The Bossier banner., 1886-09-23
Well, this is free country and you shall

that the purest mirth, and the most un-
trammeled glee, and the greatest resil-
fence of soul are inside the Christian com
panionship, and not outside of it. l have
tried both styles of companionship-th
companionship of the world and the COM
panionship of Christ, and know by ex-
perience. l have been now so long in the
sunshiny experience and society of
Christian people that when I am COM
PEELED to to go for a little while amid in.
tense worldly society I feel depressed. 1t
is like going out of June garden into an
ice-house. Men never know fully how to
laugh until they become Christians. The
worlds laughter has jerk of dissatsfac-
tion at the end, but when a man is conse-
Grated to Gcd, and he is all right for the
world to come, then when he laughs, body,
mind and soul crackle. Let a group of
ministers of the Gospel. gathered from all
denominations of Christians, be together
in dining hall, or in a social circle, and
you know they are proverbially jocund.
o we unconverted people! l know not
how you can stand it down in that
moping, bilious, saturnine worldly assoc
citation. Come up into the sunlight of
Christian society-those people for whom
all things are working right now, and
will work right forever. l tell you that
the sweetest japonicas grow in the Lords
garden; that the largest grapes are frc m
the vineyards of Canaan; that the most
sparkling floods break forth from the
Rock of Ages. Do not too much pity this
Ruth of my text; for she is going to be-
come joint owner of the great harvest
fields of BoaZ.
5. Once more: If we want to become
Christians, we must, like Ruth in the text,
choose the Christians death and burial.
She exclaimed:
Where thou diest, will die, and there will
be buried.
think we all, when leaving this world,
would like to be surrounded by Christian
influences. You would not like 10 have
your dying pillow surrounded by carica-
turists, and punsters, and wine-b bibbers.
How would you like to have John Leech
come with his London pictorials, and
Christopher North with his loose fun, and
Tom Hood with his rhyming jokes, when
you are dying? No! no! no? Let me
have Christian nurse in my last sickness.
Let me have Christian physician to adj
minister the medicines. Lesit be Chris
tian wife, or parent, or child, that watches
the going out of the tides of my mortal
existence. Let Christian men come in the
room and read of the illuminated valley,
and the extinguishment of grief, and
drown the hoarse blasts of death with the
strains of mount Pisgah" and "Saint
Martini"
In our last moment we will all be chill.
dren. Said DIR. Guthrie, the famous Scotch
clergyman, when dying:
'Sing me bairn's hymn"
Yes, we will all be children then In
that hour the world will stand confounled
around US. Our friends may cry over us;
tears will not help US. They may look
sad; what we want is radiat on in the last
moment, thinking it will help them to die.
In our last moments we want that bread
which came down from heaven. Who will
give it to us? Oh, we want Christian peo-
pie in the room, so that if our hope begins
to struggle they may say:
Courage, brother! All is well! Cour.
age!"
In that expiring moment want to hear
the old songs that we used to sing in
church and rayer-meeting. In that last
moment l want to hear the voice of some
Christian friend pleading that the sins
and shortcomings of my life may be for
given and the doors of Heaven may be
opened before my entranced spirit
Come Sing to me of Heaven
When Pm about TO die:
Sing songs of holy ecstasy
To watt my soul on high
Yes; Christian people on either side the
bed, and Christian people at the foot of the
bed, and Christian people to close my
eyes, and Christian people to carry me
out, and Christian people to look after
those whom leave ehind, and Christian
people to remember me little while after
am gone.
Where thou diest will 1 die, and there will
I be buried.
Sometimes an epitaph covers up more
than it expresses. Walking through Green
wood cemetery have sometimes seen an
inscription which impressed me how hard
ehC oSuiploi dAo were my 10
make out good story in stone. saw
from the inscription that the man or wom-
an buried there had died without hope.
The inscription told me the man was a
member of Congress, or bank president,
or some prominent citizen, but said moth
ing about his souls destiny. The body
is nothing. The soul! The soul! And
here by this inscription l see that this
man was born in 1890 and died in 1875.
Seventyfive years on earth, and no
Christian horel Oh, if in all the ceme-
teries of your city the graves of those who
have gone out of this world unprepared
should sigh on the wind, who would have
the nerve to drive through such place?
If all those who have gone out of this
world unprepared could come back to-day
and float through this air, telling the story
of their discontinue, this audience would
fall fat on its face, asking to be rescued
from the avalanche of horror.
My hearers, do you wonder that this
Ruth of my text made the Christians
choice and closed it with the ancient form
of imprecation upon her own soul, if she
ever forsook Naomi?
The Lord do so to me- and more also If