The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-07-04

OF these old sign-boards by which man.
kind have found their way in times
past. A young person is to be con-
graduated who knows the names of
things. A time-server, fortune-hun-
ter, mercenary sneak, back-biter, a
blackguard, a slippery Dick, a para
site, an Migrate, a sniveller, fawner
for favors; these are like warming no.
tices posted on a country highway:
Dangerous.
Aworld of trash goes under the name
OF honor. Men boast themselves of
honor in the face of the lie direct, yet
who are foul with lust Men tip the
hat like grandees on Beacon street, in
the afternoon sunlight, who, down in
midnight Washington street. cry to her
coarsely as she passes. "Hullom Poor
Alexander Hamilton thought to defend
his honor by participating in murder;
yet the same illustrious mind might
have freely and unblushingly confessed
gallantries without dishonor, according
to the code. A sensitive honor in
trade is far from enough. Money is no
more sacred surely than womanhood.
Political reputation is no more pre-
cious thing than ayoung working girls
purity, or that OF her who is dependent
on the Senator for her place in the de-
partment to earn her own and her wild
owed mothers bread. Sophomore honor
in football is a fne sentiment; but SO
is truth in the monthly account drawn
on father, or regard for a mothers
wishes in health or morals. Many
lawn tennis player would perish before
he would cheat; yet the photographs
OF actresses displayed on the mantle
up in that college room, lacking in de-
cency, suggest mind stenchful with
the foulest personal dishonor.
This delicate sensibility has to be
cultivated in an all-round development
or a man will be caught mapping and
display his baseness of secret heart.
Honor is clean thinking, pure imagina-
tions, untarnished day dreams, air cas-
ties with a aspotless hero and chaste
heroine. Honor is refinement, illumin-
ated by the moral sense; it is culture
ruled by Gods Holy law of what is
right and wrong; it is good taste ex-
tended to matters ethical, to which
questions of dress and the fashion in
behavior are but the street gate and
outside door. Honor is the elegance of
justice, the grace and ornament of buy
ing and selling. 1t is so superb senti-
ment of the heart that no phrase de-
scribes it. We are most conscious of
honor in its wounding; we know we
are ashamed and suffering; we look far
up to the heights of the opposite de-
light, and wish we stood there again.
As mountains are best revealed by
standing at their feet, so in the low
vale of disgrace do we most keenly ap-
preciate honor. One needs to con care
fully his moments of shame; how it
happened; what one did or said that
humiliated him; what unspeakable self
wrath and anguish one suffered. Then
resolve hereafter that honor leads in
just the opposite direction.
The child's honor should be a par
ent's earliest care. Whatever religious
training you may inculcate, there can
be no steadfast character without a
sensitive and yet rigorous sense of per-
sonal honor. 1t is high, good breeding.
The neglect of this appeal is sure to
leave your child vulgar, though you
fairly plate him with wealth. The
ready response to the rights of others;
the beauty of self-denial; the quick,
keen appreciation of disgrace as a per-
sonal defacement; the boys power to
blush, than which at eighteen nothing
under Gods sun is more beautiful; and,
above all. the vivid, lofty, yet humble
consciousness that an Unseen Eye is
ever on him, to approve the good and
despise the base in his childish soul, or
hand or foot-these are the marks and
tracings of the finest educational work
ever done on earth. II now a young
man or maiden can but preserve that
sensibility of pure childhood's home
amid the shock OF the crowd in the
worlds broader ways; if, amid the
bribes of the market and the tinsel caps
of Vanity Fair, youth can see all, hear
all, and yet possess his boyish ideals;
If, by attaching himself to men of
honor, he can strengthen his own; if,
by the memory of an honorable sire
and a sweet, gracious woman. his
mother, he can guide himself when
their voices are hushed forever; and,
above all, if by a loving fear to offend
mans best of all friends. his God, he
can ''carry his honor high" old farmer
of the hills, will he not do wellp Yes,
rich or poor, well.-Emory j. Haynes,
in N. Y. Ledger.