The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-09-13
HURTS CHARACTER.
Folly of Allowing Forebodings of
Evil to Influence Action.
DIR. TaImage in His Sermon Declares
the Life of Every Man, Woman
and Child to BE Closely
Under Divine Care.
Copyright, 1901. by Louis Klopsch, N. ~
Washington,


In this discourse DR.. Talmage
shows the folly of allowing forebod-
ings to influence US and how eXpec-
tation of evil weakens and destroys.
Text, Matthew 6:34: Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof"
The life of every man, woman and
child is as closely under Divine care
as though such person were the only
man, woman or child. There are no
accidents. AS there is a law of storms
in the natural world, so there is
law of trouble, a law of disaster,
law of misfortune; but the majority
of the troubles of life are imaginary,
and the most of those anticipated
never come. At any rate, there is no
cause of complaint against God. See
how much He has done to make you
happy, His sunshine filling the earth
with glory, making rainbow for the
storm and halo for the mountain,
greenness for the moss, saffron for
the cloud and crystal for the billow
and procession of hammered flame
through the opening gates of the
morning, chaffinches to sing, rivers
to glitter, seas to chant and springs
to blossom, and overpowering all
other sounds with it's song and over
arching all other splendor with its
triumph, covering up all other beauty
with its garlands and outtiashlng all
thrones with its dominion-dellver-
ance for a lost world through the
Great Redeemer-
1 discourse of the sin of borrow
ing trouble.
First, such a habit of mind and
heart is wrong, because it puts one
into a dependency that ill fits him
for duty. / planted two rosebushes
in my garden; the one thrived beau
tifully, the other perished. 1 found
the dead one on the shady side of the
house. Our dispositions, like our
plants, need sunshine. Expectancy
of repulse is the cause of many sec
ular and religious failures. Fear of
slander and abuse has often invited
all the long-beaked vultures of scorn
and backbiting. Many of the misfor-
tunes of life, like hyenas, flee if you
courageously meet them.
How poorly prepared for religious
duty is a man who sits down under
the gloom of expected misfortune! If
he prays, he says: Il do not think
shall be answered" If he gives, he
says: Il expect they will steal the
money" Helen Chalmers told me
that her father, Thomas Chalmers, in
the darkest hour of the history of
the Free church of Scotland and when
the woes of the land seemed to weigh
upon his heart, said to his children:
"Come, let us go out and play ball or
fly kite" and the only difficulty in
the play was that the children could
not keep up with their father. The
McCheynes and the Summerfields of
the church who did the most good
toiled in the sunlight. Away with the
horrors! They distill poison; they
dig graves, and if they could climb
so high they would drown the re-
joicipgs of Heaven with sobs and
wailing.
You will have nothing but misfor-
tune in the future if you sedulously
watch for it. How shall a man catch
the right kind of fish if he arranges
his line and hook and bait to catch
bats and hawks, and bats and hawks
you will find. Hunt for robin red
breasts, and you will find robin red
breasts. One night an eagle and an
owl got into fierce battle. The eagle,
unused to the night, was no match
for the owl, which is most at home
in the darkness, and the king of the
air fell helpless. But the morning
rose, and with it rose the eagle, and
the owls and the nighthawks and the
bats came second time to the com
bat. Now, the eagle in the sunlight
with a stroke of his talons and a
great cry, cleared the air, and his en-
emies, with torn feathers and
splashed with blood. tumbled into
the thickets. Ye are the children OF
light. In the night of despondency
YOU will have no chance against your
enemies that flock up from beneath;
but, trusting in God and standing in
the sunshine of the promises, you
shall renew your youth like the
eagle"
Again, the habit of borrowing
trouble is wrong because it has q
tendency to make us overlook pres
ent blessing. To slake mans thirst
the rock is cleft and cool waters leaI
into his brimming cup. To feed his
hunger the fields bow down with
bending wheat, and the cattle come
from the clover pastures to give him
| milk, and the orchards yellow and
| ripen, casting their juicy fruits into
| his lap. Alas, that amid such eXuber
ance of blessing man should grow
as though he were soldier on hal
rations or sailor on short allow
ance; that man should stand necl
deep in harvests looking forward tC
| famine; that one should feel the
| strong pulses of health marching
| with regular tread through all tn,
avenus of life and yet tremble at tn,
expected assault of sickness; that {
man should sit in his pleasant home
| fearful that ruthless want will some
| day rattle the broken window sasl
with tempest and sweep the Goals
from the hearth and pour hunger
| into the bread tray; that man fee
by Him who owns all the harvest
should expect to starve; that on,
| whom God loves and surrounds will
| benediction and attends with angeli'