The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-01-31

while afterward. o we who are in
the fifties, think of it! A half CEN
tury of blessing to be thankful for
and half century subtracted from
an existence which, in the most
marked cases of longevity, hardly
ever reaches a whole century. by
this time you ought to be eminent for
piety. You have been in so many bat
ties you ought 20 be a brave soldier.
You have made so many voyages you
ought to be a good sailor. So long
protected and blessed, you ought to
have a soul full of doxology. In
Bible times inNCanaan every so years
was by Gods command year or
Jubilee. The people did not work that
year. If property had by misfortune
zone out of ones possession, on the
fiftieth year it came back to him. Ii
he had fooled it away, it was re-
turned without a farthing to pay IL
a man had been enslaved, he was in
that year emancipated. A trumpet
was sounded loud and clear and long,
and it was the trumpet OF jubilee.
They shook hands, they laughed, they
congratulated. What time 1T was,
that fiftieth yearl And if under the
old dispensation it was such glad
time, under our new and more glo-
rious dispensation let all who have
come to the fifties hear the trumpet
of Jubilee that 1 now blow. That was
the allusion made by Mr.. Toplady, the
great hymnologist, when he wrote:
"BIow We the trumpet, blow
The gladly solemn sound;
Let all the nations know,
To earth's remotest bound,
The year of jubilee is come;
Return, We ransomed sinners. home.
Eye who have sold for naught
Your heritage above
Shall have it back unbought,
The gift of Jesus love.
The year of jubilee has come;
Return, We ransomed sinners. home
My sermon next accosts the sixties.
The beginning of that decade is more
startling than any other. In his
chronological journey the man rides
rather smoothly over the figures
and and 4 ana 5, but the figure
gives him big jolt. He says: 1T
cannot be that 1 am 60. Let me eX-
anime the old family record. guess
they made a mistake. They got my
name down wrong in the roll or
births" But, no, the older brothers
or sisters repember the time of his
advent, and there is some relative
year older and another relative a
year younger, and, sure enough, the
fact is established beyond all dis
putation. Sixty! Now your great
danger is the temptation to fold up
your faculties and quit. You will feel
n, tendency to Renaissance. If you
do not look out, you will begin al
most everything with the words;
when L was boy" But you ought
to make the sixties more memorable
for God and the truth than the fifties
or the forties or the thirties. You
ought to do more during the next ten
years than you did in any 80 years
of your life, because of all the expe-
rience you have had. You have COM
mitted enough mistakes in life to
make you wise above your juniors.
Now, under the accumulated Tight
of your past experimenting, go to
work for God as never before. When
man in the sixties folds up his en-
ergy and feels he has done enough,
it is the devil of Incidence to which
he is surrendering, and God generally
takes the man at his word and let's
him die right away. His brain, that
under the tension of hard work is ac-
tive, now suddenly shrivels. Men,
whether they retire from secular or
religious work, generally retire to
| the grave. No we'll man has a right
to retire. The world was made to
work There remaineth rest for
the people of God,- but it is in
| ha Of FOL
! scopes.
Mysubject next accosts those in the
seventies and beyond. My word to
them is congratulation. You have got
nearly if not quite through. You have
safely crossed the sea of life and are
| about to enter the harbor. You have
fought at Gettysburg, and the war is
over-here and there a skirmish with
the remaining sin of your own heart
| and the sin of the world, but 1 guess
you are about done. There may be
some work for you yet on a small or
| Large scale. Bismarck, of Germany, Wig
orous in the eighties. The prime minis
ter of England strong at ~, Haydn
composing his oratorio, "The Crea-
| ton" at 20 years of age. Isocrates
doing some of his best work at "A.
Plato busy thinking for all succeeding
| centuries at 81. Noah Webster, after
| making his world renowned dictionary,
hard at work until IS years old. Rev.
Daniel Waldo praying in my pulpit at
100 years of age. Humboldt producing
the immortal Cosmos" at 76years.
William Blake at 67 learning Italian so
! as to read Dante in the original. Lord
| Cockburn at 81 writing his best treat
Use. John Wesley stirring great audi
ences at S. William c. Bryant, with
out spectacles, reading in my house
s'Thanatopsis" at 50 years of age.
| Christian men and women in all de-
partments serving God after becoming
septuagenarians and octogenarians
and nonagenarians prove that there
but / think you who are passing the sew
entities are near being through.
But the most of you will never
reach the eighties or the seventies or
the sixties or the fifties or the forties.
He who passes into the forties has
gone far beyond the average of ku-
man life Amid the uncertainties
take God through Jesus Christ as
YOUR present and eternal safety. The
longest life is only small fragment
of the great eternity. We @lll all of
us soon be there.
Eternity. how near it rolls
| Count the vast value OF your souls.
! Beware and count the awful cost
| What they have gained whose souls arc
lost.