see the perfect hand after the
| nf foil have heeu nnfiAd from,