The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-02-08

of asking the question and leave to
you the risk of answering it. These
things 1 say to show you that in order
to have the promise of the text full
filed in your case it is not necessary
you have phenomenal worldly success.
Notice also that God gives the
righteous the power to extract good
out of evil and by a divine chemistry
to change the bitter into the sweet
and the harmful into the beneficial.
The promise that it shall be we'll with
you does not imply that you are to be
free from trouble. There is no escape
from that. We all have family rela-
tions, and some of them will be MAX
ing exit from this world, so that be-
reavement is the universal inherit
ance. So also is financial loss. The
difference between the prospered and
those not prospered is the difference
in the amount they can afford to lose.
The more wealth a man has the more
he can lose, but one man can afford
to lose million dollars where anoth-
er man cannot afford to lose one dol
lar. On larger or smaller scale all
suffer financial loss. Amid the rapid
national and international finance
monetary perpleXity is as common as
day or night.
So also misinterpretation and SLAM
der came to all who live active lives.
Our actions, thoroughly honest and
above board, may come under sus-
picion. Every courtroom at every term
of court hears illustrations of the de-
lusion of what is called circumstan-
tial evidence. Innocent men are fined
or imprisoned or electrocuted because
of an unfortunate conjunction of
events. What is true in courtrooms
is true in all circles of domestic or
social or political or official life. You
have been misunderstood and misrep-
resented or will be misunderstood and
misrepresented. Then how can my
text be true? My explanation is this:
The man without any divine grace in
his heart finds in these troubles irri-
tation and unbelief and melancholia
and despair. A Christian man finds in
them submission and enlarged views
and divine support and reconsecra-
ton. Bereavement to the worldling
brings hard thoughts of God and re-
sistance so violent it dares not fully
express itself. Bereavement brings to
the Christian the thought of heavenly
reunion and a more complete laying
hold of God, and a more tender appre
citation of the divine presence, and
deeper gratitude that we were per-
mitted to have the departed one so
long, and more lively sympathy for
O Of OF hor
dence of Gods love, for whom the
Lord loveth he chasteneth."
Financial loss. which just now said
is sure to come, never breaks up
man who has strong faith in God. In
most cases it is a loss of surplus or it
is the banishment of luxuries. Most
of the wants of the prosperous classes
are artificial wants. The late Mr.. Ar
mour of the $6O,OOO,OOO estate pointed
to one of his clerks on ordinary salary
and said: That man has a better ap-
petite than l, sleeps better nights and
enjoys life more than I do" Oh, the
gigantic miseries of those who have
too much! A man in Solomon's time
expressed as philosophic and reason
able wish as any man of those times
or of our times. His name was Agur,
and he offered prayer that he might
never have a superabundance or
deficit, crying out: "Give me neither
poverty nor riches" On the one side
he had seen the awful struggle of the
poor to get food and clothes and shell
ter and to educate their children, and
on the other side he had seen the
gouty foot and the indigestion, and
the insomnia, and the anxiety about
large investments, and the threatened
paresis often characteristic of those
who are loaded up and loaded down
with too many successes. Those Peo-
pie who are generally called the mass
es-that is, the most of folks-have
the things absolutely necessary for
their well being. They have no Mu-
rillos on their wall, nor "BelshaZZar's
Feast" in the dining room, nor a pair
of $1,000 sorrels at their doorway.
But they have something which those
supplied seldom have.
They have better health because, be-
ing compelled to walk, they get the
necessary exercise, and, their diet be-
ing limited to plan food, they do not
suffer from midnight salads and are
not victimized by rare caterers. They
retire for wholesome sleep at the very
hour in which others are leaving their
homes for the dance or the card party.
They will sleep the last sleep just as
we'll in the plain graveyard as those
who have over them an arch of sculp-
tured granite in costliest metropolis
or most historical abbey.
The reason so many people are mis-
erable is because they do not let well
enough alone. They are in one occu-
patton and see it's annoyances and so
change to another occupa ton and find
as many annoyances, if not more. |
They live in one place and know its
1ncomfortab BILE environments and move |
INTO another place which has just as
many limitations. Their investments |
yield them four per cent. and they sell |
out to make investments that will |
yield ten per cent. and lose all. Bet |
ter settle down and stop fretting about |
yourself and the world.
Do any of us fully realize the fact |
that God gives us three things in un-
limited supply, although no formula
IF PRAYER that / ever heard recognizes |
air and sunlight? Water |
Dy the riverfull. Water by the lakeful. |
Water by the oceanful. Some for ablu-
ion, some for shaking of thirst, some
Tor baptistery, some for fountains and |
louariums l never appreciated what |
, wonderful thing water is until last |
summer L stood by the fountains before |
md around the emperor's palace at Pc |
.erhof, Russia. / had been familiar |