The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-08-05

consultation ana said Gher0 was no boyN
and nothing more could be done
and the soul frightened up unde
the spiritual restorative. There is M
fever, no marasmus, no neuralgia, no con
sumption, no disease of the body that Tia,
grace Of God will not help. wish tina
over every bed of pain and through every
hospital of distress we might swing thi,
"cluster of campfire from the whey ards
of En-gedi." Christ's hand is the softest
pillow, Christ's pardon is the strongest
stimulus, Christ's comfort is the mightiest
anodyne, Christ's salvation is the grand.
est restorative. It makes man mightier
than his ply steal distress.
Art thou weary? Art thou languida Art
thou sore distressed?
"Come to me-" saith one-"and coming. he
at rest"
II ask him to receive me, will he say me
nay?
Not till earth and not till heaven pass away.
Finding, following, keeping. struggling is lie
sure to bless?
Saints. apostles, prophets, martyrs, ans wer-
"Yesr
Nero tarred and put pitoh upon the
Christians of his day, and then set them
on fire, that they might illuminate the
night round about the palace; but while
they were burning and the crowd beneat h
were jeering, louder than all the noise
went up the song of praise and triuhph
from the dying martyrs. John Bradford
came out in the presence of the instrument
of torture that was to put him to death
and said: 81 am Christian now. have
never been before" And so, again and
again, the Lion of Judah's tribe has to. n
to pieces the wild beasts Of marbyrdom
This grace is also a restorative for the
backslider. Who do you mean by that?
you say. l mean you who used 10 FREE
quent the house of God, but seldom 10
there now; you who once used to pray,
but never pray now; you who once sat at
the holy communion, but take not the
Lords cup now; 1 mean you who once re-
joiced in Christian society, hut now sit
amid scoifers. Backslider! Oh, what a
suggestive word! Backslider! From what
have you slid back? You have slid
back from your fathers faith, from
your early good habits. You have
been sliding back from Christ, from
the cross-sliding back from Heaven.
When a man begins to slide he
knows not where he will go. You have
been sliding back toward darkness. You
have been sliding back toward An un-
blessed grave, toward a precipice, the first
10000, 900 miles of which downward are
only small part of the eternal plunge.
You were, perhaps, professors in the
country; you have made shipwreck in the
town. 1t may be that the club blasted
you; it may be that fashionable society
destroyed you; it may be the kind of wife
whom you married. You have no more
hope for heaven now than If you had lived
in Central Asia and never heard of Christ
and the judgment. Oh, where is at
Bible you use to read9 Where is that
room where you used to pray? What
have you done with that Jesus whose
voice you once heard? Oh, MUIR
dered hours! Oh, massacred privilegesi
Oh, dead opportunities! Wake up now
and shrek in that mans ear until he shall
rouse himself from the horrible somnam-
bulism, walking, as he does, fast asleep,
within an inch of hell. Oh, that he might
cry out now: "Golden Sabbaths, come
backl Communion seasons. come back!
Wooings of the Holy Ghost, come backw
But they will not come. Gone! gonel
gonei Sorrow will colue, but not they.
Oh. that you might save the few remain
ing years of your life and consecrate them
to Christ! / have seen sad sights, / have
heard sad sounds; but, 1 tell you, the
ghastliest thing outside the gates of the
damned is backslider's death bed. Do
You not feel like having applied to your
soul this divine prerogative. Do you
not feel like crying out with David "Re-
store unto me the joys of Thy salvation?"
For great sin, great pardon. For deep
wounds, omnipotent surgery. For deaf
ears, divine aurist For blind eyes, q
heavenly oculist. For the dead in sin, the
upheaval OF a great resurrection.
But in the heavenly world we shall feel
the chief restorative power of religion.
This is planet Of weeping we are living
on. We enter upon life with cry and
leave it with long sigh. II could gath
er up the griefs of this audience and put
them in one sentence, and then utter it, it
would make every thing betw cen here and
the throne of God shudder and
howl. The earth is gashed deep
with graves. As at the close of the
war, sometimes we saw a regiment of one
hundred and nifty men, the fragment of
the thousand men that went out; so, as I
stand before you I can not but realize the
fact tnat you are the fragments represent
ing hundreds of regiments of joyful asso.
Citations that have been broken up forever.
o, this is a world Of sorrow! But, blessed
be God, there will be no sorrow in Heaven!
The undertaken will have to have some
other business there. In the summer time
our cities have bills of mortality which are
rightful-sometimes in New York thou
sand deaths in a week, sometimes it has
been two Thousand in London; but
in that great heavenly city there
will be not single case of sick
ness or death; not one black dress of
mourning, but plenty of white robes of
joy; hand-shaking of welcome, but none
of separation. Why, if one trouble should
attempt to enter Heaven, the shining po-
lice of the city would put it under ever.