The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-03-14
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ever got drunk or went to comprOmiS-
ing places or was guilty of assault and
battery or ever uttered a slanderous
word or ever did any one a hurt, al
though 1 knew my heart was sinful
enough, and said to myself: There
is no use of my trying to do any good,
for / never went through those de-
praved experiences" But afterward
saw consolation in the thought that
no one gained any ordination by the
laying on of the hands of dissoluteness
and infamy.
And though an ordinary moral life,
ending in a Christian life, may not be
as dramatic story to tell about, let us
be grateful to God rather than worry
about it if we have never plunged into
outward denominations. 1t may be APP
propriate in a meeting of reformed
drunkards or reformed debauchees to
quote for those not reformed how des-
perate and nasty you once were, but do
not drive a scavenger'S cart into as
semblages of people the most of whom
have always been decent and respect
able. But L have been sometimes in
great evangelical meetings where peo-
pie went into particulars about the
sins that they once committed, so
much so that 1 felt like putting my
hand on my pocketbook or calling for
the police lest these reformed men
might fall from grace and go at their
old business OF theft or drunkenness
or cutthroatery. If your sins have
been forgiven and your life purified,
forget the waywardness of the past
and allow others to forget it.
But what / most want in the light of
this text to impress is that we have
sin forgetting God. Suppose that on
the last day-called the last day be-
cause the sun will never again rise up
on our earth, the earth itself being
flung into fiery molition-supposing
that on that last day group of in
fernal spirits should somehow get
near enough the gate of heaven and
challenge our entrance and say: GLOW
canst Thou, the just Lord, let those
souls into the realm of supernal glad
ness? Why, they said great many
things they never ought to have said,
and they did a great many things they
ought never to have done. Sinners are
they-sinners all"
There are certain names so magnetic
that their pronunciation thrills all who
hear them. Such is the name of the
Italian soldier and hberatOr, Carl
baldi. Marching with his troops, he
met a shepherd who was in great dis
tress because he had lost a lamb.
Gariba1di said to his troops: Let us
help this poor shepherd find his lamb
And so, with lanterns and torches, they
explored the mountains, but did not
find the lamb, and after an unsuccess-
full search late at night they went to
their encampment. The next morn
ing Garibaldi was found asleep far on
into the day, and they wakened him
for some purpose and found that he
had not given up the search when the
soldiers did, but had kept on still fur
ther into the night and had found it,
and he pulled down the blankets from
his couch, and there lay the lamb,
which Garibaldi ordered Immediately
taken to its owner. So the Commander
of all the hosts of heaven turned aside
from His glorious and victorious march
through the centuries of heaven and
said: Il will go and recover that lost
world and that race of whom Adam W;
the progenitor, and let all who will ac-
they came, but l do not see that the
angelic escort came any farther than
the clouds, but their most illustrious
Leader came all the way down, and by
the time His errand is done our little
world, our wandering and lost world,
our world f1eecy with the light, will be
found in the bosom of the Great Shep-
herd, and then all Heaven will take up
the cantata and sing: "The lost sheep
found!"
So I set open the wide gate of my
text, inviting you all to come into the
mercy and pardon of God-yea, still
further, into the ruins of the place
where once was kept the knowledge of
your inicuities. The place has been
torn down and the records destroyed,
and you will find the ruins more dilapi-
dated and broken and PROSTATE than
the ruins of Melrose or Kenilworth, for
from these last ruins you can pick up
some fragment of a sculptured stone
or YOU can see the curve of some
broken arch, but after your repent
ance and your forgiveness you cannot
find in all the memory of God frag
ment of your pardoned sins larEe
their iniquities will I remember no
more"
Six different kinds Of sounds were
heard on that night which was inter
iected into the daylight of Christ's as
sassination. The neighing of the
warhorses-for some of the soldiers
were in the saddle-was one sound,
the bang of the hammers was a second
sound, the jeer of malignants was Il
third sound, the weeping of friends and
followers was a fourth sound, the
plash of blood on the rocks was a fifth
sound, and the groan of the expiring
Lord was a sixth sound. And they all
commingled into one sadness. Over
place in Russia where wolves were pur-
suing a load of travellers and to save
them a servant sprang from the sled
INTO the mouths of the wild beasts and
was devoured and thereby the other
lives were saved are inscribed the
words: Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friend" Many a surgeon in
our own time has in tracheotomy with
his own lips drawn from the windpipe
of a diphtheritic patient that which
cured the patient and slew the surgeon,
and all have honored the self-secrifice.
But all other scenes of sacrifice pale
all time and all eternity. After that
agonizing spectacle in behalf of our
fallen race nothing about the sin for