The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-12-30

forty or fifty years.
| A man or woman that would STOP
half minute to weigh preferences as tc
whether he or she had better go with the
uncovered companion to this or that
church or denomination has no religion at
| all, and never has had, and fear never
| will have. You are loaded up with what
! you suppose to be religion, but you are
like Captain Frobisher, who brought back
! from his voyage of discovery ship-load OF
| what he supposed valuable minerals, yet,
| instead of being silver and gold, were moth
| ing but common stones of the field, to be
hurled out finally as useless. Mighty God
| In all Thy realm is there one man or
woman protesting religion, yet so stoiid,
80 untitled, so far gone unto death, that
| there would be any hesitancy in surrender
| ing all preferences before such an oppor-
tunity of salvation and heavenly reunions
| II you, Christian wife, are an at
| tendant upon this Brooklyn Taber-
| nacle, and your unconverted husband
| does not come here, because he does not
| like its preacher, or its music, or its arch
| itecture, or its uncomfortable crowding.
and goes not to any house of worship but
would go if you would accompany him
somewhere else, change your church rela-
| you to-day. Say goodbye to your friends
| in the neighboring pews, and go with him
| to any one of hundred churches, till his
soul is saved and he joins you in the march
| to Heaven. More important than that
ring on the third finger of your left hand it
is, that your Heavenly Father command
the ange. of mercy concerning your hus-
band at his conversion, as in the parable. of
old: "Put a ring ON his hand.n
No letter of more Importance ever came
to the great city of Corinth, situated on
what was called the stBridge of the Sea, -
and glistening with sculpture, and gated
with style>of brass the magnificence of
which the following ages have not been
able successfully to initiate, and overshad-
| owed by the Aero Corinthus, fortress of
rock two thousand feet high-I say, no let
ter ever came to that great city of more i'm
portance than that letter in which Paul
puts the two startling questions: " What
knOWest thou, oh wife, whether thou shalt
save thy husbanda Or how knowest thou,
oh man, whether thou shalt save thy wife ?n
The dearest sacrifice on the part of the one
is cheap if it rescue the other. Better go to
the smallest, weakest, most Insignificant
church on earth, and be co-partners in eter-
nal bliss, than pass your earthly member
ship in most gorgeously attractive church
while your companion stays outside of
evangelical privilege. Better have the
drowning saved by scow or sloop than let
him or her go down while you sail by in the
gilded cabins of Britannia or a Great
Eastern.
Second Ii both of the married couple be
Christians, but one is SO naturally con-
structed that it is impossible to enjoy the
services Of a particular denomination, and
the other is not so sectarian or punctilious,
let the one less particular 60 with the other
who is very particular. AS for myself,
feel as much at home in one denomination
OF evangelical Christians as another, and
think must have been born very near the
line like the solemn roll of the Episco-
pal liturgy, and like the spontaneity of
the Methodlsts, and I like the Importance
given to the ordinance of baptism by the
Baptists, and like the freedom of the Con-
gregationalists, and like the government
and the sublime doctrine Of the Presbyte-
rians, and like many of the others just as
good as any have mentioned, and / could
happily live, and die, and preach and be
buried from any of them.
But others are born with so stout and I'M
bending and memorable liking for some
they have the advantage of that one What
they were intended to be in ecclesiasticism
was written in the sides of their cradle, if the
father and mother had eyes keen enough to
see it. They would not stop crying until
they had put into their hands as playthings
Westminster Catechism or the Thirty
nine Articles. The whole current of their
temperament and thought and character
runs into one sect of religionists as nat
urally as the James river into the Chesa-
peake. 1t would be a torture to such per-
sons to be any thing outside Of that one
church. Now, let the wife or husband who is
not SO constructed sacrifice the milder pref
erence for the one more inflexible and rigor-
Gus. Letthe grape vine follow the rugosities
and sinuosities Of the oak or hickory Abram,
the richer in flocks of Christian grace,
Should say to Lot, who is built on a smaller
scale: Let there be no strife, l pray
thee, between me and thee, and between
my herdmen and thy herdmen. Is not the
whole land before theesn As you can be
edined and happy any where, go with your
companion to the church to which he or
she must go or be miserable
Third: II both the married couple are very
strong in their sectarianisms, let them at
tend the different churches preferred. It
is not necessary that you attend the same
church. Religion is between your con-
science and your God Like Abram and
Lot, agree to differ. When on Sabbath
morning you come out of the door of your
home together, and one goes one way and
the other the other, heartily wish each
other good sermon and time of profita-
Die devotion, and when you meet again at
the monday repast let it be evident each to
each, and to your children and to the hired
help, that you have both been on the Mount
OF TRANSPORTATION, although you went by
different paths, and that you have both
been fed by the Bread OF Life, though
kneaded by different hands, in different
trays, and baked in different ovens.
But how about the childrenp, / am
often asked by hundreds of parents. Let
them also make their choice. They wfll
grow up with reverence for both of the de-
nominations represented by father and
mother, if you, by holy lives, commend
those denominations. II the father lives
the better life, they will have the more IA
orable opinion of his denomination. II the
mother lives the better life, they will have
the more favorable opinion of her denom-
nation. And some day both the parents
Will, for at least one service, go to the
same church. The neighbors will saw: "
wonder what is going on to-day, for saw
en- Ns<rl,1~ 1