The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-05-20

| over the church wall: and have a smile on
| the lip, and have the mouth filed with
| holy water. There is no man in the war Id
| except the Christian that has a right to
| feel an untrammeled glee. He is promised
| everything is to be for the best h ere, and
he is on the way to a delight which viii
| take all the professions with palm
branches, and all the orchestras, harped
and cy inhaled and ttu,npted, to express.
ooh" you say, 81 have much troubiei"
| Have you more trouble than Paul had?
What does he say? "sorrowful, yet al
ways rejoicing. Poor, yet making many
rich. Having nothing, yet possessing all
things"
The next laughter mentioned in thu Bible
that shall speak Of, is the FOOLS laughter,
or the expression of sinful nerriment
| Solomon was very quick at simile; when
| he makes a comparison we all catch it.
| What is the laughter of fool like? He
says: sit is the cracklin. of thorns under
| pot" The kettle is swung, bunch of
brambles is put under it, and the torch is
| applied to it and there is a great noise and
a big blaze and sputter and a quick ex-
tinguishment; then it is darker than it was
| cradle thing on earth is bad mans fun.
| There they are-ten men in bar
room; they have at home wives,
mothers, daughters. The impure jest
starts at one corner of BAR
room and crackle, crackie, crackle it goes
all around. In five hundred such outlaws
there is not one item of happiness. They
all feel bemeaned it they have any con-
| science left. Have nothing to do with men
or women who tell immoral stories. have
no confidence either in their Christian
| character OF their morality.
So, all merriment that springs out of ths
| defects of others-caricature of lame foot
or curved spine of blind eye Or deaf
ear-will be met with the judgments of
| God either upon you or your children.
| Twenty years ago in this city knew a
man who was particularly skillful in imi-
tating the 1ameness of neighbor. Not
long ago SON of the skillful mimic had
his leg amputated for the very defect
! which his father had mimicked years be-
fore. do not say it was a Judgment of
| God; leave you to make your own in
| ference. So, all nerriment born of dissipa-
| ton, that which starts at the counters of
the drinking restaurant, or from the wine
| glass in the home circle, the Mandolin sim
| per, the meaningless joke, the saturnalian
| gibberish, the. paroxysm of mirth about
! nothing that you sometimes see in the
| fashionable club-room or in the exquisite
parlor at twelve O'Clock at night,
are the cracking of thorns under a
| pot. Such laughter aud such sin end in
| n I Id
| out, entitled, "Don Jour's Patent Ser
mons" 1t made great stir, very wide
laugh, all over the country. that book did.
| 1t WAS caricature of rhe Christian minis
try, and of the word of God and of the
Day of Judgment. Oh, we bad great
laugh! The commentary on the whole
thing is that not long ago the author of
| that book died in poverty, shame, debauch-
| cry, kicked out of society and cursed of
| Almighty God. The laughter o. such men
is the echo of their own dannation.
| The next laughter that shall mention
as being in the Bible is the laugh OF Gods
condemnation. "He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh. Again: '"Tha Lord
will laugh at him." Again: 81 win laugh
at his calamity" With such demonstra-
tion will God greet every kind of great
sin and wiclsedness. But ,aen build up
villainies higher and higher. Good men
almost pity God because He is so schemed
against by men. Suddenly pin drops
out of the machinery Of wickedness, or
secret is revealed, and the foundation be-
& ins to rock, ard finally the whole thing is
demolished. What is the matter? I will
tell you what the matter is. The crash of
ruin is only the reverbcration of Gods
laughter.
| On Wall street there are great many
| good men and great many fraudulent
men. A fraudulent man there says: ST
mean to have my million" He goes to
work, reckless of honesty and he gets his
| first one hundred thousand dollars. He
gets after awhile his two hundred thou
sand dollars. After awhile he gets his
five hundred thousand dollars. Snow !"
he says, 81 have only one more move to
make and l shall have my Million" He
gathers up all his resources; be makes
that one last grand move; he fails and
loses all, and he has not enough money
left to pay the cost of the Ct to his home
People can not understand This spssmodic
revulsion. Some said it was sudden
1
turn in Erie Railway stock, or in Western
| Union, or in Illinois Central: some said it
was Jay Gould; some said il was one spec
ulator, some said it was another. They
all guessed wrong. l will tell Won what it
was: HE that stitch in the heavens
| laughed.
A man in New York said he would be
the richest man in the city. He left his
| honest work OF chairnaking and gut :Ato
| the city councils some way, and in ten
| years stole fifteen million dollars from the
| city government. Fifteen million dollars.
He held the Legislature of the State of
New York in the grip of his right hand
Suspicious were aroused. The grand Jury
presented indictments. The whole land
stood aghast. The man who expected to
put half the city in his vest pocket
! goes to Blackwell's Island, goes to Ludlow
street Jail, breaks prison and goes across
the sea, is rearrested and brought back
| and again remanded to jail and died
| there. Why. He that sitteth in the
| heavens" laughed.
Rome was great empire; she had Hor-
ace and Virgil among her poets: she had
| Augustus and Constantine among her en-
| narorS Rrf hot ,,,ao,, A. Lof,..l n