The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-08-16
BE CONTENT.
Sermon By Rev. T. Do Witt Tai
mage, D. D.
True Happiness Consists I'm Having tho
Heart Right Toward God and Man
The Grand Influence of the Re-
ligIon of Jesus Christ.

"In Good Humor with Our Circum-
stances" was the subject of DR.. Talmage's
recent sermon. His text was taken from
the fifth verse of the thirteenth chapter
of Hebrews: "Be content with such
things as We have" He said:
II should ask some one "Where is
Brooklyn to-daym he would say: AT
Brighton Beach, or East Hampton, or
day?n AT Long Branch" Where is
Philadelphialn Fat Cape May" "Where
is Bostona" "At Marthas Vineyard"
where is virginiaa" "At the Sulphur
Springs "Where the great mutitudes
from all parts of the land!" AT Sara
toga," the modern Bethesda, where the
angel of health is ever stirring the wa
tiers. But, my friend, the largest multi
tude are at home, detained by business or
circumstances. Among them all newspa-
per men, the hardest worked and the least
compensated; city railroad employees, and
the ferry masters, and the police and the
tens of thousands of clerks and merchants
waiting for their turn of Absence and
households with an invalid who can not be
moved, and others hindered by stringent
circumstances, and the great multitude Of
cause they like home better than any other
place, refusing to go away simply because
it is the fashion to go.
When the express wagon, with its
mountain of trunks directed to the Cats
kills or Niagara. goes through the streets,
we stand at our window envious and i'm
patient, and wonder why we can not go as
well as others. Fools that we are, as
though one could not be as happy at home
as any where else Our grandfathers ana
grandmothers had as good time as we
have, long before the first spring was
bored at Saratoga or the first deer shot in
the Adirondacks. They made their we'd
ding tour to the next farm house, or, liv-
ing in New York, they celebrated the event
by an extra walk on the battery.
Now, the genuine American is not happy
until he is going somewhere. and the pas
sion is so great that there are Christian
people with their families detained in the
city who come not to the house of God,
trying to give people the idea that they
are out of town; leaving the door plate I'M
secured for the same reason, and for two
months keeping the front shutters closed
while they sit in the back part Of the
house, the thermometer at ninety! My
friends, if it is best for US to go, let US go
and be happy. Ii it is best for US to stay
at home, let US stay at home and be happy.
There is great deal of good common sense
in Paurs advice to the Hebrews: ''Be
content with such things as We have" To
be content Is to be in good humor with our
circumstances, not picking quarrel with
our obscurity. or our poverty, or our social
position. There are four or five grand
reasons why we should be content with
such things as we have.
The first reason that mention as leading
to this spirit devised in the text, is the
consideration that the poorest of us have
all that Is indispensable in life. We make
great ado about our hardships, but how
little we talk of our blessings. Health of
body, which is given in largest quantity to
those who have never been petted, and
fondled, and spoiled by fortune, we take
as matter of course. Rather have this
luxury and have it alone, than, without it,
look out OF palace window upon parks of
deer stalking between fountains and stat
uary. These people sleep sounder on a
straw mattress than fashionable invalids
on couch of ivory and eagles down. The
dinner OF herbs tastes better to the appe-
title sharpened on a woodman's AK or a
reaper's scythe than wealthy indigestion
experiences seated at a table covered with
partridge, and venison, and pineapple.
The grandest luxury God ever gave q
man is health. He who trades that off for
all the palaces of the earth is infinitely
cheated. We look back at the glory of the
last Napoleon, but who would have taken
his Versailles and his Tuilleries if with
them we had been obliged to take his goutg
'Oh," says some one, sit isn't the grosser
pleasures l covet, but it is the qualification
OF an artistic and intellectual tasten WHY
my brother, you have the original from
which these pictures are copied
What is a sunset on wall compared with
sunset hung in loops of fire in the heav-
ensl What is cascade silent on canvas
compared with a cascade that makes the
. mountain tremble, its spray ascending like
the departed spirit Of the water slain on
the rockss Oh, there is a great deal of
hollow affectation about fondness for
pictures on the part of those who never
appreciate the original from which the
pictures are taken. As though a parent
should have no regard for child, but go in
to ecstasies over its photograph. Bless the
Lord to-day, oh, man oh, womani that
though you may be shut out from the
works of Church, Bierstadt, RubeA
and Raphael, you still have free access
to gallery grander than the Louvre or
the Luxembourg or the Vatican-the royal
gallery of the monday heavens, the Kings
gallery of the midnight sky
Another consideration leading us to a
spirit of contentment is the fact that our
happiness Is not dependent upon outward
circumstances. You see people happy and
miserable amid all circumstances. In a
family where the last loaf is on the table
and the last stick of wood on the fire. YOU
sometimes find cheerful confidence in
God. while in very fine place you will
see and hear discord sounding the war
whoop, and hospitality freezing to death
in the cherries parlor. stopped one dav
on Broadway at the head of Wall street, at
the foot of Trinity Church, to see who
seemed the happiest people passing. l
judged from their looks the happiest peo.
pie were not those who went down into
Wall street, for they had on their brow
the anxiety of the dollar they expected to
make; nor the people who came out of
Wall street, for they had on their brow the
anxiety of the dollar they had lost: nor
the people who swept by in splendid eoui.
page, for they met carriage finer than
theirs. The happiest person in all that
crowd, judging from the countenance was
the woman who sat at the apple stand
knitting. / believe real happiness oftener
looks out of the window of an humble home
than through the opera glass of the ailded