The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-11-15

Inat has rolled wave OF woe over
| the earth and shaken a portent in the
heavens? He has quit tobacco. After
awhile he says: 81 am going to do as
L please. The doctor does not under
stand my case. L am going back to my
old habits And he returns. Every
thing assumes its usual composure.
His business seems to brighten. The
world becomes an attractive place to
live in. His children, seeing the diff
ference, hail the return of their ia
| theirs genial disposition. What wave
of color has dashed blue into the sky,
and greenness into the mountain foli-
age, and the glow of sapphire into the
sunset? What enchantment has lift
ed world of beauty and Joy on his
soul? He has resumed tobacco.
The fact is, we all know in our own
experience that habit is a taskmaster.
As long as we obey it it does not chas-
tise US; but let us resist, and we find
that we are dashed with scorpion whips
and bound with ship cable and thrown
into the track of bone-breaking Jug
gernauts.
Suppose a man of five or ten or
twenty years of evildoing resolves to
do right, why are all the forces of dark
ness allied against him? He gets down
on his knees in the midnight and cries:
God help mel" He bites his lip. He
grinds his teeth. He clinches his fist
in a determination to keep to his pur-
pose. He dare not look at the bottles
in the window of a wine store. 1t is
one long, bitter, exhaustive, hand-to-
hand fight with infamed, tantalizing,
merciless habit. When he thinks he is
entirely free, the old inclinatio
pounces upon him like a pack of
hounds, all their muzzles tearing away
at the TANKS of one poor reindeer.
In Paris there is a sculptured rep
resentation of Bacchus, the god of
revelry. He is riding on a panther
at full leap. Oh, how suggestive!
bad ways understand he is not rid
ing a docile and well-broken steed,
but that he is riding a monster wild
and bloodthirsty and going at a
death leap.
/ have also to say if a man wants
to return from evil practices society
repulses him. The prodigal, wishing
to return, tries to take some profess
sor of religion by the hand. The
professor of religion looks at him,
looks at the faded apparel and the
marks of dissipation, and instead of
giving him a firm grip of the hand
offers him the tip end of the longer
fingers of the left hand, which is
equal to striking a man in the face.
Oh, how few Christian people under
stand how much gospel there is in
good, honest handshaking! Some
times when you have felt the need
of encouragement and some Chris
tian man has taken you heartily by
the hand, have you not felt thrilling
through every fiber of your body,
mind and soul an encouragement
that was just what you needed?
The prodigal, wishing to get into
good society, enters a prayer meet
ing. Some good man without much
sense greets him by saying: ''Why,
are you here? You are about the
last person that 1 expected to see in
a prayer meeting. Well, the dying
thief was saved, and there is hope
for you" You do not know anything
about this unless you have learned
that when a man tries to return
from evil courses of conduct he runs
against repulsions innumerable.
We say of some man: "He lives a
block or two from the church, or
half a mile from the church" In all
our great cities there are men who
are 5000 miles from church-vast
deserts of Indifference between them
and the house of God. The fact is
we must keep our responsibility
though thousands perish. Christ sat
with publicans and sinners, but if
there come to the house of God a
man with marks of dissipation upon
MIN people are almost sure to put up
their hands in horror, as much as to
say: rs it not shockng?"
How these dainty, fastidious Chris
tan in all our churches are going to
get into Heaven L do not know, I'M
less they have an especial train of
cars cushioned and upholstered, each
one a car to himself. They cannot
90 with the great herd of publicans
and sinners. Oh, we who curl your
lip of scorn on the fallen! l tell you
plainly that if you had been sur
rounded by the same influences in
stead of sitting to-day among the
cultured, and the refined, and the
Christian, you might have been
crouching wretch in stable or ditch
covered with filth and abomination.
1t is not because we are naturally
any better, but because the mercy of
God has protected us. Those that
are brought up in Christian circles
and watched by Christian parentage
should not be so hard on the fallen.
] think, also, that men are often
hindered from returning by the fact
that churches are anxious about
their membership, too anxious about
their denomination, and they rush
out when they see man about to
ask him how he is going to be bap-
tized-whether by sprinkling or i'm
mersion-and what kind of a church
he is going to join. 1t is poor time
to talk about Presbyterian catechism
and Episcopal liturgies and Metho-
dist love feasts and Baptist INNER
sions when a man is about to come
out of the darkness of sin into the
glorious light of the Gospel.
Why, it reminds me of a man
drowning in the sea, and a lifeboat
puts out for him, and the man in the
boat SAYS to the man in the water:
''Now, if 1 get you ashore, are you
going to live in my street," First
get him ashore, and then talk to him