The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-10-11


Many of the precious stones of the
Bible have come to prompt recognition.
But for the present l take up the less
valuable crystal. Job, in my text,
compares saving wisdom with specl-
men of topaz. An infidel chemist or
mineralogist would pronounce the lat
ter worth moro than the former, but
Job makes an intelligent comparison,
looks at religion and then looks at
the crystal and prOnounces the former
as of far superior value to the latter,
eXc.aiming, in the words of my text:
The crystal cannot equal it,
Now, it is not part of my sermonic
design to depreciate the crystal,
whe Their it be found in Cornish mine
or Harz mountain or Mammoth cave
or tinkling among the pendants of the
chandeliers of palace. The crystal
is the star of the mountain; it is the
queen of the cave; it is the eardrop of
the hills; it finds it's heaven in the dia-
mond. Among all the pages of ma
t1ral history there is no page more in
teresting to me than the page crystal
lographic. But L want to show you
that Job was right when, taking re-
ligion in one hand and the crystal in
the other, he declared that the former
is of far more value and beauty than
the latter, recommending it to all the
people and to all ages, declaring: The
crystal cannot equal it,"
In the first place, L remark that re-
igion is superior to the crystal in eX-
actness. That shapeless mass of crys-
tai against which you accidentally
dashed your foot is laid out with more
eXactness than any earthly city.
There are six styles of crystalliza tion
and all of them divinely ordained.
Every crystal has mathema teal pre-
cision. Gods geometry reaches
through it, and it is a square, or it is
a rectangle, or its rhombold, or in
some way it has mathema teal figure.
Now, religion beats that in the simple
fact that spiritual accuracy is more
beautiful than material accuracy.
Gods attributes are exact, Gods law
exact, Gods DEGREES exact, GODS man
agement of the world exact. Never
counting wrong though he counts the
grass blades and the stars and the
sands and the cycles. His Providence
never dealing with US perpendicular
ly when those providences ought to be
oblique, nor laterly when they ought
to be vertical. Everything in our life
arranged without any possibility of
mistake. Each life siX-headed prism.
Born at the right time; dying at the
right time. There are no happen SOS"
in our theology. If 1 thought this was
a slipshod universe, l would be in de-
spair. God is not an anarchist. Law,
order, symmetry, precision, a perfect
square, a perfect rectangle, a perfect
rhombold, a perfect circle. The edge
of Gods robe never trays out. There
are no loose screws in the worlds ma
chinery. 1t did not just happen that
Napoleon was attacked with indiges-
ton at Borodino so that he became in
comPe tent for the day. 1t did not just
happen that John Thomas, the mission
airy, on a heather island, waiting for
an outfit and orders for another mis-
siOnary tour, received that outfit and
those orders in a box that hoated
ashore, while the ship and the crew
that carried the box were never heard
of. l believe in a particular provi-
dence. 1 believe Gods geometry may
be seen in all our life more beautifully
than in crystallography. Job was
right. "The crystal cannot equal it,"
Again 1 remark that religion is supe-
rior to the crystal in transparency.
We know not when or by whom glass
was first discovered. Beads of it have
been found in the tomb of Alexander
Severus. Vases of it are brought up
from the ruins of Herculaneum. There
were female adornments made out of
it 5000 years ago-those adornments
found now attached to the mummies
of Egypt. A great many common
tators believe that my text means
glass. What would we do without the
crystal? The crystal in the window to
keep out the storm and let in the day;
the crystal over the watch, defending
its delicate machinery yet allowing us
to see the hour; the crystal of the tel
escope, by which the astronomer
brings distant worlds so near he can in
spect them. Oh, the triumphs of the
crystals in the celebrated windows Of
Rouen and Salisbury! But there is
nothing so transparent in crystal as
in our holy religion. 1t is a trans
parent region. You put it to your eve
and you see man-his sin, his soul,
his destiny. You look at God and you
see something of the grandeur of His
character. 1t is a transparent reli-
gion. Infidels tell US it is Opaque Do
you know why they tell us it is opaque?
1t is because they are blind. 1.-The
natural man receiveth not the things of
God, because they are spiritually dis
concerned" There is no trouble with
the crystal. The trouble is with the
eyes which try to look through it,
We pray for vision. Lord, that our
eyes might be opened! When the eye
salve cures our blindness, then we find
that religion is transparent.
1t is a transparent Bible. All the
mountains of the Bible come out-Si-
mai, the mountain of the law; Pisgah,
the mountain of prospect; Olivet, the
mountain of instructions; Calvary, the
mountain of sacrifice. All the rivers of
the Bible come out-Hidekel, of the
river of paradisaical beauty; Jordan,
or the river of holy chrism; Cherith, or
the river of prophetic supply; Nile, or
the river of palaces, and the pure river
of life from under the throne, clear
as crystal. While reading this Bible,
after our eyes have been touched by
grace, we find it all transparent, and
the earth rocks, now with cruclfixion
agony and now with judgment terror,
and Christ appears in some of His ESQ
titles, as far as / can count them-the
p-aod tho ROoI- tho CaDfaiO fha Conn