The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-01-31
SUBSCRIPTION: S1.OO Per Year


business, and waited in vain, three
persons only know-God,- your wife
and yourself. In commercial life you
have not had the promotion and
the increase in salary you antici-
pated, or the place you expected to
occupy in the firm has not been va
Gated. The produce of the farm with
which you expected to support your
self and those depending on you and
to pay the interest on the mortgage
has been far less than you antici-
pated, or the prices were down, or
special expenses for sickness made
drafts on your resources that you
could not have expected. In some re-
spects the hardest decade of life is
the thirties, because the results are
generally so far behind the anticipa-
lions. 1t is very rare indeed that
young man does as did the young
man one Sunday night when he came
to me and said: II have been so
marvelously prospered since 1 came
to this country that feel as a mat
ter of gratitude that l ought to dedi-
cate myself to God" Nine-tenths of
the poetry of life has been knocked
out of you since you came into the
thirties. Men in the different profess
sions and occupations saw that you
were rising, and they must put an es-
TOPPED on you or you might somehow
stand in the way. They think you
must be suppressed. From 80 to 40
is an especially hard time for young
doctors, young lawyers, young mer-
chants, young farmers, young me
chanics, young ministers. The strug-
gle of the thirties is for honest and
helpful and remunerative recognition.
But few old people know how to treat
young people without patronizing
them on the one hand or snubbing
them on the other. Oh, the thirties!
Joseph stood before Pharaoh at 80;
David was 80 years old when he be-
gan to reign; the height of Solomon's
temple was 80 cubits; Christ entered
upon his active ministry at 80 years
of age; Judas sold him for 80 pieces
of silver. Oh, the thirties! What
word suggestive of triumph or disas-
teri
Your decade is the one that will
probably afford the greatest oppor-
tunity for victory, because there is
the greatest necessity for struggle.
Read the worlds history and know
what are the thirties for good or bad.
Alexander the Great closed his career
at 80; Frederick the Great made Eu-
rope tremble with his armies at So;
Cortes conquered Mexico at 80; Grant
fought Shiloh and Donelson when 80;
Raphael died at 81; Luther was the
hero of the reformation at IS; Sir
Philip Sidney got through by 50.
The greatest deeds for God and
against Him were done within the
thirties, and your greatest battles
are now and between the time when
you cease expressing your age by
putting first figure > and the time
when you will cease expressing it by
putting first a figure 3. As it is the
greatest time of the struggle, l adj
jure you, in Gods name and by Gods
grace, make it the greatest achieve
ment. My prayer is for all those in
the tremendous crisis of the thirties.
The fact is that by the way you de-
eide the present decade of your his
tory you decide all the following
decades.
Next 1 accoSt the forties. Yours is
the decade of discovery. l do not
mean the discovery of the outside,
but the discovery of yourself. No
man knows himself, until he is 40.
He overestimates or underestimate
himself. By that time he has learned
what he can do or what he cannot do.
He thought he had commercial
genius enough to become million
aire, but he is satisfied to make a
comfortable living. He thought he
had rhetorical power that would
bring him into the United States
senate; now he is content if he can
successfully argue common case be-
fore a petit jury. He thought he had
medical skill that would make him
a Mott or a Crosse or Willard Par
ker or a Sims; now he finds his
sphere is that of a family physician,
prescribing for the ordinary ailments
that afffict our race. He was sailing
on in a fog and could not take a
reckoning, but now it clears up
enough to allow him to find out his
real latitude and longitude. He has
been climbing, but now he has got to
the top of the hill, and he takes a
long breath. He is half way through
the journey at least, and he is in a
position to look backward or for
ward. He has more good sense than
he ever had. He knows human ma
ture, for he has been cheated often
enough to see the bad side of it, and
he has met so many gracious and
kindly and splendid souls he also
knows the good side of it. Now, calm
yourself. Thank God for the past
and deliberately set your compass
for another voyage. You have chased
enough thistledown; you have blown
enough soap bubbles; you have seen
the unsatisfying nature of all earth
" things. Open a new chapter with
God and the world. Phis decade of
the forties ought to eclipse all its
predecessors in worship, in useful
ness and in happiness.
NV sermon next accosts the fifties.
How queer it looks when in writing
your age you make the first of the
two figures a 5. This is the decade
which shows what the other decades
have been. . If n young man has sown
wild oats and he has lived to this
time, he reaps the harvest of it in the
tifties, or if by necessity he was COM
PEELED to overtoil in honest directions
he is called to settle up with eXactins
nature some time during the ffties-
Many have it so hard in early life
that they are octogenarians at SO.
Sciaticas and rheumatisms and neu-
raIgfas and vertiscs and insompias
have their playground in the fifties.