The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-08-09

the Christian fortitude. Besides that you
never had any pains worse than Christs.
The sharpness that stung through His
brain, through His hands, through His
feet, through His heart, were as great as
yours certainly. He was as sick and as
weary. Not nerve, or muscle, or liga-
ment escaped. All the pangs of all the
nations of all the ages compressed into
one sour cup. He took the vinegar.
There is also the sourness of poverty.
Your income does not meet your outgo-
ings, and that always gives an honest man
anxiety. There is no sign of restitution
about you-pleasant appearance and a
cheerful home for you; but God only
knows what time you have had to man
age your private finances. Just as the
bills run up the wages seem to run down.
But you are not the only one who has not
been paid for hard work. The great Will
kie sold his celebrated piece, "The Blind
Fiddler" for fifty guineas, although aft
erwards it brought its thousands. The
world hangs in admiration over the sketch
of Gains borough, yet that very sketch
hung for years in the shop-window be-
cause there was not any purchaser.
Oliver Goldsmith sold his "Vicar of
Wakefield" for few pounds, in order to
keep the baliff out of his door; and the
vast majority of men in all occupations
and professions are not fully paid for
their work. You may say nothing, but
life to you is hard push; aud when you
sit down with your wife and talk over the
expenses, you both rise up discouraged.
You abridge here, and you abridge there,
and you get things snug for smooth sail
ing, and 10! suddenly there is a large doc
tors bill to pay, or you have lost your
pocketbook, OF, some creditor has failed :,
and you are thrown abeam end. Well,
brother, you are in glorious company.
Christ owned not the house in which He
stopped, or the colt on which He rode, or
the boat in which He sailed He lived in
a borrowed house; He was buried in a
borrowed grave. Exposed to all kinds of
weather, yet He had only one suit of
clothes. He breakfasted in the morning,
and no one could possibly tell where He
could get any thing to eat before night.
He would have been pronounced finan-
cial failure. He had to perform miracle
to get money to pay a tax bill. Not dol
lar did He own. Privation of domesticity;
privation of nutritious food; privation of
a comfortable couch on which to sleep:
privation of all worldly resources. The
kings of the earth had chased chalices
out of which to drink, but Christ had
nothing but plain cup set before Him,
and it was very sharp, and it was very
sour. He took the vinegar
There also is the sourness of bereave-
ment. There were years that passed
along before your family circle was in
vaded by death; but the moment the
<,l,n 1osx,< IL
seemed to dissolve. Hardly have you put
the black apparel in the wardrobe before
you have again to take it out. Great and
rapid changes in your family record. You
got the house and rejoiced in it, but the
charm was gone as soon as the Grape
hung on the door bell. The one upon
whom you most depended was taken away
from you A cold marble slab lies on
your heart to-day. Once, as the children
romped through the house, you put your
hand over your aching head and said:
"Oh, if could only have it still" Oh, it
is too still now. You lost your patience
when the tops and the strings and the
shells were left amid the floor, but oh,
you would be willing to have the trinkets
scattered all over the floor again, if they
We're scattered by the same hands. With
what a ruthless pillow share bereavement
rips up the heart. But Jesus knows all
about that. You can not tell Him any
thing in regard to bereavement He had
only few friends, and when He lost one
it brought tears to His eyes. Lazarus had
often entertained Him at his house.
Now Lazarus is dead and buried, and
Christ breaks down with emotion-the
CONFUSION Of grief shuddering through
all the ages of bereavement. Christ
KIN ows what it is to go through the house
missing familiar inmate. Christ knows
what it is to see an unoccupied place at
the table. Were there not four of them
Mary, and Martha, and Christ and
Lazarus? Four of them. But where is
Lazarus? Lonely and afflicted Christ, His
gre at loving eyes filled with tears, which
drop from eye to cheek, and from cheek to
beard, and from beard to robe, and from
robe to floor Oh, yes, yes, He knows all
bout the loneliness and the heartbreak.
took the vinegar!
Then there is the sourness of the death
hour. Whatever else we may escape, that
acid sponge will be pressed to our lips. I
sometimes have curiosity to know how
Twill behave when | come to die. Whether
will be calm or excited; whether I will
be filled with "reminiscences OF with an
tlcipation. | can not say. But come to
the point, must and you must In the
six thousand years that have passed, only
two persons have got into the eternal
world without death, and do not suppose
that God is going to send carriage for us
with horses of flame, to draw us up the
sleeps of Heaven; but 1 suppose we will
have to go like the preceding generations.
An officer of the future world will knock
at the door of our heart and serve on MS
the writ of eiectment, and we will have to
surrender. And we will wake I'D after
these autumnal, and wintry, and vernal.
and summary glories have vanished from
our vision-we will wake up into a realm
which has only one season, and that the
season of everlasting love. But YOU say:
II don't want to break out from NV
present associations. 1t is so chilly and
so damp to go down the stairs of that
vault don't want any thing drawn so
tightly over my eyes. If there were only
some way of breaking through the parti
ton between worlds without tearing this
BODY all to shreads. I wonder if the sur-
geons and the doctors can not compound
a mixture by which this body and soul
can all the time be kept together? Is
there no escape from the separation?"
M. nlNe- 1..A