The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-11-08

wife with her babe goes to her fathers
house, and not only is his store wiped
out, but his home, his morals and his
prospects for two worlds, this and the
next And devils make a banquet of fire
and fill their cups of gall and drink deep
to the health Of the old merchant, who
swallowed up the young merchant who
got stuck on spring goods and went down.
That is one way. and some of you have
tried it.
But there is another way. That young
merchant who found that he had miscal-
culated in laying in too many goods of
one kind, and been flung Of the unusual
season, is standing behind the counter,
feeling very blue and biting his finger
nails, or looking over his account books.
which read darker and worse every time
he looks at them, and thinks how his
young wife will have to put up in a
palmer house than she ever expected to
live in, or go to third rate boarding
house, where they have tough liver and
sour bread five mornings out of the
seven. An old merchant comes in and
says: swell, Joe, this has been hard
season for young merchants, end this
the doldrums, and have been thinking
of you good deal of late, for just after
started in business once got into the
same scrape. Now, if there is any thing
l can do to help you out Twill gladly
out of sight for the present
about them. I will help you to some
10 hot 80.
mission, and will go down to one of the
wholesale houses and tell them that I
know you and will back you up, and if
you want few dollars to bridge over the
present I can let you have them. Be as
economical as you can, keep stiff upper
lip and remember you have two friends,
God and myself. Good morning.o The
old merchant goes away and the young
man goes behind his desk and the tears
roll down his cheeks. 1t is the first time
he has cried. Disaster made him mad at
every thing, and mad at man and mad at
God. But this kindness melts him, and
the tears seem to relieve his brain, and
his spirits rise from ten below zero to
eighty in the shade, and he comes out
of the crisis. And about three years
after this young merchant goes into the
II,
my old friend was this morning think
ing over what you did for me three years
ago. You helped me out Of an awful
crisis in my commercial history. /
learned wisdom, and prosperity has
come. and the pailor has gone out of my
wife's cheeks, and the. roses that were
there when courted her in her fathers
house have bloomed again, and my BUSH
10 Y,fo
to let you know that you saved a man %
In a short time after, the old merchant
who had been good while shady in b is
limbs and had poor spells, is called to
leave the world, and one morning
after he had read the twenty third Psalm
about 'The Lord is my Shepherd he
closes his eyes on this world, and an
angel who had been for many years APP
pointed to watch the old mans dwelling
cries upward the news that the pat
riarch's spirit is about ascending. And
the twelve angels who keep the twelve
gates of Heaven unite in crying down to
this approaching spirit of the old man:
''Come in at any of the twelve gates you
choose! Come in and welcome, for it has
been told all over these celestial neigh
borhoods that you saved man.o
have heard men tell in public dis
course what man is but what is wom-
an? Until some one shall give a better
definition will tell you what woman is.
Direct from God, sacred and delicate
gift, with affections so great that no
measuring line short of that of the in
finite God can tell their bound; fashioned
to refine and soothe and lift and IT.
radiate home and society and the world.
OF such value that no one can appreciate
it unless his mother lives long enough to
let him understand it, or who in some
great crisis Of life when all else failed
him, had wife to reinforce him with q
faith in God that nothing could disturb.
Speak out, We cradles, and tell of the feet
that rocked you aud the anxious faces
that lowered over you! Speak out, We
nurseries of all Christendom, and We
homes, whether desolate or still in full
bloom with the faces OF wife, mother and
daughter, and help me to efine what
woman is. II a man during all his life
nothing else except to win
the love and confidence and help and
of good woman, he is a
victor, and ought to have the
hands OF all people between here and the |
grave stretched out to him in congratulate
ton.
But as geographers tell us that the |
depths of the sea correspond with the |
heights of the mountains, I have to tell |
you that good womanhood is not higher
up than bad womanhood is deep down.
The grander the palace the more awful |
the confiagratioa that destroys it. The
grander the steamer Oregon the more |
terrible her going down just off the coast.
NOW, should not wonder il you trembled |
q little with sense of responsibility |
when say that there is hardly a person |
In this house but may have an opportun-
lty to save woman. 1t may in your case |
be done by good advice, or by financial |
help, or by trying the bring to bear some |
one OF a thousand Christian influences. |
You would not have to go far. If, for in
stance, you know among your acauaint- |
ances young woman who Is apt to ap- |
pear on the streets about the hour when |
gentlemen return from business, and you |
ind her responding to the smile of entire |
that lift their hats-g6 to |
her and plainly tell her that nearly all |
the destroyed womanhood of the world |
began the downward path with that very |
kind Of behavior.
or II, for instance, you find woman in |
financial distress and breaking down in |
health and spirits trying to support her