The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-04-18

against agriculture, and mean, con-
temptible professors of religion are
nothing against our glorious Christi
anity.
Other persons apologize for not be-
coming Christians because they lack
time, as though religion muddled the
brain of the accountant or tripped the
| pen of the author or thickened the
tongue of an orator or weakened the
arm of the mechanic or scattered the
briefs of the lawyer or interrupted the
sales of the merchant. They bolt
their store doors against it and fight
it back with trowels and with yard
sticks and cry: away with your re-
ligion from our store, our office, our
| factory! They do not understand that
religion in this workday world will
help you to do anything you ought to
do. 1t can lay keel; it can sail ship;
it can buy cargo; it can work
pulley; it can pave a street; it can fit
| q wristband; it can write a conStitu-
ton; it can marshal host. 1t is as
appropriate to the astronomer as his
telescope, to the chemist as his labora-
tory, to the mason as his plumb line,
to the carpenter as his plane, to the
child as his marbles, to grandfather as
his staff
No time for religion herei You
have no time not to be religious. You
might as well have no clerks in your
store, no books in your library, no
compass on your ship, no rifle in the
battle, no hat for your head, no coat
for your back, no shoes for your feet.
| Better travel on toward eternity bare
headed and barefooted and houseless
| aud homeless and friendless than to
| 60 through life without religion. Did
religion make Raleigh any less of
statesman or Havelock any less of
soldier or Grinnen any less of a mer-
| chant or West any less of a painter?
Why, my friends, religion is the best
/ security in any bargain; it is the
| sweetest note in every song; it is the
| brightest gem in every coronet. No
time to be religious? Why, you will
have to take time to be sick, to be
| troubled, to die. Our world is only the
wharf from which we are to embark
| for Heaven. No time to secure the
friendship of Christ? No time to buy
a lamp and trim it for that walk
| through the darkness which other
wise will be illumined only by the
time to educate the eye for Heavenly
splendors or the hand for choral harps
or the ear for everlasting songs or the
soul for honor, glory and immortal
| ity? One would think we had time for
nothing else.
Other persons apologize for not en-
| tering the Christian life because it is
| time enough yet. That is very like
~ &c Nd
say: 81 will come in perhaps at IL or
IL o'clock; I will not be there at the
| opening of the banquet, but will be
there at the close" Not yet! Not
yeti Now, do not give any dolefuI
view of this life. There is nothing in
my nature, nothing in the grace of
| God, that tends toward doleful view
| of human life. I have not much SYM
pathy with Addison's description of
! the DIVISIONS of Mirza," where he rep
resents human life as being a bridge
| of hundred arches and both ends of
| the bridge covered with clouds and,
the race coming on, the most of them
| falling down through the first span
and all of them falling down through
the last span. It is very dismal pic
ture. have not much sympathy with
| the spanish pTON6ED WHICH says. ln0
| sky is good and the earth is good; that
which is bad is between the earth and
the sky" But. while we as Chris
tan men are bound to take cheerful
view of life, we must also confess that
| life is a great uncertainty and that
man who says: 81 can't become a
| Christian because there is time enough
vet" is running a risk infinite. You
| do not perhaps realize the fact that
| this descending grade of sin gets
sleeper and sleeper and that you are
| gathering up a rush and velocity
which after awhile may not answer to
the brakes.
Here is delusion. People think: "I
| can go on in sin and worldliness, but
after awhile 1 will repent and then it
will be as though I ha'' come at the
very start" What a mistal- No one
ever gets fully over procras tination.
| If you give your soul to God some 9TH
er time than this, you will enter Heav-
en- with only half the capacity for en-
| joyment and knowledge you might
| have had. There will be heights of
blessedness you might have attained
that then you will never reach;
| thrones of glory on which you might
have been seated, but which you viii
! never climb. We will never get over
procrastination, neither in time nor
in eternity.
We have started on a march from
which there is no retreat. The
shadows of eternity gather on our
pathway. How insignificant is time
compared with the vast eternity, As
I was thinking of this one day while
coming down over the Allegheny
mountains at noon. by that wonderful
pass which you all have heard de-
scribed as the HorSeshoe-a depres-
sion in the side of the mountain where
the train almost turns back again up
is the name of the Horseshoe-and
thinking on this very theme and pre-
pairing this very sermon, it seemed to
me as if the great courser of eternity
speeding along had just struck the
mountain with one hoof and gone on
into illimitable space. So short is
time, so insignificant is earth, COM
pared with the vast eternity This
moment voices roll down the sky and
all the worlds of light are ready to re-
ioice at your observation-disclosures. Rush
not into the presence of the King
ragged with sin when, you may have
this robe of Righteousness. Dash not
your foot to pieces against the throne
of a crucified Christ. Throw not your
crown of life off the battlements. All
the scribes of God are at this hour
recdp with Volumes of living lioht tn