The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-03-14

Christianity is the great central fire at
which philosophy has lighted its brightest
torch. The religion of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the fountain out of which learn
ing has dipped its clearest draught. The
Helicon poured forth no such inspiring
waters as those which flow from under
the throne of God clear as crystal.
Religion has given new energy to
poesy, weeping in DR.. Young's might
Thoughts" teaching in Cowper's
TASK" flaming in Charles Wes-
ley's hymns, and rushing with archangel-
ic splendor through Paradise Lost" The
religion of Jesus Christ has hung in studio
and in gallery of art and in Vatican, the
best picture s-Titian's Assumption. !"
Raphael's TRANSPORTATION, Reuben's
descent from the Cross" Claude's
Burning Bush" and Angeles ''Last Judg-
ment." Religion has made the best music
of the world-Haydn's "Creation," Ham
del's messiah" Mozart's REQUIEM" Is
1t possible that a religion which builds
such indestructible monument, and which
lists its ensign on the highest promon-
tories of worldly power, can have any eff
feet upon mans intellect but elevation
and enlargement?
Now, commend Goodness as the best
mental discipline-better than belles-let-
ters to purify the taste, better than
mathematics to harness the mind to all
intricacy and elaboration, better than
logic to marshal the intellectual forces
for onset and victory. 1t will go with
Hugh Miller and show him the footprints
of the Creator in the red sandstone. 1t
will go with the botanist and show him
celestial glories encamped under the cur
tain Of a waterlily. 1t will go with the
astronomer on the great heights where
| God shepherds the great focks of worlds,
that wander on the hills of Heaven an
swearing His voice as He calls them all by
| their names.
Again Iremark, that Goodness is profit
able for ones disposition. Lord Ashley,
before he went into great battle, was
heard to offer this prayer: go Lord, 1
shall be very busy to-day; if l forget
Thee, forget me not" With such a Chris
| tian disposition as that, man is indie
pendent of all circumstances. Our piety
will have tinge of our natural tempera-
ment. If a man be cross and sour and
fretful naturally, after he becomes a
| Christian he will always have to be armed
against the rebellion of these evil inclina-
| OAOAAo3 Ndb 1Cl1S5AO4 HOS tOllCu b1o MlIu6SG
nature; it has turned fretfulness into
| gratitude, dependency into good cheer,
and those who were hard and ungoverna-
BILE and uncompromising have been made
| pliable and conciliatory. Good resolution,
reformatory effort, will not effect the
change. 1t takes a mightier arm and a
mightier hand to bend evil habits than
the hand that bent the bow of Ulysses,
/ and II fol CT.
held the buffalo on the prairies. A man
! can not go forth with any human weapons
and contend successfully against these
Titans armed with uptorn mountain. But
| you have known into whose spirit the in
iuence of the Gospel of Christ came I'M
| til their disposition was entirely changed.
SO it was with two merchants in
! New York. They were very an
tagonistic. They had done all they could
to injure each other. They were IN the
same line of business. One of the mer-
chants was converted to God. Having
been converted, he asked the Lord to
teach him how to bear himself toward
that business antagonist, and he was inn
pressed with the fact that it was his duty
when customer asked for certain kinds
of goods which he had not but which he
knew his opponent had, to recommend
him to go to that store. 1 suppose that is
about the hardest thing a man could do
but, being thoroughly converted to God,
he resolved to do that very thing, and be-
ing asked for a certain kind of goods
which he had not, he said: ''You go tc
such and such store and you will get it, D
After awhile Merchant No. found these
customers coming so sent, and he found
also that merchant No. 1 had been
brought to God, and he sought the same
religion. Now they are good friends and
good neighbors, the grace of God entirely
changing their dispositions.
"Oh," says some one, ''I have rough
Jagged, impetuous nature, and religion
can't do any thing for me-" Do you know
that Martin Luther, and Robert Newton
and Richard Baxter were impetuous, all.
consuming natures, yet the grace of God
turned them into the mightiest usefulness:
A manufacturer cares but little for 9
stream that slowly runs through the
meadow, but strong torrent that leaps
from rock to rock, and rushes with mad
energy through the valley and out toward
the sea. Along that river you will fine
fiuttering shuttles, and grinding mill, and
flashing water-wheel. And nature, the
swiftest, the most rugged and the mos
tremendous-that is the nature God turns
into greatest usefulness. Oh, how many
who have been pugnacious, and hard to
please, and irascible, and more bothered
about the mote in their neighbours eye
than about the beam like ship timber in
their own eye, who have been entirely
changed by the grace of God, and have
found out that Goodness is profitable fo1
the life that now is, as well as for the life
that is to come"
Again l remark, that religion is good
for mans worldly business. 1 know
the general theory is the more business
the less religion, the more religion the
less business. Not so thought DR.. Hans
in his typography of Christian Mer.
chant, " when he says: ''He grew in grace
the last six years Of his life more than al
any time in his life; during those six years
he had more business crowding him than
at any other time" In other words. the
more worldly business man has, the
more opportunity to serve God. Does
religion exhilerate or retard worldly bust.
ness! is the practical question for you to
discuss. Does it hang like a mortgage
over the farm? Is it q bad debt on the
ledger? Is it lien against the estate:
| Does it crowd the door through which
customers come for broadcIoths and silks