The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-04-26

lou only nave TO present CHTlSI III
your own way.
Jonathan Edwards preached Christ
in the severest argument ever penned,
and John Bunyan preached Christ in
the sublimest allegory ever composed.
Edward Payson, sick and exhausted,
leaned up against the side of the pull
pit and wept out his discourse, while
George Whitefield, with the manner
and the voice and the start of an ac-
tor, overwhelmed his auditory. 1t
would have been a different thing if
Jonathan Edwards had tried to write
and dream about the pilgrims prog
ress to the celestial city or John Bun
yam had attempted an essay on the
human will.
Brighter than the light, fresher
than the fountains, deeper than the
seas, are these Gospel themes. Song
has no melody, flowers have no sweet
ness, sunset sky has no color, COM
pared with these glorious themes.
These harvests of grace spring up
quicker than we can sickle them.
Kindling pulpits with their fire and
producing revolutions with their
power, lighting up dying beds with
their glory, they are the sweetest
thought for the poet, and they are
the most thrilling illustration for the
orator, and they offer the most in
tense scene for the artist, and they
are to the ambassador of tie sky all
enthusiasm. Complete pardon for the
direst guilt. Sweetest comfort for
ghastliest agony. Brightest hope for
grimmest death. Grandest resurrec-
tion for darkest sepulcher. Oh, what
Gospel to preach! Christ over all
in it, His birth, His suffering, His
miracles, His para bles. His sweat, His
tears, His blood, His atonement, His
interces sion-what glorious themes!
Do we exercise faith. Christ is its
object. Do we have love? 1t fastens
on Jesus. Have we a fondness for
the church? 1t is because Christ died
for it. Have we hope of Heaven?
1t is because Jesus went ahead, the
herald and the forerunner.
The royal robe of Demetrius was
so costly, so beautiful, that after he
had put it off no one ever dared put
it on, but this robe of Christ, richer
than that, the poorest and the wan
''Oh, my sins, my SINS" said Mar
tin Luther to Staupitz, "my sins, my
sins!" The fact is that the brawny
German student had found Latin
Bible that had made him quake, and
nothing else ever did make him
quake, and when he found how
| through Christ he was pardoned and
saved he wrote to a friend saying:
"Come over and join us, great and
| awful sinners saved by the grace of
God. You seem to be only a slender
sinner, and you don't much eXtOl the
mercy of God, but we who have been
such very awful sinners praise His
grace the more now that we have
been redeemed" Can it be that you
| are so desperately egotistical that
you feel yourself in first-rate spir-
ituaI trim and that from the root of
the hair to the tip of the toe you are
scarless and immaculate? What you
need is a looking glass, and here it
is in the Bible. Poor and wretched
and miserable and blind and naked
from the crown of the head TO the
sole of the foot, full of wounds and
| putrefying sores. No health in us
And then take the fact that Christ
gathered up all the notes against us
and paid them and then offered us
| the receipt.
And how much we need Him in our
sorrows! We are independent of cir
cumstances if we have His grace.
| Why, He made Paul sing in the dun
geon, and under that grace ST. John
D. I IL
of the apocalyptic trumpets. After
all other candles have been snuffed
out this is the light that gets bright
er and brighter unto the perfect day,
and after under the hard hoofs of
calamity all the pools of worldly en-
| joyment have been trampled into
deep mire at the foot of the eternal
rock the Christian, from cups of
granite, lily trimmed and vine covered,
puts out the thirst of his soul.
A thousand feet underground, by
light of torch toiling in a miners
shaft, a ledge of rock may fall upon
us, and we may die a miners death.
Far out at sea, falling from the slip
perry ratIines and broken on the hal
yards, we may die a sailors death.
On mission of mercy in hospital amid
broken bones and reeking leprosies
and raging fevers we may die n phi
lanthropist's death. On the field of
battle, serving our God and our coun-
try, slugs through the heart, the gun
carriage may roll over us, and we
may die patriots death. But after
all there are only two styles of de-
parture, the death of the righteous
and of the wicked, and we all want to
die the former.
God grant that when that hour
comes you may be at home, You
want the hand of your kindred in
your hand. You want your children
to surround you. You want the light
on your pillow from eyes that have
long reflected your love. You want
the room still. You do not want any
curious strangers standing around
watching you. You want your kin
dred from afar to hear your last
prayer. I think that is the wish of
all of us. But is that all? Can earth
ly friends hold us when the pillows
of death come up to the girdle? Can
human voice charm open Heavens
gate? Can human hands pilot us
through the narrows of death into
Heavens harbor? Can an earthly
friendship shield us from the arrows
of death and in the hour when Satan
shall practice upon us his internal
archery? No, no! Alas, poor soul,
if that is all Better die in the will
derness, far from tree shadow and