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

RELIGIOUS SELECTIONS.

Our Christianity is not merely the
abstract truths which Christ taught,
but Christ Himself, who lived, and
rose again for US, our Redeemer and
God.
Oh, the untold world of agony con-
tanned in that expression alost SOUL"
agony exactly in proportion to the
nobleness Of original powers. For
it is strange and mournful truth,
that the qualities which enable men to
shine are exactly those which minis
ter to the worst ruin. Gods highest
gifts-talent, beauty, feeling, inagi-
nation, power-they carry with them
the possibility of the highest heaven
and the lowest hell. Be sure that it
is by that which is highest in you
that you may be lost. It is the awful
warning, and not the excuse of evil,
that the light which leads astray is
light from heaven. The shallow fish
ing-boat glides safely over the reefs
where the noble bark strands: it is
the very might and majesty Of her
career that bury the sharp rock deep
er in her bosom.
The motive on which deed of sin
is done Is uot the motive which
man allows to others or whispers to
himself. Listen to the criminal re-
ceiying sentence, and the cause of
condemnation is not the enormity of
the crime, but the injustice of the
country's law. Hear the man of dis
orderly life, whom society has expell-
ed from her hosom, and the cause OF
the expulsion is not his profigacy,
but the false SANDER which has mis-
represented him. Take his own ac-
count Of the matter, and he is inno-
cent, injured, pure. For there are
names SO tender, and so full of fond
endearment, with which this world
sugars over its dark guilt toward
God with crust of superficial white
ness, that the sin on which eighteen
centuries have looked back appalled,
was, to the doors of that sin, nothing
atrocious, but respectable, defensible,
nay, even, under the circumstances
necessary.
Manhood in the Christian life is a
better thing than boyhood, because
it is ripper thing; and old age ought
to be brighter and caEner and a
more serene thing than manhood. -
There is second youth for man, bet
ter and holier than his first, if he will
look on and not back. There is a
peculiar simplicity Of heart and a
touching singleness of purpose in
Christian old age, which has ripened
gradually and not ftfully. 1t is then
that to the wisdom OF the serpent is
added the harmlessness of the dove;
it is then that to the frmness of man
hood is joined almost the gentleness
Of wemanhood; it is then that the
somewhat austere and sour character
of growing strength, moral and in
tellectual, mellows into the rich ripe
ness of an old age, made sweet and
tolerant by experience; it is then that
man returns to first principles. There
comes love more and deep than the
boy could ever feel; there comes a |
conviction, with strength beyond |
that which the boy could ever know,
that the earliest lesson of life is
infinite, Christ is all in all.
The celestial fire touched the hearts
of men, and their hearts famed; and |
it caught and spread, and would not
stop. On they went, that glorious
band of brothers, in their strange
enterprise. over oceans, and through
forests, penetrating into the dungeon,
and to the throne-to the hut of the
savage feeding on human flesh, and to
the shore lined with the skin-clad in
of these far isles OF Britain. I
Read the account given by Tertullian