The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-08-26

pUluUSs anu WhIA5 yOu dt o ACuuinS euo
athena in the reportorial and editorial
paragraph, it occurs to You how much this
story is like that of the defalcation of IF.
teen years ago, and q clap of thunder
shakes the window-sill, saying: "With
what measure ye mete, it shall be m cas-
ured to you again!"
You1ook in another direction. There is
nothing like an ebullition of temper to put
a man to disadvantage. You, a man with
calm pulses and fine digestion and per.
feet health, can not understand how any,
body should be capsized in temper by an
infinitesimal annoyance. You say: 81
couldn't be unbalanced in that way"
Perhaps you smile at a provocation that
makes another man swear. You pride
yourself on your imperturbability. You
say with your manner, though you have
Zoo much good taste to say it with your
words: II have a great deal more sense
than that man has; have a great deal
more equipoise of temper than that man
has; never could make such q puerile ex.
hibition of my self as that man has made"
Ny brother, you do not realize that that
man was born with keen nervous organ
ization, that for forty years he has been
under depicting process, that sickness
and trouble have been helping undo what
was left Of original healthfulness, that
much of his time it has been With him like
filing saws, that his nerves have come te
be merely tangle of disorders, and that
he is the most pitiable object on earth
who, though he is very sick, does
not look sick, and nobody sympathizes.
Let me see. Did you not say that you
could not be tempted to an ebullitlon of
temper? Some September you come home
from your summer watering place and
you have inside. away back in your liver
or spleen, what we call in our day mala-
ria, but what the old folks called chills
and fever. You take qninine until your
ears are first buzzing bee-hives and then
roaring Niagaras. You take roots and
herbs, you take every thing. You get
well. But the next day you feel uncon-
Portable, and you yawn, aud you stretch,
and you shiver, and you consume, aud
you suffer. Vexed more than you can tell.
you can not sleep, you can not eat, you
can not bear to see any thing that looks
happy, you go out to kick the cat that Is
asleep in the sun. Your children's mirth
was once music to you; now it is deafen-
ing. You say: "Boys, stop that
racketw You turn back from June
to March. In the family and in the neigh
borhood your popularity is min ETY. Eve per
cent. off. The world says: "What is the
matter with that disagreeable MANI What
a woe.hegone countenance! can't bear
the sight of him." You have got your pay
at last-got your pay. You feel just as
the man felt, that man for whom you had
no mercy, and my text comes in with mar
velous appositeness.
With what measure We mete, it shall be
measured to you again.
In the study of society have come to
this inclusion. that the most of the peo-
pie want to be good, but they do not ex.
actly know how to make it out. They
make enough good resolutions to lift them
into angelhood. The vast majority of
people who fall are victims of circum.
stances; they are captured by ambuscade.
Ii their temptations should come out in
regiment and fight them in fair field,
they would go out in the strength and the
triumph of David and Goliath. But they
do not see the giants and they do not see
the regiment. Suppose temptation should
come up to man and say: "Here is alco-
hol; take three tablespoonfuls of it day
until you get dependent it.; then, after
that take half a glass three times day
until you get dependent upon that amount,
then go on increasing the amount until
you are saturated from morning until
highland from night until morning" Do
you suppose any man would become a
drunkard in that way? Oh, mol Tempta-
ton comes and says: "Take these bitters,
take this nervine, take this aid to diges-
ton, take this night cap" The vast ma
jority of men and women who are de-
stroyed by opium and by rum first take
them as medicines. In making up your
dish Of criticism in regard to them, take
from the caster the cruet of sweet oil and
not the cruet of cayenne pepper. Be easy
on them.
My friends, this text will come to fulfill
ment in some cases in this world. The
huntsman in Farmsteen was shot by some
unknown person. Twenty years after the
son of the hunisman was in the same
forest, and he accidentally shot man,
and the man in dying said: "God is just;
l shot your father just here twenty years
ago." A bishop said to Louis XII. of
France: snake an iron cage for all those
who do not think as we do-an
iron cage in which the captive can neither
lie down nor stand straight up" 1t was
fashioned-the awful instrument of pun
ishment. After awhile the bishop Offend
ed Louis XII, and for fourteen years he
was in that same cage, and could neither
lie down nor stand up. 1t is poor rule
that will not work both ways.
With what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again.
Oh, my friends, let US be resolved to
scold less and pray more. That which in
the Bible is used as the symbol of all gra-
cious influences is the dove, not the porcu.
pine. We may so unskillfully manage
the life-boat that we shall run down tn ose
whom we want to rescue. The first
preparation for Christian usefulness
is warm-hearted common sense,
practical sympathy for those whom we
want to save. What Roadway will we
make in the Judgment IL in this world we
have been hard on those who have gone
astray? What Roadway will you and (
make in the last great Judgment, when we