The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-03-21

ever spent sunday IN Edr1S, OF AubW6Tp3
or Rome, if he be an intelligent Chris
tian, will pray God that the day will never
come when the Sabbath of Continental
Europe shall put its foot upon our shores.
l had a friend in Syracuse who lived to be
one hundred years of age. He said to me
in his ninety ninth year: 81 went across
the mountains in the early history of this
country. Sabbath morning came. We
were beyond the reach of civilization.
My comrades were all going out for an
excursion. l said: No, won't go; it is
Sunday Why, they laughed. They said:
we haven't any Sunday here.' ooh,
yes,' I SAID, you have. l brought it with
me over the Mountains
There are two or three ways in which
we can war against Sabbath breaking
usages in this day, and the first thing is
to get our children right upon this subject
and teach them that the Sabbath day is
the hottest of all the days, and the best
and the gladdest. Unless you teach your
child under the paternal roof to keep the
Lords day there are nine hundred and
ninety chances out of a thousand it will
never learn to keep the Sabbath. You
may think to shirk responsibility in the
matter, and send your child to Sabbath
school and the house of God. That will
not relieve the matter. l want to tell you
in the name of Christ, my maker and my
Judge, that your example will be more
potential than any instruction they get
elsewhere, and if you disregard the Lords
day yourself, or in anywise throw con-
tempt upon it, you are blasting your chill
dren with an infinite curse. 1t is a rough
truth, l know, told in a rough way; but it
is Gods truth, new ertheless. Your child
may go on to seventy or eighty
years of age, but that child will never
get over the awful disadvantage of hav-
ing had a Sabbath breaking father or
a Sabbath breaking mother. 1t is the Joy
of many of US that we can look back to an
early home where God was honored, and
when the Sabbath came it was day of
great conservation and joy. We remem-
Der the old faces around the table that
Sabbath morning. Our hearts melt when
we think of those blessed associations,
and we may have been off and committed
many indiscretions and done many wrong
things, but the day will never come when
we forget the early home in which Gods
day was regarded, and father and mother
told US to keep holy the Sabbath.
There is another way in which we can
war against the Sabbath breaking usages
of the country at this time, and that is by
making our houses of worship attractive
and the religious services inspiring.
plead not for gorgeous audience cham
Der; l plead not for groined rafters or
magnificent fresco; but I do plead for
comfortable churches, home-like churches
places where the church going popula-
ton behave as they ought to. Make the
church welcome to all, however poorly
clad they may be, or whatever may lave
been their past history; for think the
Church of God is not so much made for
you who could have churches in your own
house, but for the vast population of our
great cities who are treading on toward
death, with no voice of mercy to ar
rest them. All? when the prodigal
comes into the church, do not stare at
him as though he had no right to come.
Give him the best seat you can find
for him. Sometimes q man wakes up
from his sin, and he says: F'I'll go to the
house of God" Perhaps he comes from
one motive, perhaps from another. He
finds the church dark and the Christian
people frigid land there are no people on
earth who can be more frigid than Chris
tan people when they try, and the music
IL
pose one of these men enters the church.
As he comes in he hears song which his
mother sang when he was a boy; he re-
members it. He sits down, and some one
hands him a book, open at
Jerusalem, my happy homo,
Name ever dear to me.
eyes," he says, 81 have heard that
many times" He sees cheerful Christian
60, -
thanksgiving to God. He says: 'Do you
have this so every Sunday? have heard
that the house of God was doleful place,
and Christians were lugubrious and re-
peling! I have really enjoyed myself!"
The next Sabbath the man is again in the
same place. Tears of repentance start
down his cheek, he begins to pray; and
when the communion table is spread, he
sits at it, and some one reaches over and
says: 81 am surprised to find you here.
I thought you didn't believe in such
things" "Ah!" he says, 81 have been
captured. l came in one day, and I found
you were all so loving and cheerf I'll here
that concluded would come among you
Where thou goest will go; thy peopll
shall be my people, and thy God my God
Where thou diest will die, and there will
be buried"
All! you can't drive men out of the il
sins, but you can coax them out you can
charm them out.
would to God thatwe could all come to
higher appreciation of this Sabbath her
itagei We can not count the treasures of
one Christian Sabbath. 1t spreads out
over us the two wings of the archangel OF
mercy. Oh, blessed Sabbath! blessed
Sabbath! They scott a great deal about
the old Puritanic Sabbaths, and there is a
wonderful amount of wit expended upon
the subject now-the Sabbaths they used
to have in New England.
1 never lived in New Euglan d, but /
would rather trust the old Puritanic Sab
BATH with all its faults, than this modern
Sabbath, which is fast becoming no Sab
bath at all. If our modern Sabbatism
| shall produce as stalwart Christian char
acter as the old New England Puritanic
Sabbatism, Ishall be satisfied and shall
be surprised.
Oh, blessed day! Blessed dayi 1 should
like to die some Sabbath morning, when
the air is full of church music and the
bells are ringing. Leaving my home
group with dying blessing, should like
to look off upon some Christian assem-
blage chanting the praises of God as I
went ND to ioin fha one h11ndrad and FORTY