The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-04-05

that grandfather viii not trust it in
church, still he has the psalns.book open
before him, and he sings in his SOUL He
huns his grandchild asleep with the same
tune he sang forty years ago in the old
meeting house. Some day the choir sings
a tune SO old that the young people do
not know it; but it S tarts the tears down
the cheek of the aged man, for it reminds
him of the revival scene in which he par
ticipated, and of the radiant faces that
long since went to dust, and of the gray
haired minister leaning over the pulpit
and sounding the tidings of great joy.
was one Thanksgiving Day in my pull
pit, in Syracuse, n. Y, and Rev. DAM
Waldo, at ninety-eight years of age,
stood bes ide me. The choir sang a tune.
/ said:
81 am sorry they sang that new tune;
nobody seems to know it,"
''Bless you, my son." said the old man,
~ heard that seventy years agow
There was song to-day that touched
the life of the aged with holy fire, and
kindled glory in their vision that our
younger eyesight can not see. 1t was the
song of salvation-Jesus, who fed them
all their lives long; Jesus, in whose name
their marriage was consecrated, and
whose resurrection has poured light upon
the graves of their departed. Blessed the
Bible in which specialized old age reads
the promise: 81 will never leave you,
never forsake youw Blessed the staff on
which the worm out pilgrim totters on to-
ward the welcome of his Redeemer!
Blessed the hymn book in which the fall
tering tongue and the failing eyes find
Jesus. the old mans song.
I speak to you again of Jesus as the
night-song. Job speaks of Him who
giveth songs in the night. John WEIGH,
the old Scotch minister, used to put a
plaid across his bed on cold nights, and
some one asked him why he put that
there. He said, ooh, sometimes in the
night | want to sing the praise of Jesus,
| and to get down and pray; then l just
take that plaid and wrap it around me,
| to keep myself from the cold" Songs in
the night! Night of trouble has come
down upon many of you. Commercial
losses put out one star, slanderous abuse
put out another star, domestic bereave-
ment has put out a thousand lights, and
gloom has been added to gloom, and
chill to chill, and sting to sting, and one
midnight has seemed to borrow the
fold from another midnight to wrap
itself in more unbearable darkness;
but Christ has spoken peace to your
heart, and you can sing:
Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the pillows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, o, my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm OF life is past;
Safe into the haven guide
| Oh, receive my soul at last.
Songs in the night! Songs in the
night! For the sick, who have no one to
| turn the hot pillow, no one to put the
taper on the stand, no one to put ice on
! the temple, or pour out the soothing ano-
| dyne, or utter one cheerful word-yet
songs in the night For the poor, who
freeze in the winters cold, and swelter
| in the summers heat, and MUNICH the
hard crusts that bleed the sore gums, and
shiver under blankets that can not any
longer be patched, and tremble because
rent dayis come and they may be set out
on the sidewalk, and looking into the
starved face of the child and seeing
famine there and death there, coming
home from the bakery and saying, in the
! presence of the little famished ones: ''Oh,
my God, flour has gone upv' Yet songs
1 in the night! Songs in the night! For
| the widow who goes to get the
back pay of her husband, slain
by the ''sharpshooters," and knows it is
the last help she will have, moving out of
a comfortable home in desolation, death
! turning back from the exhausting cough
and the pale cheek, and the lusterless eye,
and refusing all relief. Yet songs in the
night For the soldier in the field hospital,
no surgeon to bind up the gunshot tract
ure, no water for the hot lips, no kind
hands to brush away the flies from the
fresh wound, no one to take the loving
farewell, the groaning of others poured
into his own groan, the blasphemy of
others blowing up his own spirit, the con
densed bitterness of dying away from
home among strangers. Yet songs in the
night! Songs in the night! "Ahp said
one dying soldier: "Tell my mother
that last night there was not one cloud
between my soul and Jesus" Songs in
the night! Songs in the night!
| The Sabbath day has come. From the
affairs of ten thousand churches has
| smoked up the SAVIOR of sacrifice. Min
listers of the Gospel ere now preaching in
plain English, in broad Scotch, in fow-
ing Italian, in harsh Choctaw. Gods
people have assembled in Hindoo temple,
and Moravian church, and Quaker meet
ing-house, and sailors bethel, and Kings
chapel, and high lowered cathedral.
They sang, aud the song fioated off
amidst the spice groves, or struck the ice.
bergs, or foated off into the Western
pines, or was drowned in the clamor OF
the great cities. Lumbermen sang it, and
the factory girls and the children in the
Sabbath class and the trained choirs in
great assemblages. Trappers, with the
same voice with which they shouted yes.
terday in the stag hunt, and mariners
with Threats that only few days
ago sounded in the hoarse blast
of the sea hurricane, they sang
it. One theme for the sermons. One bur
den for the song. Jesus for the invoca-
ton. Jesus for the Scripture lesson
Jesus for the baptismal font. Jesus for
the sacramental cup. Jesus for the bene-
diction.
We sing His birth-the barn that shelter
ed Him, the mother that nursed Him, the
cattle that fed beside him, the angels that
woke up the shepherds, shaking light
over the midnight hills. We sing His
ministry-the tears He wiped away from
| the eyes of the orphans, the lame men
| that forgot their crutches. the damse]