The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-08-30


carousal. Bending over the battered and
bruised form of him who, when he took
her from her fathers home, promised
love and kindness and protection, yet
nothing but sympathy and prayers and
forgiveness before they are asked for.
No bitter words when the family Bible
goes for rum and the pawnbroker's shop
gets the last decent dress. Some day,
desiring to evoke the story Of her sorrows,
you say:
well, how are you getting along now?"
And rallying her trembling voice, and
quoting her quivering lip, she says:
"Pretty we'll, thank you; pretty WELL"
She never will tell you. In the delirium
of her last sickness she may tell all the
secrets of her lifetime, but she will not
tell that. Not until the books of eternity
are opened on the thrones of Judgment
will ever be known what she suffered.
Oh! We who are twisting garland for the
victor, put it on that pure brow. When
she is dead the neighbors will beg linen
to make her shroud, and she will be
carried out in a plain box with 10 silver
plate to tell her years, for she has lived a
thousand years of trial and anguish. The
gamblers and swindlers who destroyed
her husband will not come to the
funeral. One carriage will be enough
for that funeral-one carriage to
carry the orphans and the two Christian
women who presided over the obsequies.
But there is a flash. and the opening of a
celestial door, and a shout: "Lift up your
head. We everlasting gate. and let her
come I'M" And Christ will step forth
and say: "Come in! We suffered with me
on earth, be glorified with me in Heaven"
What is the highest throne in Heaven?
You say: ''The throne of the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb" No doubt
aboutit What is the next highest throne
in Heaven? While speak it seems to me
that it will be the throne of the drunk
ards wife, if she, with cheerful patience,
endured all her earthly torture. Heroes
and heroines.
l find in this roll the heroes of Chris
tian charity. We all admire the George
Peabodys and the James Lenoxes of the
earth, who give tens and hundreds of
thousands of dollars to good objects.
But am speaking this morning of those
who, out of their pinched poverty, help
others-of such men as those Christian
missionaries at the west, who are liviD g
on two hundred and fifty dollars that they
may proclaim Christ to the people, one of
them, writing to the secretary in New
York, saying:
81 thank you for that twenty-five dol
lars. Until yesterday we have had no
meat in our house for three months. We
have suffered terribly. My children have
no shoes this winter"
And of those people who have only a
half loaf of bread, but give a piece of it
to others who are hungrier; and of those
who have only a scuttle of coal, but help
others to fuel; and of those who have
only dollar in their pocket, and give
twenty five cents to some body else; and
of that father who wears a shabby coat,
and of that mother who wears a faded
dress, that their children may be we'll ap-
pareled. You call them paupers, or rag
amufins, or emigrants. I call them
heroes and heroines. You and 1 may
not know where they live, or what their
name is. God knows and they have more
angels lowering over them than you and
I have, and they will have a higher seat
in Heaven.
They may have only cup of cold water
to give poor traveller, or may have only
picked a splinter from under the nail of a
child's finger, or have put only two mites
into the treasury, but the Lord knows
them. Considering what they had, they
did more than we have ever done, and
their faded dress will become a white
robe, and the small room will be an
eternal mansion, and the old hat will be
a coronet Of victory, and all the applause
OF earth, and all the shouting of Heaven
will be drowned out when God rises up
to give His reward to those humble work
ers in His kingdom aud to say to them:
swell done, good and faithful servant.'
You have all seen or heard of the rui n
of Melrose Abbey. I suppose in some
respects it is the most exquisite ruin on
| earth. And yet, looking at it, was not
so imp essed; you may set it down to bad
taste, but l was not so deeply stirred as I
was at tombstone placed by Walter
Scott over the grave of an old man who
had served him for good many years in
his house-the inscription most sig
nifcant, and / defy any man to stand
There and read it without tears coming
into his eyes, the epitaph: swell done,
good and faithful servant" Oh! when
| our work is over, will it be found that be-
| cause of any thing we have done for God,
| or the Church, or suffering humanity, that
such an inscription is appropriate for us
God grant it.
Who were those who were bravest and
| deserved the greatest monument-Lord
Claverhouse and his burly soldiers, or
John Brown, the Edinburgh carrier, and
| his wife? Mr.. Atkins, the prosecuted
minister of Jesus Christ in Scotland, was
secreted by John Brown and his wife, and
Claverhouse rode up one day with his
armed men and shouted in front of the
house. John Browns little girl came
| out. He said to her:
well, miss, is Mr.. Atkins here?" She
made no answer, for she could not betray
the minister of the Gospel.
"Haw Claverhouse said, "then YOU are
chip of the old block, are you? have
something in my pocket for you. 1t is a
nosegay. Some people call it thumb
screw. but call it a nosegay."
And he got off his horse, and he put it
on the little girls hand, and began to turn
1t until the bones cracked, and she cried.
He said:
Don't cry, don't cry; this isn't a
thumb-screw; this is a nosegay." And
they heard the child's cry, and the father
and mother came out and Claverhouse
said:
"Ha! it seems that you three have laid