The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-10-18

| manner in which they have reared their
children. Every pleasant Sunday after
noon take carriage ride and stop at the
hotels on either side the road for Sabbath
| refreshments. Do not let the old fogy
prejudice against Sabbath breaking.
dominate you. Have membership in
some club where libertines go and tell
about their victorious sins, and laugh as
loud as any of them in derision of those
| who belong to the same sex as your sis
| ter and mother. Pitch your Bible over
| board as old-fashioned and fit only for
women and children. Read all the maya
zine articles that put Christianity at a
disadvantage, and go to hear all the lect-
ures that malign Christ. who. they say.
instead Of being the Mighty One He pre-
tended to be. was an impostor and the
implanter of great delusion. Go, at
first out of curiosity, to see all the hous es
OF dissipation, and then 60 because you
have felt the thrall of their fascination.
Get ting along splendidly now.
Let me see, what further can suggest
in that direction? Become more defiant
OF all decency, more loud -mouthed in
your atheism, more thoroughly alcohol i.
lied, and instead of the small stakes that
will do well enough for games of chance
IN ladies' parlor, put up something
worthy, put up more, put up all yor
have. Well donei You have succeeded.
You have made a chain-the tobacco
habit one link, the rum habit one link,
the impure club another link, infdelity
another link, Sabbath dissertation
another link, uncleanness another link,
and altogether they make chain. And
SO there Is chain on your hand and a
chain on your foot and a chain on your
tongue and chain on your eye and a
chain on your brain aud chain on your
property and chain on your soul. Some
day you wake up and you say:
Il am tired of this, and am going to
get loose from this shackle."
You pound away with the hammer Of
good resolution, but can not break the
thrall. Your friends join you in con-
spiracy of help, but fall exhausted in the
unavailing attempt. Now you begin, and
with the writhing of LAGOON, to try to
break away, and the muscles are dis
tended, and the great beads of perspira-
ton dot your forehead, and the eyes
stand out from the sockets, and with all
the concentrated energies of body, mind
and soul you attempt to get loose. but
have only made the chain sink deeper
All the devils that encamp in the wine
flask and the rum jug and the decanter-
for each one has devil of its own-come
out and sit around you and chatter. In
some midnight you spring from your
couch and cry:
II am fast o, God, let me loose! o
ye powers of darkness, let me loosei
Father and mother and brothers and
sisters, help me to get loosew
And you turn your prayer into BIAS
phemy and then your blasphemy into
prayer, and to all the din and uproar'
there is played an accompaniment, not
an accompaniment by key and pedal, but
the accompaniment is rattle and the rat
tie is that of chain. For five years, for
ten years, for twenty years you have been
making chain.
But here take step higher and tell
you there is a power that can break any
chain; chain of body, chain of mind,
chain Of SOUL The letters that the ham,
mer of the Gospel have broken off, if piled
together, would make mountain. The
captives whom Christ has set free, if
stood side by side, would make an army.
Quicker than ship chandler's furnace
ever melted a cable, quicker than key
ever unlocked handcuff, quicker than
the bayonets Of revolution pried open the
Bastile, you may be liberated and made a
free son or a free daughter of God. You
have only to choose between serfdom and
emancipation, between a chain and
coronet between Satan and God. Make
up your mind and make it up quick.
When the King of Sparta had crossed the
Hellespont and was about to march
through Thrace, he sent word to the
people in the different regions asking
them whether he should march througS
their countries as a friend or an enemy.
"By all means as FRIEND" answered
most of the regions, but the King of
Maeedon replied:
II will take time to consider it.n
'Then," said the King of Sparta, .let
him consider it, but meantime we march.
we march,"
So Christ, our King, gives us our choice
between His friendship and His frown,
and many of us have been long consider
ing what we had better do; but meantime
He marches on, and our opportunities are
marching by. And we shall be the loving
subjects of His reign, or the victims of
our own obduracy So urge you to pre-
cipitaucy rather than slow delIberation,
and write all over your soul the words
OF Christ | saw inscribed on the monu-
ment of Princess Elizabeth in the Isle of
Wight, the words to which her index
finger pointed in the open Bible when she
was found dead in her bed after life
time of trou BILE:
Come unto me, all We who are weary and
heavy laden, and will give you rest
But why take extreme cases, when we
all have been or are new the captiyes Of
sin and death? Aud we may throu GA the
great Emancipator drop our shackles and
take throne. You have looked at your
hand and arm only as being useful now,
and a curious piece Of anatomy, but there
is something about your hand and arm
that makes me think they are an unde.
veloped wing. And if you would know
what possibilities are suggested by that,
ask the eagle that has ,ooked close into
the eye of the noondas sun, or ask the
albatross that has struck its claw into the
black locks of the tempest; or ask the
condor that this morning is descending
to the highest peak of Chimborazo. Your
right hand and arm, and your left hand
and arm, two undeveloped wings, better
get ready for the empyrean.
Rise, my soul. and stretch thy wing,
Thy better portion trace.
There have been chains famous in the
worlds history, such as the chain which