The Bossier banner., 1888-01-12

South, John Wesley, George Whitefield,
Jeremy Taylor, Rowland Hill, Nettleton,
| George G. Finney, and all the men of the
past who greatly advanced the Kingdom
| of God, consecrat ted their wit and their
humor to the cause of Christ. So it has
been in all the ages, and say to these
| young theological students who custer in
these services Sabbath after Sabbath,
| sharpen yopr~wits as keen as cimeters,
and then talse them into this holy war.
It is a very short bridge between a smile
and tear, suspension bridge from eye
| to lip, and it is soon crossed over, and o
| smile is sometimes just as sacred as a
tear. There is as much religion, and ]
| think little more, in a spring morning
than in a s'arless midnight. Religious
work without any humor or wit in it is a
banquet with q side of beef, and that
raw, and no condiments, and no dessert
succeeding. People will not sit down at
such banquet. By all means remove all
| frivolity aud all bathos and all lightness
and all vulgarity-strain them out
! through the sieve of holy discrimination !;
but, ON the other hand, beware OF
that monster which over-shadows
| the Christian Church to-day, con-
ventionality, coming up from the great
| Sahara desert Of Ecclesias ticism, having
on its back a hump Of sanctimonious
| gloom, and vehemently refuse to swallow
| thnt camel.
| oh, how particular a great many people
| are about the infinitesmals while they are
| quite reckless about the magnitudes.
| What did Christ say? Did he not excoriate
| the people in his time who were SO care
full to wash their hands before meal, but
| did not wash their hearts? 1t is a bad
| thing to have unclean hands; it is worse
| thing to have an unclean heart. How
| many people there are in our time who
| are very anxious that after their death
| they shall be buried with their feet toward
| the East, and not at all anxious that dur
| ing their whole life they should face in
| the right direction, SO that they shall
| come up in the resurrection OF the just
| whichever way they are buried. How
many there are chiefly anxious that a
min ister Of the Gospel shall come in the
| line of apostolic succession, not caring SO
| much whether he comes from Apostle Paul
or Apostle Judas. They have a way of
| measuring gnat until it is larger than a
| camel.
Again: My subject photographs all
| those who are abhorrent of small sins
while they are reckless in regard TO mag
nifcent thefts. You will find many a
| merchant who, while he is so careful
that he would not take yard of cloth or
| a spool of cotton from the counter with
| out paying for it, and who, if q bank
| cashier should make mistake and send
| in a roll of bills five dollars too much,
| would dispatch messenger in hot haste
| to return the surplus, yet who will go in
| TO stock company in which, after
| awhile, ,'he. gets control of the stock, and
| then waters the stock and makes one hun.
dred thousand dollars appear like two
| hundred thousand dollars. He only stole
one hundred thousand dollars by the
operation. Many of the men of fortune
made their wealth in that way. One of
those men, engaged in such unrighteous
acts that evening, the evening of tho
very day when he watered the stock,
will find wharf rat stealing q news
paper from the basement doorway, and
will go out and catch tho urchin
by the collar, and twist tho col
lar so tightly ths poor fellow can
not say that it was thirst for
knowledge that led him to the dishonest
act, but grip the collar tighter and tighter,
saying, ~ have been looking for you a
long while; you stole my paper four Or
five times, haven't you, you miserable
wretch" And then the old stock gambler,
with voice they can hear three blocks,
will cry out, "Police. policen That same
man, the evening 6f the day in which he
watered the stock, will kneel with his
family in prayers and thank God for the
prosperity of the day, then kiss his chill
dren good night with an air which seems
! to say: 81 hope you will all grow up to be
as good as your father" Prisons for sins
iusectile in sizs, but palaces for crime S
dromedarian. No mercy for sins animal
cule in proportion, but great leniency for
mastodon iniquity. A poor boy slyly
| takes from the basket of q market woman
a choke pear-saving some one else from
the cholera-and you smother him in the
horrible atmosphere OF Raymond Street
| Jail OF New York Tombs, while his cousin,
who has been skillful enough to steal $50
| GOO from the city, you will mako him
candidate for the New York Legisla-
| ture!
| There is great deal Of uneasiness and
nervousness now among some people in
| our time who have gotten unrighteous
| fortunes-a great deal of nervousness
| about dynamite. l tell them that God
| will put undsr their unrighteous fortunes
| something more explosive than dynamite
the earthquake of his omnipotent in
dignation. 1t is time that we learn in
America that sin is not excusable in pro-
portion as it declare, large dividends and
has outriders in equipase. Many man
is riding to per1itioa. position ahead and
| lackey behind. To steal one copy OF
newspaper is gnat; to steal many thou
sands of dollars is camel. There is many
fruit dealer who would not cons snt to
steal basket of peaches from q neigh
bars stall, but who would not scruple to
depress the fruit market; and as long as
can remember we have heard eyery
summer "the peach crop of
Maryland is failure" and by
the time the crop comes in the msrepre-
sentation makes q difference of millions
of dollars. A man who would not steal
one peach basket steals fifty thousand
peach baskets. Go down in the summer
time to the Mercantile Library, in the
rea1ing rooms, and SEQ the newspaper re-
ports OF the crops from all parts of the
country, and their phraseology is very
much the same, and the same mon wrote
them, methodically and UNANIMOUSLY carry
ing out the huge living about the grain