The Bossier banner., 1886-09-02
Thoughts for the ThouQhtfui.
RELIGIOUS SELECTIONS.

hELidioUS SELECTIONS.
Past sin may be made stepping
stone to heaven.
Robertson: "Oh, for His sublime,
brave. Divine truthfulness My spirit
bows with alteration profounder in
proportion as understand Him and
His infinite mind.
The first introduction of a demon
spirit is found connected with
slanderous insinuation against the
Almighty, implying that His COM
mand had been given in envy OF His
creatures: "For God doth know that
in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be
as gods, knowing good and evil"
The death and the life of Christ
are to be manifested in our mortal
body. We are to let things come as
God pleases, making both joy and
sorrow divine, by infusing into them
the Cross and the Resurrection
We are to show Christ forth in our
lives till He comes. He is the sun;
and Christian life is as the turning of
the sunfower to the sun.
The charity of God, the sacrifice of
Christ-these are the two grand,
leading principles of the Gospel: and
in some form or other you will find
these lying at the roots of every pro-
fession and state of feeling in almost
every age. But the form in which
these appear will vary with all the
gradations which are to be found be-
tween the lowest savage state and
most enlightened Christianity. Many
nations and ages have caricatured
them-dislocated, perverted them.
In Christ there is not given to us
faultless essay on the loveliness of self
conservation, to convince our reason
how beautiful it is: but there is given
to US a self-consecrated One: living
Truth, a living Person, life that was |
beautiful, death that we feel in our |
inmost hearts to have been divine;
and all this in order that the Spirit of |
that consecrated life and consecrated |
death, through love, and wonder, and
deep enthusiasm, may pass into US,
and sanctify us also to the truth in
life and death. He sacrificed Him
self that we might offer ourselves
living sacrifice to God.
There are times when the truest
courage is shown in retreating from
temptation. There are times when,
not being on level with other men
in qualifications of temper, mind,
character, we must compensate by
inventions and Christian expedients.
You must climb over the crowd of
difficulties which stand between your
soul and Christ-you must srun be-
FORE and forecast trials, and get into
the sycamore solitude. Without a
living life like this you will never
get glimpse of the King in His
beauty; you viii never see it. You
will be just on the point of seeing
Him, and shut out by some unex-
pected hindrance.
The CHRIsTIAN.-He is sanctiaed BY
the self-devotion of his Master from
the world, who has life in himself
Independent of the maxims and GUS
toms which sweep along with them
other men. In his Masters words.
"A well of water in him, springing
mp into everlasting life," keeping his
life on the whole pure, and his heart
fresh. His true life is hid with Christ
in God. His motives, the aims and
objects of his life, however incon-
sistent they may be with each other,
however irregular or feebly carried
out, are yet on the whole above, not
here. His citizenship is in heaven.
He may be tempted, he may err, he
may fall out, but still in his darkest
alterations there will be something