Sunshine and smiles

Dedication

I lovingly dedicate this book to the Whole human family, to whom I am indebted for every idea expressed in it, for when I came into this world I knew nothing at all, not even the way to my month.

Yours for the glory of God and the good of Humanity.

Bun Robinson.

Part First. Rambling Thoughts

The reason your head don't rattle, my friend, is because you have lost the seed out. Don't you understand?

A friend came to me not long since and said : "Brother Bud, my religious joy has all leaked out. What is my trouble?" "My!" I said, "My friend, you keep your mouth open all the time." She said "Thank you, sir," and I said "you are welcome."

The preacher that can't do anything but turn summersets in the big dipper, shave the man in the moon, and cut off his hair, is a failure.

The preacher that comes down out of the sycamore tree and receives the Lord joyfully is a great success.

Why will a preacher spend his time in staking out claims on Jupiter and Venus, when the Bible describes two other countries and says we are going to one or the other of them.

The preacher who is constantly spitting out Greek roots, Latin verbs and Hebrew phrases is seldom ever seen with grape hulls in his beard or the juice on his face.

The twin brothers of the Bible: "It shall be done" and "It came to pass," you find one on every page — one on one page the other one on the other.

The promises of the Bible are very large; you can lie down and stretch out on them and you can't kick the foot board, scratch the head board nor touch the railing on either side.

In looking at the promises of the Bible you think of an apple orchard on a hillside hanging full of ripe fruit; the wind blows them off, they roll down the hill — you have nothing to do but to pick them up and go on eating and praising the Lord-

The Lord said "The cattle on a thousand hills are mine," and I said, "Yes, Lord, and all the potatoes in the hills." He said, "Buddie, do you want potatoes?" I said, "Yes, Lord." He said, "Go to scratching." I said, "Lord, just watch me scratch," and when he looked at me it almost tickled me to death.

I am standing on the promises, walking in His footprints, leaning on His everlasting arms and drinking from the fountain that never runs dry.

When I was a sinner God frowned on me ; in my justified life He smiled on me; but, in my sanctified life He laughs all over my soul.

When I was a sinner I lived on bread and molasses; when I got converted the Lord said your bread and water shall be sure, and threw in streaked bacon ; but since He sanctified me He sets me in a glass cupboard and pitches red apples at m,e till I laugh myself to sleep.

Where is the headquarters of a sanctified man? Why, in the vineyard of the Lord, of course.

What is the description of a sanctified man? He has a level head, a sweet spirit, a big soul, a loving: disposition and a good heart.

The blessing of sanctification doesn't make an A. M. graduate out of a fellow, but it does enable him to make the best use possible of the sense he's got.

You can tell a sanctified man anywhere you see him — he has grape hulls in his beard, the juice all over his face and his pockets full of pomegranates.

If the Lord is your shepherd then you are the Lord's sheep, and he has a perfect right to shear you any time he needs wool, and you have no right to bleat.

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What a sad sight — God's lamb in the devil's cocklebur patch with his wool full of cockleburs.

The religion of Jesus Christ is the principles of God the Father. If you claim it you ought to live as you think he would if he were in your place.

When I was a preacher boy I use to tell my congregation that I was going to preach to their hearts. I thought then their hearts were very soft, but I have now changed my tactics and preach to their heads, for I have found out that men's heads are much softer than their hearts.

If we can fill a man's head full of gospel truth

SUNSHINE AND SMILES 4t

it will soak down into his heart and break out on his face and change his whole life.

A young Baptist preacher told me once that bapto and bap tiazo meant to dip and to plunge. I was a plow-boy and very hungry. I told him if he could show me that gra-vie, gravi and grave were the Greek words for good table sop I was a candidate. He just twisted his moustache and went on. You see I wasn't a Greek scholar.

A POINT ON TOTAL DEPRAVITY.

An old lady in the mountains of old Tennessee was fixing one morning to go and spend the day with a sick neighbor, and before leaving home she called up the children : Your mother has to go to wait on a sick woman today and I wont get back till night, and if you children go up stairs and look in the old chest and get out my pumpkin seed and eat them up, and if you look up over the east window and take down my poke of striped seed beans and cram your noses full, when I come back here tonight I will beat your heads till they are as soft as pumpkins. She got on her old pacing pony and went down the road raising the dust. It will suffice to say, that when she came in that night every pumpkin seed had been eaten up and every bean had been planted deep in the noggins of those mountain boys. Shame on the man that denies total depravity.

Common sense religion means to manufacture sunshine and smiles and give them to a lost world.

The man that is looking into the loving face of Jesus Christ never sees the dark side of life. To him there is but one side, and that is always bright.

1 11 The man that has God for his Father, and Jesus Christ for his Saviour, the Holy Ghost for his abiding comforter and the redeemed saints of all the ages for his brothers and sisters, the angels for his companions and Heaven for his eternal home, thank God, his fortune is made.

The man that prays louder with a spell of the cramp colic than he does at family prayers would be uneasy at the judgment.

There are 66 books in the Bible, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses, 773,746 words, 3,566,480 letters, and every book, chapter, verse, word and letter is an index finger pointing to the Christ of Prophecy, the Christ of Bethlehem, the Christ of Calvary, and, thank God, the Christ that walked off from Mt. Olivet on the clouds, saying, "Goodbye, boys; I am going to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Do you wonder they stood looking up into the clouds? Why, praise the Lord, no!

The difference between us and the Lord is, the Lord came to see us and we made him pay his tax — we went to see him and he paid ours. Bless His dear name! See the difference? The sinner doesn't serve God at all The regenerated man serves God through a sense of duty. The sanctified man serves God through a sense of love. See the difference? Which crowd are you running with, my friend.

The man that is a stockholder in the clouds surely walks on earth and lives in Heaven. Did you hear what Paul said about it? He said, "For our conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ." Don't you see if your conversation is in Heaven you must live there?

See that man there squirting tobacco juice out of his mouth? He says he is chewing his cud. Well, hear what Moses says about it: "Any animal that chews his cud that has not got a forked hoof is unclean."

See the man coming down the street sucking at the end of an old pipe stem?— you can smell him fifty yards. As he goes by I think of the words of a young woman who said, "Lord, by this time he stinketh."

Did you see that young man on the side walk, with a roll of brown paper in his mouth, one end of it on fire and something blue coming out of his nose? Yes! What in the world is his trouble? Why, he has bad thoughts, bad dreams and bad conduct, and he is trying to purify his brains. It is generally supposed he has the hollow head. Oh, my! What a disease!

When a man has gold he is a gold standard man, when he has silver he is a free silver man, when he has greenbacks he is a greenbacker, and when he is broke he is a "pop." Bless the Lord! lama prohibition er.

Money is the cheapest thing in the world. I suppose it is because it keeps such bad company.

Somehow you always associate money and politics together. They are sort o' like the sun and moon — one rules by day and the other by night.

The blessing of sanctification will not keep you from snoring in your sleep, but bless the Lord, it will cause you to wake np in a good humor.

If a man gets into a drunken row, and a bar* tender throws a beer bottle across the bar and knocks one of his eyes out, and in after years we get him converted and sanctified, the blessing of sanctification will not put his eye back, but it will enable him to wake up in the morning of the resurrection with two eyes as bright as twenty dollar gold pieces,

The man is a great success that can take th© material he has on hand and succeed with it. But you say "I havn't got anything to start with." Well, who in the world did have? Don't you remember when you were born you had nothing but your little red skin?

The salvation that Jesus Christ purchased for a lost world is wonderful in its magnitude. It is as deep as fallen humanity, as broad as the compassion of God, as high as Heaven and as everlasting as the eternal Rock of Ages.

Oh, this great salvation ! It justifies freely, ^3anctiiles wholly, cleanses thoroughly and keeps sweetly.

This great salvation is knowable, feelable, enjoyable, livable, but not explainable.

What a delusion a man is under! See him in a fit of anger, he thinks he has lost his temper, but you can see he hasn't, for it is hung up al) over his face. Any thing that is lost is out of sight. Don't you catch on? But he says, "I feel like I have lost something." Well, you have, my brother — it is your religion. Now look into your heart and see.

My friend, if you are trouoled with wrinkles on your face, let the Lord wipe his hands on your heart a few times, and when you look at your face you will be surprised, and won't know it, and will wonder where it came from. Why, from Heaven, of course.

I said to my congregation one morning: "My friends, I am glad to inform you that I have at last located your trouble. It is just below your collar bone and a little to the left of your stomach." A man spoke up and said, "Is it heart failure?" I said, "Oh, no. When you see a man gritting his teeth, slamming doors, knocking down chairs and pulling his hair, you know his heart hasn't failed. He is suffering with carnality.

If conversion and sanctification don't keep a man sweet, get him to the altar as quick as possible, and get him to get religion, it will have a wonderful effect on him.

I am in the Holiness move forever, but let's give the devil his dues. Soured Holiness is the worst form of religion I ever saw, and, my friend, if you are troubled with it, it will kill you if you don't get rid of it.

When God sanctifies a preacher he winds him up, sets him on fire and starts him to running, and he has nothing to do but to unwind, shine and shout.

Four things are needful to understand the scriptures. 1st. Find out who is doing the talking. 2nd. Who he is talking to. 3rd. What he is talking about. 4th. Believe he meant just what he said, and the problem is solved.

Christ said, "I will irake you fishers of men." Well, thank God! If we tarry for the induement of power and get our pentecost, pen tecostal preaching will catch the fish and clean them after they are caught. The trouble with our churches is in our revivals. We catch and string the fish and don't get them cleaned and they spoil on our hands. You see it is one thing to catch the fish and another thing: to clean him.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO WOMEN. When you see a woman full of sin, fashion, pride and the devil, the first thought that comes to your mind is, "Has she got a pretty face?" But when you meet with a woman with clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up her soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, you never think of her face, but look at the beautiful life, and as she goes by you take off your hat and put it under your arm and feel like you are standing on holy ground.

If a man's mind is located in his head, then some men's heads are nothing but a garbage box, and his mouth a second class sewerage. How disgusting he is. When you meet with such a fellow you feel like you needed a good bath and a few hours sleep.

The first debt I ow r e this country is a good man ; the second, a good husband; the third, a good father; the fourth, a good neighbor, and if God will furnish the grace I will furnish the man. "For ye are workers together with him." See the Bible,

That old adage "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," I never did like, for the way to succeed is to suck 'till you get the seed. Hear St. John on this seed business: "For whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God." You see, God furnishes the seed and you have nothing to do but suck. Well, Glory ! Isn't that fine?

A sanctified man has a shining face, an easy conscience, and a light heart, and is as bold as a lion, as patient as an ox, as swift as an eagle, as wise as a serpent, as harmless as a dove, as gentle as a lamb, and as sweet as honey. If you were to 3lap his jaws you would get honey all over your hand, and as you walked away you would feel something sticky on your hand. Lick it off and get under conviction, and come back to see what ailed him, and find out it was perfect love.

But you say there is nobody that can live where you live and live a sanctified life. Well, I believe it, because you are living in the kingdom of sin. Move over into the kingdom of grace and you will talk different. But you say, "I never saw one that lived it." Well, my neighbor, that proves that you have been keeping awful bad company. If you will change crowds you will see things quite different.

It would be a great business transaction for me to die, for my Heavenly father has insured me for more than I am worth, and I can only collect the policy by exchanging the cross for my crown. Hallelujah, Amen!

The fellow that says he is sanctified will have no trouble in establishing the fact if he can show the fruit. To illustrate : An Irishman was on trial in one of our county courts. The county judge said to him, "Are you a married man?" The Irishman never opened his mouth, but proceeded to take off his hat, and showed a scar on the side of his head that looked something like a fire shovel. The judge said, "I accept the evidence; you may stand aside." He showed the fruit.

A physician with eczema on his ankles is never without a call, and his services are in constant demand the year round, and he is never without employment. It is so easy for him to fulfil the scripture where it says, "What your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."

The way to make a success of life when you meet with a disappointment is just drop the letter "d" and put "h" instead, and then see what it spells— H-I-S-A-P-P-O-I-N-T-M-E-N-T. Well, Bless the Lord 1 Don't you see that puts you in regular succession.

The man is a great success in this life that can gather up sunshine all day and spread it out on the fly leaves of his brain pan, and come in at night, unfold the leaves and show it to his wife and babies .

The young woman that knows how to pray, run a sewing machine, cook stove, washboard, fiat iron and milk the cow, never jumps head-first into the river, because she has an easy conscience and a light heart, and with a smile on her face she goes on turning everything she touches into sunshine.

But the young woman that can't do anything but look pretty, wear fine clothes, put on perfumery and dead birds and flirt with a little fellow blowing blue smoke out of his nose and driving a livery rig, she soon becomes disgusted with the world and worse with herself, life becomes a burden and a drag. She decides to end her miserable existence by jumping head-first into the river. She is dragged out the second day, buried the third, and by the fourth she is forgotten, because she did nothing to bless the world while she lived in it.

If thick milk is clabber, then your cow is a clabber sprout, and when you milk your cow, properly speaking, you are juicing your clabber sprout.

The most disgusting thing I ever saw was a man standing on a street corner, with blood- shotten eyes, a red nose, a bloated face, and a big stomach on him, sucking at an old pipe, with the smell of strong drink on his breath, and dirty clothes on his body, talking about the "Mistakes of Moses" and the "Failures of Christianity.' *

I have seen cows with tongues long enough to lick their calves through the crack of the fence. "Well," you say, "that is a mighty long tongue." Yes, but I have seen longer tongues than that. I have seen people that could sit in their own parlor and lick their neighbors all around the country. They would make you think of a wagon — they need a breast yoke to hold their tongue up.

Two of the most unnatural looking things in the world: One is a backslidden preacher; the other is a long- tailed mule. The mule needs shearing, and the preacher has been sheared. See the Bible : "And while he slept, with his head on her lap they sheared off his locks."

The reason why I had rather be a dog than a mean white man: The dog licks his own mouth, but a mean man licks his wife.

The religion that is full of juice is full of teeth and a religion with teeth in it will bite, and if it bites it will get hold of somebody and they will holler, and when a fellow hollers you have him Located and you know where to work.

A juieeless religion is toothless, lifeless, powerless, and dead. A dead religion was hatched out of the old nest egg from under the mudsill of perdition, and was one of the first broods that Splitfoot hatched off. I don't know how long he set on the nest but I am sure he hatched every egg he set on. A dead religion has cursed the church, wrecked the faith and blasted the hopes of multiplied millions of the sons and daughters of Adam.

The most people seem to think they have the worst neighbors in the world, and think they could be very happy if they only lived somewhere else ; but, my friend, that is a mistake. The trouble is not always with the other fellow. It is not the place you are in that makes you happy, but the condition that you are in. It is not what your neighbors say about you ; it is what God knows you to be. If you stand well at headquarters, you can get down on your knees by your fireside and shake hands with the Lord. Glory to God! And of course you can shake hands with every neighbor you have, and rivers of salvation will run down out of the clouds and break in on your soul, and you will love God with a perfect heart and your neighbor as yourself. And then, my brother, you won't want to move, for you will have the best neighbors in the world, and you just can't afford to leave them. But you say, "Brother Bud, how do you know that?" Well, I know it because I have tried it.

If we were not totally depraved why would we be ashamed of a small head, a big foot, or a wart on the nose? The majority of the people of today are wearing shoes at least two numbers too small for them. The most of us are ashamed to go into a business house and call for a pair of shoes large enough. They tell us that the Chinese women put their babies' feet in an iron shoe, and we send 10 cents to China to enlighten the heathen and spend 25 cents at home for corn medicine. We send missionaries to teach them not to drown their baby girls, while we enlightened, educated Christians of America destroy our children before they are born. Oh, my friend! which side o the creek is the heathen on? If we were straight up and right down, and up right, down right, in right, out right and all right we would not be ashamed of anything but sin. The man that denies total depravity shows that "the trail of the serpent" is over him still.

When a religious woman loses her temper, slams the doors, kicks the chairs over and slaps her baby boy on the side of the head and says to him, "You stinking rascal, you are just like that old daddy of yours," as the baby goes around the corner of the table snubbing, she says, "You would provoke the angels; you have aggravated your mother this morning until I am so nervous I can't control myself." You see, she calls it nervousness, when the long and the short of it was, the old lion just got up and shook himself, and of course he shook the woman too. See Isaiah 35 :8-9- 10. And when her husband, who is a pillar in the church and a member of the official board, gets mad and does and says things that a respectable sinner ought not to do, and says he calls it positiveness, and says, "I always was of a very positive make-up; my neighbors and friends never did understand me." Well, the reason we don't understand you, my brother, is because you claim to be a christian and live like a sinner. If you will bring your life up to your profession it will be no trouble for you to make your neighbors understand you. The Bible says, "Ye shall know them by their fruit." It is a fearful thing to see a man and his wife controlled by the carnal mind. One calling it nervousness and the other calling it positiveness. What will their children call it?

The way to get along well with your neighbor is to keep the rat hole in your noggin closed.

It takes less religion to criticize than anything else in the world. I have tried it, and when a fellow tries and proves anything he knows what he is talking about.

There is such a hollow sound about what a fellow says when he keeps his head open all the time. It sounds a great deal like a boy beating on a barrel with the bunghole open. Why don't he bring his tongue in out of the weather and shut his mouth?

St. Paul was greatly troubled with a fellow he called "Alexander the Coppersmith/ 9 I see some marks of similarity between Paul and myself. I have been bothered with that same fellow. I notice he is still a great drawback to the churches. When I see the collectors coming back with only a few pennies in the hat, I know Alex, is on hand* When a man puts in a copper when he should put in 5, 10, 25 or 50 cents, he is an Alexander Coppersmith. Alex, has a mighty following today.

When I was in New England an infidel attacked me for preaching that there was a hell. He told me Lyman Abbott had proved there was no hell. I said to him, "Now, my friend, who on earth did he prove that by? He didn't prove it by me; he never even consulted me about it*" He looked at me perfectly surprised and said, "Are you the cowboy preacher from Texas?" I said, "Yes, I came from Texas and I have seen cows out there." He said, "We don't need such preachers as you here. You ought to go to Chicago. Don't you know we have the brainiest men and women in the world here. I can produce fifty thousand of the brainiest men and women of the City of Boston of my faith." I said to him, "Yes, you have more brains and less manhood than any gang I ever saw — fifty thousand of you going in a solid platoon to a yawning, gaping, burning hell, where the devil will pour salty damnation down you. He will set you in a corner for a slop tub. You will be a laughing stock for the devil and his imps throughout an endless eternity." He answered, "Why, young man, if you could convince me there was a hell I would cancel my engagements to lecture against Christianity." I said, "My brother, I can't convince you. The Bible says, 'The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.' The probabilities are that you will never get your eyes open until, like the rich man the scripture mentions, you lift up your eyes in hell, being in torment, and you will want to send missionaries back to preach to the Bostonites, but God won't let you."

Why will a preacher go into the pulpit on Sunday morning and read an essay on Socrates, Cicero or the Queen of England, when he knows it is as dry as Texas wind and as empty as a last years' bird's nest? He knows it won't convict sinners, convert mourners, sanctify believers or build up the church. Such preaching never makes a man cry, laugh, mad or shout. In fact, it won't even keep his congregation awake. While he turns the pages of his manuscript many in his congregation have moved to the land of Nod, and the official board have consulted napper two or three times and report everything running smoothly, no excitement, wild-fire, or fanaticism, but the church in a prosperous condition and a bright outlook for the future.

It matters not how many business houses close or how many men are thrown out of work, there is one class of people who are never without a jobthat is the faultfinder and the chronic grumbler. They have a job the year round, and they stick to their bush.

I had rather be a poor rich man than a rich poor man. A poor rich man has no money but plenty of salvation. A rich poor man has plenty of money but no grace.

I heard a man one day butcher up his neighbors. I sat and meditated as he paraded their faults and weaknesses before me, The next day the same man heard me preach. He came up with a big grin all over his face and said, "Bro. Bud, you surely butcher up the English language, old boy." I said, " Yes, that's what people tell on me, but it is so much easier on a man's conscience to butcher up the English language than to butcher up his neighbor." And he was like "a sheep before her shearers—dumb, so he opened not his mouth."

It is wonderful how the Lord at times and under some circumstances can use such peculiar means to bless his people. I remember one morning, on one of our leading camp grounds of Texas, we were having a testimony meeting. A man got up and told a long, dry experience, and as he sat down the thought came into my mind, and I said, "My friends, that is a Texas long horn." As I said it a little woman jumped up and told a red hot experience full of juice and fire, with a shining face and her little hand raised to Heaven. The Spirit seemed to fill me and I jumped up on the platform and said, " Glory to God, that is a short horn." As I looked at the great congregation I said, "This woman did not give us a herd of cattle, but a pitcher of cream," and it seemed the Spirit swept down in great waves and rolled over the people till they leaped, shouted, jumped benches and hugged each other. Sinners wept aloud and ran to the altar, and it seemed to us that rivers of full salvation were rolling over the camp ground. A big fellow jumped up on a bench and said, "Where did you get that?" I said, "From the Lord, I guess, for I never had it before. "